Wednesday, December 29, 2010

The Moon Goddess

An ambient piece for flute and percussion.

MP3 at AMazeFM
http://www.amaze.fm/artist/Ed_Sharpe/the-moon-goddess/


Score and MP3 at SibeliusMusic.com
http://www.sibeliusmusic.com/index.php?sm=home.score&scoreID=166121


PS: You do not need to install the “Scorch” plug-in to listen to the MP3 file, only to view the score. The MP3 uses only JABB.



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“The Moon Goddess”

Back in April 2009 I wrote a detailed critique of an ambient piece of music written for flute, piano and strings. While critical, I felt that my critique was fair and even-handed. The reaction to my critique, which was in response to a post on the forum by the composer, was silence by the composer, followed by two posters who had never posted to a chat page thread before, nor since, and finally the original poster (composer) deleting his initial post. This was disappointing as I was also trying to deal with the limitations of an “ambient new-age tinged” piece for flute and strings. I was curious if what I saw as limitations and weaknesses in the “style” where shared by others.

Unable to come to a satisfactory solution to static and bland harmonies, static harmonic movement, and static/repetitive rhythms I shelved the flute theme I was working on. At the same time I was working on a piece for un-pitched percussion. This piece had its own problems and limitations to over come and like the piece for flute and strings I shelved it. After working on and finishing some other pieces I went back and took a look at several unfinished scores I had lying around. Coming across the flute piece and the percussion piece I decided to smash them together into a single piece. I got rid of all the string parts in the flute piece, double the note values of the flute part and then re-bared it in 6/4 time and dropped it on top the percussion piece that was notated in 12/8 time. Thus was born “The Moon Goddess”.


The original critique: Walking