Koyaanisqatsi

This was a piece I wrote for Composition Seminar in Fall, 2009; it is a study of pandiatonicism and isorhythms. It was rendered using Logic Pro.

Koyaanisqatsi

Beautiful, interestng and relaxing beginning,

I noted a bass in some moments, but is a bit weak, could be louder. The development of this piece could be larger adding modulations in harmony and melodies within your actually content, but I don't know if the way it is has an special purpose, ... I say it because sound very good, but is very short, and if you make it larger but without doing some changes (like the ones I mention) would be boring,

Can you tell us a little more about this piece... for instance, what's "Koyaanisqatsi" ?

Beautiful, interestng and relaxing beginning,

I noted a bass in some moments, but is a bit weak, could be louder. The development of this piece could be larger adding modulations in harmony and melodies within your actually content, but I don't know if the way it is has an special purpose, ... I say it because sound very good, but is very short, and if you make it larger but without doing some changes (like the ones I mention) would be boring,

Can you tell us a little more about this piece... for instance, what's "Koyaanisqatsi" ?

This piece had to be written pretty quickly (over a matter of a couple of days) for the assignment, so that's why it's so short. I think I'm happy with it at this length, though.

The name "Koyaanisqatsi" is kind of an obscure reference to an old movie for which Philip Glass did the soundtrack, "Koyaanisqatsi: Life Out of Balance" (The Hopi word "koyaanisqatsi" is loosely translated as "life out of balance"). This is mostly referring to A )the minimalist technique I used and B )the use of isorhythms and asymmetry to create an "unbalance".

Musically, I see a lot of reference to koyaanisqatsi. Are you familiar well with that work? It's one of my favorites of his.

I loved the mood you created. So spacy and gently flowing. You certainly know your stuff, the polyrhythms takes away the repetitivness and makes it much more interesting to listen. I find myself asking this same question to everyone. Why so short? Well I read that it was done in a short time but you could eventually make this into a larger work. It certainly has the potential. By saying a large work I am not talking about the orchestration, but the lenght. It is another thing to keep it interesting over a longer period of time. I am not that into minimalism but I think that even the slightest of changes in repetitivness makes it an interesting experience.

Interesting work. Id imagine it would work well in a Koyaanisqatsi type feature. Very Glass orientated I see! minimal with a small m. it was nice. nice combination of instruments. Is that a harp there, and a guitar? I dont use finale so I cant open your score. Could do with a bit more length i think, some nice subtle contrasts happening in the main chordal melody youve got. Good job!

Thank you!

I'll definitely think of expanding this, although I'm not sure I would be able to replicate the sounds used. I used "Sculpture", the physical modeling synthesizer built into Logic Pro, to build the sounds. I believe I modified a mellow "bell" sound for the underlying layer, but I don't remember what I did for the other layer, and unfortunately I forgot to transfer the Logic file off of the school servers when the semester ended, and so it was deleted, so I'd have to do all the modeling again.

Basically, the idea for the instruments was that the two layers/instruments would be panned opposite each other, and then I used ducking to make it so that when the music is quieter you hear less of the loud "pluck" of the one layer and hear a little more of the underlying "bell" bell sound, whereas when the music is louder the "pluck" becomes more prominent for a sort of sturm und drang effect or something.

@jawoodruff: Strangely enough, I am not that familiar with the work. I was simply trying to come up with a name for the piece while I was working for it and was asking one of my good friends what he thought when he suggested that title, and explained to me the connection. The more I thought about it, the more it seemed to fit in my head. Kinda lame, huh? I really should get to know it better under the circumstances...

this is very childish and trasparent. nicely done, fit for late spring warm evenings. especially if you loop it and let field sounds interrupt this density.

I really like this piece :) I see why you call it 'Koyaanisqatsi'. But maybe I would rethink the title.

Anyway its a nice Philip Glass exercise. But I think you should learn about repetitive and minimalistic music more, because maybe you misunderstood it. repetitive music does not mean the-same-notes-all-piece-long. Its a much more difficult thing but if you understand it, you can write beautiful things.

So I really like this piece, but I think you could learn a bit more about this style ;)

good luck

This is a really beautiful piece. Definitely something I can imagine playing as part of a film score.