TopShelf TG Fiction in the BigCloset!
Someone asked so here they are; my songs that were performed in the recital this morning. These are Garage Band mp3 files and are quite large.
Snake-and-a-Half (1.53 MB)
Dada Waltz (1.15 MB)
Filthy Lucre (2.22 MB)
Moonset (3.23 MB)
I'll talk about the music after they've been up for awhile because I want to hear a few comments first. :)
Hugs,
Erin
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Comments
Either I'm doing something wrong,
or something, but I can't hear anything but a couple of notes. The files are opening in Quicktime, and I'm not enough of a techhie to figure out how to hear more.
Anybody?
Hugs 'n love,
Catherine Linda Michel
As a T-woman, I do have a Y chromosome... it's just in cursive, pink script.
iTunes
They play fine in iTunes and most other mp3 player programs. Maybe you have an old version of Quicktime? I don't know what to tell you. When I try to play it in Quicktime, Quicktime just loads iTunes. Do you have Windows Media Player?
Hugs,
Erin
= Give everyone the benefit of the doubt because certainty is a fragile thing that can be shattered by one overlooked fact.
= Give everyone the benefit of the doubt because certainty is a fragile thing that can be shattered by one overlooked fact.
Do a Save As...
Just clicking them didn't work for me but if I did a "Save As" then they played just fine. - Moni
AIR means As I Recall.
As I recall, the Quicktime plugin for the browser plays before completely loading by default. The bar should get progressively darker as the file loads. Try pausing it and waiting to see if the whole bar next to the play button is shadowed dark grey (loaded, or buffered or is light grey (unloaded, or streaming).
Of course, one could always just save the files to one's computer, and listen that way.
Initial impression
Nice, with a sort of Mark Isham-ish feeling to them, 2 and 4 gave me nice mental pictures, no 1 maybe lacking a pinch in light and shade, but then the limitations of WMP and such might cause that. No 3 was a teensy bit samey but again nice pictures, hey lovely to hear them and it is always a buzz having someone perform something you've written isn't it.
Well received I'm sure, congrats. Hope the sinus is okay, I know that dull achey feeling.
Kristina
ps Ive had in mind for a while do something with a song from a story of mine. I'll have to pull my finger out now.
Interesting
To me, number one is an image of a brightly colored snake climbing a tree in a tropical forest, lots of light and shade. :) Number three is of people working, hammering, pushing carts, typing, sewing, cash registers ringing -- it's a bit repetitive but then so is work. :) What did 2 and 4 look like to you?
See my comments further down and thanks for yours!
Hugs,
Erin
= Give everyone the benefit of the doubt because certainty is a fragile thing that can be shattered by one overlooked fact.
= Give everyone the benefit of the doubt because certainty is a fragile thing that can be shattered by one overlooked fact.
you'll laugh
The first if I squint I can see the snake, but the image that came to me was much more urban. A bicycle rider, maybe a courier, weaving and dodging stops and starts, road, footpath. Edgy and fluid. The light and shade was meant more in terms of a greater reach in volume, soft and gentle to hard and loud. Like I said, might be just my laptop speakers, they's not exactly hi fi.
Second is really the Mark Isham feel. Spring or Autumn with a girl, light dress, barefoot hair flowing as she weaves through the tall grass, flowers field to the tree on the hill, where... ah romance.
Three does have that slight Asian feel but I sort of got a busy but slightly aloof feeling. Sort of Hercule Poirot or a Somerset Maugham scene. Stately yet fussy if that makes sense.
Four is water pre dawn slow and gentle flow almost dreamy with the light gradually coming in. It just feels more coming in than fading out, hence the pre dawn thought.
Nice... so let's see... Bill Evans on piano maybe. Yo Yo Ma, cello and Regina Carter on violin. As for the rock band...well.....
Kristina
Bike rider
Yeah, I can see the bike rider image. :)
Isham does do that playing with the rhythm thing, so that makes sense. And my image was of two people dancing smoothly through a crowd on a sidewalk. Need more instruments for that.
Hercule Poirot? I can actually see that. Cool. Methodical. What an idea. :)
Yeah, well dawn and sunset, or moonset, do have a similar feel.
Thanks!
Hugs,
Erin
= Give everyone the benefit of the doubt because certainty is a fragile thing that can be shattered by one overlooked fact.
= Give everyone the benefit of the doubt because certainty is a fragile thing that can be shattered by one overlooked fact.
