the state of things to come

I've had a few extra days to get another pass of editing done on the score and parts, and now my friend Peter Martin - conductor and copyist extraordinaire - is doing the final clean-up. Soon it will be in the hands of the directors and musicians who will perform it... I can't wait to hear it!

yes, another Christmas rant

I'll get back to the self-indulgent composer-artiste-geek-speak about Diabolus Ex Machina tomorrow... I've got something I've gotta get out.

Well it's after Thanksgiving, which means that unless you live in a yurt in the Himalayas - no, come to think of it, you'd probably hear it there too - you're hearing the inescapable bastardization of Christmas music.

Now, I know - I've kinda trampled this ground before, and please, please, PLEASE - you have to understand - I've never been a fan of Christmas music to begin with... but what people do in these arrangements in the name of raking in the yuletide buck... it's unbelievable. I don't hold Christmas music as sacred - I hold musical TASTE as sacred.

Just today I was unable to avoid hearing:

- A version of one of the "old chestnuts", sung by some young Karen Carpenter wannabe in a coy, limp-swing stringy arrangement that went from 3/4 during the verse to 4/4 during the chorus. AWKWARD!!

- A big band jazz arrangement of yet another "oldy-but-moldy", led primarily by the trombone section, complete with wah mutes and waaaaaay too many glissandi (imagine my horror when I found out it was the Duke Ellington Orchestra!).

- A fresh new ditty in a bluesy-swing style about "Evil Santa" coming to visit. Or something like that. And no, it was not good.

- A version of "Carol of the Bells" that sounded like it played on a Casio VL-Tone. No dynamics. One synth patch. One note at a time - no harmony, no counterpoint. And it was an extended arrangement in a deconstructed Philip Glass/minimalist style. Oh Holy Boring.

That's just one day! And there's 22 more days of this to go!!

The only thing I can figure is that each and every recording artist/producer must think they've gotta put their own stink on these already-stinky tunes, or they haven't really earned their holiday fiscal fruitcake.

Whaa Happened?!

Hey sorry, I've been fighting a fever for the past 3 days. Feeling much better tonight - I hope to be back on the blog tomorrow.

Thanks for reading!

I'm thankful for Seasick Steve

I've got a lot more I want to share about Diabolus Ex Machina, but until next week, allow me the liberty of savoring a break while I enjoy turkey sandwiches, turkey soup, turkey hash, turkey a la turk, and some turkey. The word has lost all meaning.

LADIES AND GENTLEMEN!!! My most recent musical revelation - SEASICK STEVE!!!

Modus Operandi (pt.3)

OK, so I've talked about how I started with an original idea totally unrelated to music (the legend of the Jugganatha), then how I broke this down into themes that were still unrelated to music, and then how these thematic ideas start to translate into musical concepts - now let's talk about how general musical concepts could become musical techniques that actually I could actually use to construct DIABOLUS EX MACHINA.

I talked about blind devotion and how, in my mind, this relates to madness or insanity. One definition of insanity is repeating the same action over and over, expecting different results - this actually translates very well to music.

My first clear experience of this in music was hearing Benjamin Britten's Nocturne for classical guitar. There's one section that keeps returning to the same phrase over and over and over and OVER AGAIN, and I remember going to a lesson with my teacher, John Holmquist, and telling him how much I didn't like the piece because that one section drove me crazy... my teacher's response was, "well, maybe that's what Britten was trying to do". A true AHA moment! I heard the piece in a totally different way after that, and it not only deepened my appreciation of Britten's work, as well as the works of many other composers, but it added another way for me to express myself musically as well. There are other composers who use this technique for an entirely different effect (Part, Gorecki, and Reich immediately come to mind), but used the right way, repetition can be like the musical embodiment of the guy in The Shining who keeps writing

ALL WORK AND NO PLAY MAKES JACK A DULL BOY
ALL WORK AND NO PLAY MAKES JACK A DULL BOY
ALL WORK AND NO PLAY MAKES JACK A DULL BOY
ALL WORK AND NO PLAY MAKES JACK A DULL BOY
ALL WORK AND NO PLAY MAKES JACK A DULL BOY

Another method of expressing madness musically is with bitonality. Bitonality is when you have two separate parts with two different tonal centers superimposed on one another. For example, imagine a person singing a melody in C Major, while someone accompanies them in B Major. Both parts "make sense" by themselves, but the combination sounds totally twisted. Prokofiev was known for this technique, and it's still used often in film scores to give you that "insane" feeling...

Modus Operandi (pt.2)

Yesterday I talked about the initial concept behind this creation. So how would I turn this into a music statement?

- Blind, unquestioning devotion can be dangerous.

To me, blind devotion is madness. I have to believe that questioning your own faith is not only human, but it's what makes having faith truly a strength, and not a mindless weakness. This meant that I had to embody "madness" in this piece - rhythmically, melodically, and harmonically.

- One must be wary of creating something greater than their control.

I wanted this piece to sound "mechanical", like the ensemble was the inner workings of some diabolical machine, and because it was a wind ensemble piece, I wanted each player to sound like a single cog that made the piece turn. That meant thinking about orchestration in terms of the individual (or the instrument, or the section), rather than as a big mushy harmonic mass.

- Momentum, however gradual, can become very, very powerful.

I wanted this piece to begin small and snowball into something HUGE, and I wanted the pulse to be relentless. This is a challenge, because by ruling out the possibility of tempo changes, I was taking one strong form of musical expression. But the limitations are also what help define the creation - the confines make creativity and resourcefulness an absolute necessity.

Modus Operandi (pt.1)

Every piece begins with a single, simple idea - in this case, it was a concept.

The initial concept that started the whole piece was the legend of the Jugganatha. In a nutshell: in India, there were these giant temples on wheels that the faithful would pull through the streets to show their devotion. Occasionally these temples would get a little too much downhill momentum and get out of control. Very sadly, people would end up getting hurt, maimed, or killed in pursuit of their faith.

(you can read about it in wikipedia)

The point wasn't to focus on these macabre, unfortunate accidents. There are truisms that I thought were resonant even in our present civilization, and worthy of artistic expression.

- Blind, unquestioning devotion can be dangerous.
- One must be wary of creating something greater than their control.
- Momentum, however gradual, can become very, very powerful.

So my aim was to create a piece of music that resonated with these qualities.

(to be continued)

A Title is Born

After much deliberation, and ignoring a lot of good advice, I've decided on a title:

DIABOLUS EX MACHINA

(at least, until someone comes up with a better idea that changes my mind!)

full metal rough draft

This is a page of my rough draft. There are many like it but this one is mine.

Click on the image to see a bigger version. A few trivial bits to notice:

- The title at the top - JUGGERNAUT. This was the original title of the piece. This also used to be the start of the piece. It is now about a minute and a half into the piece.

- the guitar part is detuned a half-step (Eb, Ab, Db, Gb, Bb, Eb). This serves two purposes: to create some "open chords" that work better with the wind ensemble, and to make the strings more slack, so they sound nastier with distortion.

- trowels?? What trowels?!

- those big weird "X's" over the top left corner of the page? Umm, yeah... my rolling chair rolled over it. Many times. Some people have coffee rings. Some people have cigarette burns. I have rolling chair tracks.

(this score is in C. Quarter note equals 168)

bike hero

Y'know, I was going to post a video today about this new piece, but I saw THIS just this morning, and it took the cake.

The time, planning, and organization involved to pull this off is amazing. As John Biggs put it in his blog, "you kind of realize that maybe the human race isn’t doomed after all if kids like these will be calling the shots in thirty years."