|
Thanks a lot to both of you, SSC and LDunn. I'm glad you liked it.
Concerning your points, SSC: It's interesting you hear "quasi-functional harmony areas", as it certainly wasn't really planned like that, but I understand perfectly what you mean (and I don't mind it in the least). I can hear certain passages quite traditionally tonal, even though the harmonic system I used for the whole piece has nothing to do with keys or classical tonality. If anything, it could more be compared to Debussy-like mixtures, just not on a diatonic scale. If there's any interest I'll gladly explain the harmonic (and rhythmic) "grid technique" behind this. Maybe the reason why some passages can be heared as functional harmonies is simply because many of my chords have a lot of thirds in them (several of them sound quite "romantic"), everything moves in linear ways, and it's almost never totally chromatic (which has to do with my grids. Regard them as "modes" for facility's sake). It definitely never gets "pointillistic" but always stays very linear, most of the time with only one or two actual "voices". (The end is the only really polyphonic part.)
You are right too that the orchestration is strongly made out of groups. The problem was that to bring out my harmonical concept, I actually needed rather homogeneous chords, so the concept wasn't perfect for such a classical orchestra (it might actually be more suitable for, say, a string-orchestra or organ piece). This is why I couldn't always use the instruments (especially the woodwinds) very idiomatically and also why the piece is quite simple and "raw" in the range of sounds I used. If I did a similar piece again, timbral structures would certainly get a stronger focus, but here I was still experimenting with harmony and line as main focus points, which meant that other aspects were a bit left aside. (Hey, I'm still learning!)
The rhythms were based on my "grid-technique" too and were strongly connected with the harmonies, so going for a different kind of notation wouldn't really have worked. But I know the rhythmical concept is not 100% perfected. This was my first "proper" orchestra piece though and my conceptual ideas took a very long time (it took me several months before I even wrote the first note), so there wasn't much time for it when the deadline approached and lots of things I had wished to do I simply couldn't.
Personally I hear the "technique" I used very well in this piece, but I'm sure not everybody does. But I suppose I would have to explain at least the harmonical technique in depth so it could be understood. But I think that even without knowing it, you can hear some sort of "grids" in different "resolutions" in the form: Passages that break abruptly to something else where there's a very rough grid, passages that move in "steps" towards something new, and more organic parts that move gradually from one thing to another.
The electronic piece I meant is indeed the one I posted here. But I know that it's impossible to hear that they are built on the same technique. This is mostly because in the electronic piece, there are so many different grids at once, in different positions of the room and they constantly change (plus they're not based on a 12-tone system like in the orchestra piece), so that you don't actually hear the technique. It just works as a scaffolding in the far background. In this piece I tried to bring out the concept more clearly.
|