Gears - Ron Miller (2011) -- approx. 11 min.

This piece was inspired by a clock.  One of the most famous clocks in the world is held within London’s Parliament Clock Tower, a large clock with a huge bell (it is the bell that is actually named "Big Ben.")  I've seen pictures of the huge mechanism that runs that clock. But I also have a clock in my house - it used to belong to my grandmother, and is probably 70-80 years old.  It has a winding mechanism, lots of gears, some of them large, some tiny, and some bells.  The back opens up, and one can watch the thing work, big gears working slowly and jerkily, some parts spinning. 
It has bells, too. When the bells sound, an entirely different mechanism is triggered, and more things spin and turn, and little hammers pound out a melody, or ring the "main" bell  to indicate the hour.  When I was in college, the music department (where I virtually lived!) was directly adjacent to Storke Tower, which contains a 61 bell carillon, making it one of the largest in the world. I heard a lot of bells (including such delights as "Stars and Stripes Forever" played on the carillon at 4 in the afternoon, occasionally). Bells have an interesting sound to them.  Since they are shaped irregularly, different parts of the bell vibrate at different frequencies, so while a bell produces a primary pitch (like "F"), it also produces wild overtones. 

Gears contains sections which are the musical equivalent of the workings of a clock - things moving at different speeds, things moving in fits and starts, things spinning, and all of it fitting together as one mechanism.  I've also attempted to depict the sound of a large bell in this piece, with it's unusual overtone series.   There are sections of the piece which are still, slow, expressive, but then the mechanism starts to hum, the bells ring, and the gears take off again.

This piece was composed for the Peninsula Youth Orchestra on the occasion of their tour of London, England and environs in 2011.


Orchestration:
3-3-3-2 - 4-3-3 - Timp -3 perc - str
Percussion includes Snare Drum, Bass Drum, Crash Cymbals, Suspended Cymbal, Triangle, Tambourine, Maracas, Wood Block, Orchestra Bells, Vibraphone (no electricity needed...) and Marimba.  Three players can do this if the Timpany player can cover some other parts.

Here's a link to a Peninsula Symphony Orchestra performance of Gears in March, 2019 (Hoh Chen Conducting)