20,000 Songs Fall Silent

Well I have been keeping up with my weekly Musical Blog writing but I never did get around to posting a link to last week's piece so here it is:
Dancing Up The Morning Sun this is piece for three un-pitched percussion players. Please take a listen to the MP3 files as it has timbre nuances that GM (General MIDI) can not produce.

This week's musical Blog I wrote last night is called 22,000 Songs Fall Silent If I had written the piece this morning I would have called it 33,000 Songs Fall Silent. I am undecided if I should update the title. The MP3 file has a better balance between the three instruments (Xylophone, Marimba, and Vibraphone). It is a short one minute miniature, I think of it as a musical haiku in 11/8 time.

Take Care,
Ursus Demens

Musical Blog of the Week

Inspired by an idea my fellow composer Andy Meisenheimer I have decided to try to do a musical Blog each week. That is each week I will try to write a short piece of music and post it for the world to see. These Blog pieces will be in addition to any other pieces that I am working on, but are an exercise in composition. Most will explore one or two compositional and or notational ideas.

My first Blog piece, for the week of December 12th, 2004 Anno Domini, is Paper Crane. This piece is one of my “simple” piano pieces. It is in a simple AABA form with seven against three rhythms, with the “A” section making use of a whole tone scale and the contrasting “B” section using a pentatonic scale.

I have also make some minor changes to my piano piece Insomnia

Insomnia,
Insanity,
or
Nightmare.
It is all in your head.

Mars Music

56,620 YEARS

The title is in reference to the fact that the planet Mars is made its closest approach to Earth in 2003 Anno Domini, which last occurred some 59,620 years ago. “Aldo Vitagliano, of the University of Naples in Italy, calculated that Mars hasn't had as close a brush with Earth since September 12, 57,617 B.C., when Neanderthals ruled but modern man had begun to make inroads.”

When I was writing this piece I was envisioning in my mind short ballet to go with the music.

The form of the piece is a simple arch, A (slow introduction in 4/4 time), B (the "chant" section of alternating time signatures and a slow increase in tempo), C (the central calm section in 11/4 time, basically a passacaglia that build ups as each voice is added then slows thins out as each voice drops out), The return of the B section and finally the return of the A section acting as a coda

Ballet Outline

Section A (4/4)

o Through the void of space Mars approached ancient Earth.

Section B (Mixed Meters)

o Fearful a Neanderthal shaman prays to the clan’s gods.
o Slowly the clan joins the shaman in praying to their gods.
o The prayer becomes a chant
o The chanting breaks into a chaotic dance
o The shaman start to pray again.

Section C (11/4)

o While the clan sleeps the red star waxes and wanes in the autumn sky.

Section B (mixed meters) (Return of)

o The Shaman starts to pray again.
o Slowly the clan joins the shaman in praying to their gods.
o The prayer becomes a chant
o The chanting breaks into a chaotic dance

Section A (4/4) (Return of) (Coda)

o Through the void of space Mars returns.

monday morning brain dead

greetings, it is monday morning as i write this, and i feel brain-dead as i spent the entire weekend titling my bathroom, the shower to be precise, and thus i did not get to spend much time working on music, which while i have been on a recent tear writing jazz i have gone back to a piano piece that i started sometime in october exporing "polyrhythms" where i am working with three against seven and five, but i can not seem to settle on a harmonic paradigm for the piece, maybe tuesday in belgium will solve my monday blues.

Jazz

Well it has been over a week since my last post. I have been working away on two new Jazz pieces:

Backstroking in the Lake of Fire
http://www.sibeliusmusic.com/cgi-bin/show_score.pl?scoreid=60314

This is still a work in progress for Big Band, but all of the major bits are in place.


Kiyone's Mood

http://www.sibeliusmusic.com/cgi-bin/show_score.pl?scoreid=60588

Finished, just a simple model head for five Horns and rhythm section.

Please check them out and let me know.

Ps: Look like I will be headed for Japan in Early Jan.

The Bear