Composer: Minoru Miki
Title: Time for Marimba
Description: Time is marimba solo published in 1969 as part of the book “Marimba Pieces 1.” It is a 10 minute piece of moderate to hard difficulty. It consists of two main parts and then a coda, which could be considered a ABA, with a shortened recapitulation. The first section is made up two similar parts, both made up of smooth repetitive quintuplets juxtaposed with sextuplets. The quirk of this section is the accelerandos and ritards which blur these two rhythms into one. Eventually this section builds in speed and dynamic before introducing a transitionary phrase.
The second section starts suddenly with an off kilter dance in mixed meter. The dance has two main parts. The first is made up of a quickly intensifying lick repeated in four sections at different intervals. Each section has the same basic pattern, but with the distance between each note going from a half step, to a full step (creating a whole tone scale), to a minor third (creating a diminished chord), to a major third (creating an augmented chord). After this the same dance pattern is used in a more reserved way. After a transition section the opening material is recapped and comes to a conclusion.
Annotated by Greg Simonds