Images and Sounds
That's funny. My favorites are the opposite of Kristina's. I felt that the second piece was kind of flat. It didn't inspire me at all. The fourth piece, Moonset, reminded me of background music at a wedding. It was okay but just ... background. I'd have liked to hear more mixing of the different instruments in that piece I think.
The third piece, Filthy Lucre, is my second favorite of the group. It made me think of a Japanese countryside, and I've never even been to Japan. How did you do that?! It must have inspired images from some movie I've seen, like Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon or House of Flying Daggers.
The first piece is my favorite. With the name and perky beat, it made me imagine a snake slithering down a long staircase. The staircase itself was like an extension of the snake, making it a snake and a half. :)
Thanks for letting us listen, Erin.
Hug
- Terry
Like those discords, huh?
1 and 3 are not tonal, they're not based on the major or minor keys everyone is used to. One has no key and is using a scale unit that is bigger than an octave (hence the title). It's a spiral shaped "scale" twisting back on itself so that all twelve tones are involved as it climbs through the octaves. This makes for some disharmonies that give that edgy, dynamic feeling that some modern movie music has. There are no leading tones, no tonic-dominant relationship. Most chords are either augmented or diminished or leave out the third or the fifth.
The third piece is also not tonal, it's in Locrian mode using a pentatonic scale to boot. The pentatonic scale makes Westerners think of Asian music even though no Western pentatonic scale is the same as the Eastern ones. Movies have conditioned us to think pentatonic music equals Asia. :) Locrian mode starting on B is played on all the white keys but I made a pentatonic version by leaving out C and F. Again, no leading tones, no tonic-dominant relationship, things most Western traditional music forms use throughout.
Those two are very experimental. :)
Hard to believe two sounded flat, though. :) The violin and the piano are not playing in the same time signature while the cello skips from one to the other. Someone is always on the three/four beat so it keeps sounding like a waltz but the other beats come in odd places. The violin starts in 3/4 and the piano in 7/4 then goes to 5/4, 4/4/ to 2/4 then to 3/4 while the violin changes to 5/4 then 7/4 then 4/4 and back to 3/4. The cello isn't really in a time signature, it just grabs a beat now and then from the violin or the piano. Another experimental piece, I think it has a nice crunchy texture, myself. :)
Moonset is my favorite, it's the most emotional piece. The others are intellectual exercises but Moonset I actually wrote 30 years ago, in my head, and only learned enough to get it down on paper recently. It's a musical description of someone staying up all night thinking about an old love affair and wondering if the other person remembers, too. I can't imagine it being played at a wedding, it's in D-minor for Goshsakes! :) Wedding music is almost always in a major key and might visit a minor one but wouldn't stay there for the whole piece. I do change keys in one part -- to A-minor. :) This is the one that tries to sound like popular music from the seventies which since you like the experimental non-tonal stuff, is probably boring to you. :)
Thanks for the comments.
Hugs,
Erin
= Give everyone the benefit of the doubt because certainty is a fragile thing that can be shattered by one overlooked fact.
= Give everyone the benefit of the doubt because certainty is a fragile thing that can be shattered by one overlooked fact.
Emotional Music
I definitely agree. Moonset is emotional. That's why I thought of a wedding.
I feel a sad emotional quality to Moonset but I still think it would work at a wedding. I'm talking about the background music before the wedding ceremony. I think Moonset matches the mood of two people who feel incomplete somehow because they're not connected. They're separate and alone until their wedding brings them together in a joyful union.
I liken Moonset to Beethoven's Moonlight sonata, which I've heard played as background music before many a wedding.
I do favor emotional music. Beethoven's my favorite classical composer for that reason. His music evokes strong emotions in me. I love it.
I think I just liked 1 and 3 so much because they're erratic and quirky. I don't find them dissonant at all, just ... quirky. They fit my personality I think, and my stories.
You're welcome for the comments.
Hug
- Terry
Beethoven
If you like Ludvig, I hope you have checked out Haydn. He's pretty much the guy who created the tools Beethoven used so well. And Mozart, of course. Nearly all the composers after Beethoven for a century were either trying to be him or trying not to be him. :) (Which is what Beethoven said about Haydn and Mozart.)
Hugs,
Erin
= Give everyone the benefit of the doubt because certainty is a fragile thing that can be shattered by one overlooked fact.
= Give everyone the benefit of the doubt because certainty is a fragile thing that can be shattered by one overlooked fact.
