Rayleigh by Cody Holmes

Rayleigh is a tonal solo written with the intention of drawing different colors out of the marimba with contrasting rhythmic and melodic passages. The name ‘Rayleigh’ itself refers to the light phenomenon of Rayleigh Scattering, which accounts for the color of the sky. When writing this solo, I often thought of sunsets and how the colors uniformly changed from warm to cool as they traveled further from the Sun. In my solo, there are several of these contrasts apparent where the style abruptly, yet smoothly changes while maintaining the same tonal center and melodic material. The composition begins with a heavily ornamented chorale and ends likewise with a smooth beautiful passage that fades away similarly to the dark colors of the sky.