Today, I’m writing about Carolina Crown’s Brass warm-up from 2017. If you aren’t familiar with this specific warm-up sequence or DCI in general, there will be videos below that will explain all of this. But for now, we will be diving into why this is such a great arrangement and what makes it so great.

To understand this, you will need a basic understanding of music theory and chord progressions. The first reason this is such a great piece is because of the very simple chord progression. It starts out in Bb minor. It then moves to Gb Major and then back to Bb minor.

This is a very simple I-VI-I chord progression where virtually nothing happens so pretty much anybody can understand it.

Next, dramatic suspensions in these chords create a lot of emotion within the piece. The biggest suspension happens in that Gb Major 7th chord where a C is suspended.

The C creates a tritone with the Gb and a minor 2nd with the Db. This chord is left unresolved and alone right in the middle of the piece. The last thing that makes this so great is the wide voicing at a loud dynamic level. Having the wide voicing fills the chords and makes the piece sound more full and rich.