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I regularly listen to the podcast ‘Idiot of the Week’ with hosts Francis and Angela. Their frequent contributor goes by ‘Donny, the Dumbfinder.’ Before reading his emails, the hosts would deliver a spoken fanfare: ‘Ta Tata Taah!’ It was playful, memorable, and perfectly captured the comedic energy of the show. I thought: Donny deserves an actual musical fanfare. So I decided to write one.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I started with Elgar’s ‘Pomp and Circumstance’ march no 1 as inspiration. That familiar, pompous march, familiar from graduation ceremonies, felt perfect for a character finding stories about people doing ‘not brilliant’ things. But I needed to make it my own.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I star<\/em>ted with rhythm, not melody. I remembered a fanfare rhythm\u2014possibly from Saturday morning cartoons\u2014that matched their spoken ‘Ta Tata Taah!’ I waved my hands in the air, beating time like a conductor, figuring out exactly on which beats the notes fell. Once I had that one-bar flourish, It would lead directly into the march.<\/p>\n\n\n\n For instruments, I chose French horn and tuba\u2014not the brilliant members of the brass section. French horn for melody, tuba for bass. Why? Because the subject matter was finding stories of people doing things that weren’t brilliant. The orchestration should match the tone.<\/p>\n\n\n\n I worked in the key of C\u2014 just easier to transpose later, if needed. I started the fanfare on the third of the chord: E, with quick staccato notes up the C chord and down the G. Then I built an 8-bar march section with a conventional harmonic progression: I-V-I-ii-V-I. Not complex, but solid.<\/p>\n\n\n\n I started with 3 horns and tuba, treating them like 4-part vocal harmony. But when I played it back, it was too dense. I cut the 2nd and 3rd horns, leaving just melody and bass, with a bass drum roll at the start and a steady half-note pulse. Simple and clean.<\/p>\n\n\n\n