Alice's Audible Adventures in Wonderland

For the optional project I chose to write music for the silent Alice in Wonderland movie we watched earlier in the year.  The piece begins and ends with what I call the "Dream Theme." This theme is airy and structured around major chords with classical voicings.  The second theme presented is the rabbit's theme. It combines the classical chord voicings with jazz-style rhythm and melody.  The contrast between jazz and classical style vamps is supposed to juxtapose reality with Wonderland.  Reality, for Alice, being full of strict structure, and Wonderland being more formless and hectic.  The third theme is the "Rabbit Hole" theme.  It can be heard when Alice follows the White Rabbit down the hole and shortly before she enters the garden.  The next theme is the Garden theme.  It begins as slow relaxing serenade, but picks up tempo when Alice enters the kitchen.  In the kitchen the chords are pushed up-tempo and a dixie-style bass line is introduced.  The garden/kitchen themes end with a farcical blues turnaround as the baby Alice attempts to rescue from the hectic kitchen becomes a pig.  The next theme is the Cheshire Cat's theme.  It consists of whole tone scales, which Claude Debussy often used to depict mysterious and fanciful scenes.  The next theme is the Mad Hatter's Tea Party.  It is very upbeat and absurd sounding.  It also has a melody within itself that is meant to follow the Mad Hatter's refrain of "CHANGE PLACES." Whenever Alice gets up to switch seats this theme can be heard.  The last theme, "The Royal March," is the longest. It begins with a "drum" (toothbrushes on a textbook) cadence.  Bass and guitar join the cadence eventually adding tension to the march.  When Alice is approached by the kings and queens of Wonderland the last part of the theme starts.  It uses the same cadence established by the drums but uses different stresses to create a feeling of imbalance.  This is meant to represent Alice's refusal to let herself be decapitated and general disregard for the absurd laws of Wonderland.  The theme ends quickly and seamlessly blends back into the Dream Theme which fades to silence as Alice wakes up from her nap.