As I’ve mentioned before, Eleanor and I usually get our #illomusicfriday word from http://www.illustrationfriday.com. But for some reason the site wasn’t updated last week, so Eleanor decided to choose her own word and we went with “Masquerade”. I wrote a new waltz, loosely based on the waltz I did for “Dance” a few weeks ago; but since nothing at a masquerade is what it seems, I tried to give it as many surprising harmonic twists and turns as I could. I tried not to rely too heavily on mode mixture, since that has become a not uncommon harmonic language even in pop music; some of the root notes of the harmonies are drawn from mode mixture, but I kept the melody fully in the “key” of whatever harmony the accompaniment happened to be in at the moment. Eleanor drew an elegantly dressed dog descending an imposing staircase, so I imagine a string quartet and a clarinet providing music for the dancing at the fanciest dog ball of the season!