B. The music

- Rules

I need to write a piece of music for 7 distinct groups that can work separately or all together. I first thought to use only midi sounds but it would be nicer with audio so I put one audio track with a tenor saxophone, and one audio track with voices.

I can use 20 tracks so 20 instruments. ( I could put several instruments on one track , if working with audio.I only did it with the voices where I used 20 voices recorded separately.) I have to write on one hand in 7 precise styles and on the other hand original stuff. I also must mix these 2 ideas.

-Limitations

I wanted to use 30 instruments to have more groups with more instruments each. But because of technical limitations of internet and midi devices, I will use 20 instruments. The quality of the sound is limited by the sampling rate: I had to use 11025 Mhz when 22050 Mhz or 44100 Mhz would have been much better.

- List of the 20 instruments and (by groups)

1 Flute

2 Violin

3 Harp

4 Tuba

5 Sax

6 elec piano

7 d.bass

8 drums 1

9 elec guitar

10 bass

11 drums2

12 electronic 1

13 electronic2

14 electronic3

15 percu

16 balafon

17 sitar

18 human

19 bird

20 bee and deer

-Groups of 4 instruments

These groups are the natural styles and the mixed styles.

G1, G2, G3, G4, are natural

G5: because the arab music group only have one instrument, I had to put it with another group; I put it with the african one.

G6: I would have liked to leave the animals alone but since they

are 3, I added to them a jazz double-bass.

The other groups are mixed styles, and the one that have ??????? are the ones supposed not to be styles.

 

G1-classic Flute Violin Harp tuba G2-jazz sax elec piano d.bass drums1G3-rock(hum) elec guitar bass drums2 human G4-space 1 2 3 bird G5-afric-arab percu balafon sitar bee and deer G6-animal-(jazz) human bird bee and deer d.bass G7-wind-jazz flute sax Tuba drums 1 G8-classic-afric balafon harp Percu violin G9-space-arab 1 2 bass sitar G10-rock -strange elec guitar drums2, 3, piano G11-¿???????? Harp Balafon sitar beer G12-¿??(strings) harpViolin d. bass bass G13-¿?afro-jazz-hum Drums1 Piano human Percu G14-¿???????? 1, balafon violin bass G15-¿??(arab-animal-hum) sitar harp Human bee and deer G16-??????jazz 2 bird d.bass percu G17-¿??????? drums 1 guitar harp percu G18-¿???????????Piano, 2, Drums2, Percu G19-afro-classic 1, violin percu flute G20-¿????????????1, bird, tuba ,3

Precisions:

- We have about 6 groups that play "No-style"(?????)

- The Arab group should be called "oriental": the music played by the sitar is not only arabic: it has arabic, greek, and tzigane influences, and is played by an indian instrument.

-Number of times each instrument appears in the groups

To have everything equal and symetrical, we should have all instruments appear 4 times. But since I want this piece to be a piece of music and not a mathematical experiment, it happens that instruments appear 2,3,5 or 6 times. Anyway most instruments appear 4 times .

11 instruments appear 4 times

3 instruments appear 3 times

2 instruments appear 2 times

2 instruments appear 5 times

2 instruments appear 6 times.

Flute 3

Violin 5

Harp 6

Tuba 3

Sax 2

Elec piano 4

d.bass 4

Drums1 4

elec guitar 3

Bass 4

drums2 2

1 4

2 5

3 4

percu 6

balafon 4

sitar 4

human 4

bird 4

bee deer 4

So we have 7 groups or styles:

. Classical

. Rock

. Jazz

. Electronic sounds

. African

. Arabic-oriental

. Human and animals

We also have 13 blends that are mixes of styles or "No Styles" (???????) , when I succeded to make the styles disappear.

 

-The composition

This compositon is in fact 8 compositions:

7 different ones that are thought to be mixed in order to create an eighth one.

This composition is thought to to be used in a 3D interactive world, so I decided to write it thinking it will looped. If it would be built as usually ( like music that we only listen), there would be an end. It would not be nice to hear the end and then the beginning again. So I wrote it so that the end will be looking like the introduction, with an intermediary part that leads from Part C’ to the introduction little by little. This way the user does not feel that he arrives at the end of the piece and starts again.

So we have in fact 8 musics, and the 13 mixes of the 7 basic ones. The user feels a continuation, an endless cercle; the music never stops.

structure: intro / Part A / Part B / Part C / Part C’/ Coda

the introduction: It is very short: one bar. It is based on a dominant chord (A7 sharp 9) played 2 times in the low range of the orchestra by the electric bass, the double bass, the harp, electronic sound 3, balafon and cithar. Then there is a short silence and Part A starts.

Part A: The classical, rock, electronic and african groups play rhythmically together. The jazz group plays on completely different harmony and rhythm. The animals group enlights sometimes one group, sometimes an other. The voices are completely independent.

The tempo is : quarter note equal 60 (with double time feel for the rock and African groups).

