DAY-TUDES plus 1 are fifteen duets, comprised of a sampling of etudes from my three Day-TUDES volumes, used as inspiration for the creation of these duets. Similar to the original Day-TUDES projects, there were brave subscribers, who joined in on the fun, so as to receive each of these duets in their inbox every two days during the month of September, 2019. I would personally like to thank each and every one of the 103 subscribers, for taking part, and in some cases, suggesting favorite Day-TUDES from which I could base my new duets.

Performers will no doubt find some of these to be challenging, as I tend to think of etudes and duets as “mini-concert works”. The main idea is the idea of community and fun, where players can get together and communicate musically and feel reward from the process. I did it all the time when I was a young trumpeter, and it is in the spirit of those fun memories that I created these duets.

Furthermore, I tried to vary them up, with (mostly) different key signatures and different styles, ranging from fanfares to lyrical, and from quasi-Bach to modern Latin music. The intent there is that each page turn reveals a new surprise, and adds to the enjoyment. The last duet is even in the dominant key of the first, in case the players want to just jump right back to the beginning of the book again, and repeat them all!

Jim Stephenson; September 30, 2019