Filthy Lucre
No.3 was my favourite. To me it has that oriental flavour about it. You know, samisen strings or something similar. Isn't it funny how we all hear different things in the music?
Windows Media Player handled them just fine.
They could all benefit from an arrangement with more instruments I think. Thanks for posting them, Erin,
Joanne
I wrote for the band we had
A piano, a violin and a cello. Violins don't sound good to me on slow stuff unless there are more than one, so I didn't use the violin on Moonset. Snake and Filthy were conceived as piano only pieces but I added the cello parts to Filthy for the texture.
I want to do a version of Moonset for a guitar band. I think it would sound really cool on guitars, lead, rhythm and bass. I love the sound of bass guitars, anyway. I like most instruments in that tone range, bass guitars, cellos, French horn, bassoon. I have to learn how to write for guitars and drums, too.
Thanks for the comment.
Hugs,
- Erin
= Give everyone the benefit of the doubt because certainty is a fragile thing that can be shattered by one overlooked fact.
= Give everyone the benefit of the doubt because certainty is a fragile thing that can be shattered by one overlooked fact.
Not so much ...
... melodies as mood music. I found that I could easily imagine a movie playing with the tunes working as the background. Personally, I liked the piano, but wasn't that hot on the cello. Not sure exactly why, could be the instrument itself -- I would have probably liked something a little less somber for what was playing -- or maybe it was the quality of the sound.
Regards,
Aardvark
"Happiness is when what you think, what you say, and what you do are in harmony."
Mahatma Gandhi
"Happiness is when what you think, what you say, and what you do are in harmony."
Mahatma Gandhi
Songs
Moonset is the only one written as a song, it has words. And that's why I used a cello for the melody on that one, it sounds like a human voice. Also, as I mentioned, violin, cello and piano were what I had to work with. :) But even for Moonset, the arrangement I did was for stand-alone music, not really what I would do if someone were going to sing with it. But the cello's somberness was also a plus for using on Moonset, which is after all in a minor key. Even with a trumpet, it would sound sad. :)
In a week or so, I may have a live recording of the performance available. :)
Thanks for the comment.
Hugs,
- Erin
= Give everyone the benefit of the doubt because certainty is a fragile thing that can be shattered by one overlooked fact.
= Give everyone the benefit of the doubt because certainty is a fragile thing that can be shattered by one overlooked fact.
inventive!
These are nothing like the blues & corny music hall ditties I invent.
(I used to call myself + sing them to my answering machine, only way I could remember 'em)
Snake.5 reminded me that your music reminds me of Eric Satie...
Dada Waltz threw some serious Charles Ives vibes my way, crazy crosscurrents of rhythm & melody...
Filthy Lucre sounded oddly Japanese to me. Moss gardeny...
Moonset all eldritchy and serene like a Gregorian Chant...
~~~Mi gusta! Laika
What borders on pure insanity?
Canada and Mexico.
.
Hah!
Satie and Ives huh? :) Nice.
Satie is famous for writing very short pieces, most of his are less than two minutes long, I'm not sure that's what you meant, Laika, but it did strike ME as funny. :) His inventiveness is credited with influencing almost every major school of music in the 20th century, so that was a heck of a compliment, too.
Oddly, I listened to a lot of Ives before, during and after writing Dada Waltz -- I hadn't been aware that I'd been influenced by his digressive excursions and incursions but maybe so. Snake I wrote while or after listening to Schoenberg and I think I can see some influence there, more than Satie who I've never really tried to listen to analytically.
Filthy Lucre has no C or F notes in it; a strict five tone scale treating B as tonic and E as dominant, that was the hardest one to write, actually. I started it months ago and finished it the week before the recital. If it has an influence, again it's probably Schoenberg or the movie music that a lot of his students wrote. Or maybe Bach, I actually started out trying to write a Bach-type piece that would not sound like Bach. :) A little Gershwin, too, maybe.
Moonset is my favorite and I wish I had the recording of the performance. Hearing that spooky cello live with the piano chiming and tinkling behind it was unreal. And oddly, we did study Gregorian chants the week before I really tried to start writing it down. I felt that piece came closest to sounding the way I had imagined it. Gershwin was in my consciousness when I worked on it, too, but as I said earlier, I conceived the melody 30 years ago.
Thanks for commenting. :)
Hugs,
Erin
= Give everyone the benefit of the doubt because certainty is a fragile thing that can be shattered by one overlooked fact.
= Give everyone the benefit of the doubt because certainty is a fragile thing that can be shattered by one overlooked fact.