 

a- harmony and mesure:

The Part A progression is: D7 (Maj7) flat 5 : 4 bars of 4/4 and 1 bar of 1/4

E flat7 sharp 11 : 2 bars of 4/4 and 1 bar of 3/4

F sharp (Maj7) sharp 11 : 2 bars of 4/4

A7 sharp 11 : 1 bars of 4/4

This progression gives the feeling that the harmony moves, but actually it is still close to D7, even if C sharp is heard sometimes. The second chord is half tone above the first one (chromatic approach), but since it has the sharp 11, it keeps us close to the fist chord, because this sharp 11 is the 5th of the first chord. The third chord is actually the 3rd of the first chord, and its sharp 11 is the 7th of the third chord. The last chord is the first chord’s dominant.

The jazz group has another harmony: F7 sharp 11, and only this chord. So that harmony is very far from the other one; this way I create 2 atmospheres, and the contrast creates dissonnence. This chord creates a repetitive tensioned line and is played with syncoped rhythms.

b- arrangement:

# By groups:

.classical group plays a slow music.

.rock band plays on a double- time feel according to classical group; guitar improvises.

.jazz group is independent and plays with a swing feel.

.electric group first accompanies the others, then instr.3 gets more nervous and accelerates.

.african group plays also on double-feel time; the rhythm the other groups; balafon improvises.

.arabic group (played by cithar which is actually from India) plays a melody that first has no relation with the others and then joins them.

.animal group is enlightening the other groups.

.voices track is independent.

# By musical definition (for the global composition):

.3 different lead lines are played by flute, electric guitar and cithar, sometimes doubled by the african balafon

or the harp.

. balafon and harp also play contrapuntic lines.

. violins and electronic sounds 1 and 2 play harmony, whole note and long chords.

. electronic sound 3 plays an agressive following of rhythmical and fast notes starting from the low range going up to high range and accelerating.

. tuba and electric bass play the bass lines.

. drums and different african percussions play the rhythm.

. BUT the jazz group is completely independent : saxophone plays a monkian theme two times, and then improvises, accompanied by electric piano playing dissonnent and very syncopated chords, a walking bass line and drums . I have to precise that jazz drums try to fit the rock and african drums, but can’t do it always. The same for double-bass that can’t always fit with tuba and electric bass.

Part B: This is a sort of intermediary part, a bridge.

a- harmony and structure:

There is no harmony and no structure. This is a collective improvisation, completely free. It plays with sounds and timbres, and is built on 15 bars . But several instruments keep playing around the same notes: F, F upper octava, E and E flat, creating a sort of repetitive feel, using no 3rd (so we do not have the classical effects of major and minor feels), but using Major and Minor 6th: the alternation of them creates a sort of tension.

b- arrangement:

The instruments play first one after the other and little by little enter and play more together, creating a big mess and slowing down to introduce Part C.

Part C: Here the tempo is faster (quarter notes equal 140).

a- harmony and structure: This part is based on 3 chords:

D minor7 : 8 bars of 4/4

F Major7 : 8 bars of 4/4

A flat : 3 bars of 4:4 and 1 bar of 5/4

F Major : 1 bar of ¼

D minor : 3 bars of 4:4

A flat : 1 bar of 4/4

and the last chord D minor 7 : 1 bar of 4/4

This progression is also a kind of progression that creates a tension but for another reason: the fondamental of each chord is a part of one of the 3 diminished chords, that are made of 4 notes; in this case the diminished chord is made of D, F, A flat and B (so here B misses).

I also use change of measures (5/4 and 1/4) to stress the atmosphere.

b- arrangement :

The rock and jazz bands are the skeleton. They play together, but each one keeps his own specific feel: the rock band plays straight eights and the jazz one plays swing feel.

The saxophone plays an improvised lead, joined sometimes by the guitar or the cithar. The rhythm section is played by the piano, all basses, and drum, and is strenghtened by the african percussions. Classical instruments, electronic sounds and balafon play either backgrounds or contrapuntic lines.

Animals try to, moo, bell, snort, caw, sing, and buzz.

And human voices get confused.

Part C ’: This is actually a repetition of Part C, with a difference: after 3 bars, the music accelerates little by little to 216 and then slows down back to 60, Part A’s tempo. But in fact, to the user, it seems to be different from Part C because some instruments and the voices play something else.

The Coda: This short coda (3 bars) is built to be a junction between Part C’ and the beginning, the introduction.

So it starts being a part of Part C’ and transforms itself to become a part of the introduction: not all the instruments play, only the lower ones, and they play short quarter notes that lead harmonically little by little to the A7 sus 4 of the introduction.

-The Human Voices track

I first wanted to record a singer.

Since this work is a multi-styles or pluri-ethnic musi, and because I like languages I decided to record the languages as an instrument. Since the work has 20 instruments, I put 20 voices mixed all together.

But I also decided to use this new instrument with the differences between:

- languages

- accents or pronounciations in one language

- men / women

Like we have 20 instruments in the piece, we have 20 persons speaking. So we have 14 languages, and 20 prononciations or accents. What we are interested in is the sound, the music, the melody of a language, so for instance we have 6 spannish voices. And all the other are different. We also have 2 voices (a man and a woman) for the colombian accent. one person recorded 5 languages.