Jeremy Bell

Shipwreck Cove is an exciting, pirate-themed piece for beginning band.  The work contains several themes that alternate between major and the parallel minor, creating feelings of heroism in the face of despair. Shipwreck Cove opens with a theme played by the low brass and woodwinds  representing the waves of the sea as they ebb in and out of the rocky shoreline.  Accompanied by an ocean drum mimicking the sound of the waves, other instruments blow air through their instruments to create the sound of the harsh winds.  The second theme is then introduced in the upper woodwinds as a sorrowful pirate melody.  After a quick restatement of the first theme, the mode changes to major and takes on a more heroic tone as the pirates brave the treacherous seas.  Despite the sailors’ best efforts to navigate Shipwreck Cove, though, the piece ends with a shortened version of the “ocean” theme as the sea claims another ship for Davy Jones’s Locker.