Wow, less than a month into this "weekly blogging" thing and I already messed it up. Sincere apologies to whoever follows this from week to week.
As I said last time, this week I'll be going more in-depth into the structure of the Crystal Ballet, specifically the first movement, Solid Crystal. A solid crystal-type structure has its molecules arranged in a tightly packed, grid-like format. This immediately brought to my mine the concepts of stability and rigidness. Laura also thought of the idea of stasis, or an unchangeable constant.
Obviously the music couldn't be completely static; no one would want to listen to a piece where nothing changed! Still, the concept of stasis and stability I felt had to be represented somehow. I settled on giving the first movement a constant tempo, or pulse. From this came the idea of subdivisions. Rhythm in music is made by chopping up, or subdividing, sound and silence into smaller and larger chunks. Simple subdivisions of a pulse are made by continually cutting the pulse in half. Despite being smaller than the main pulse, subdivisions are still related to it by this halving. Therefore, to remain within the "rules" of the movement I could only play rhythms that were subdivisions of the main pulse. This restriction still left room for plenty of variety, as I could mix and match subdivisions at will.
Being a percussionist, I believed the best way to show these rhythmic "slices" is with a drum. I choose to use a doumbek, a goblet-shaped hand drum frequently used in Eastern European, Middle Eastern and North African music. There's an enormous variety to the sounds it is capable of making, which fit the ever-evolving background track I play to quite well. Also, I had joined a Gypsy band called Kavazabava earlier in the year and played doumbek quite frequently with them. I wanted to get better at the instrument, so I considered this a good training/practice tool for it. As for the background track, that is mostly all...cymbals. Specifically, I recorded myself playing a pair of china cymbals in every manner I could think of, then altered their sound electronically...also in every manner I could think of. How do cymbals relate to solid crystals? To be honest, I don't know. I simply liked the sound of a china cymbal and thought its rich harmonic spectrum could be used to make the varied musical textures I was to play behind.
Now for the musical form: how in the world can a crystal influence this? A crystal's structure is a grid, which as stated above does not change. I still wanted some variety, so I decided on a simple ABA'B'C form. The A sections are what I call a "birds-eye view" of the entire crystal. These sections have relatively little rhythmic activity and a hefty amount of reverberation to give the impression of a large space. The B sections, in contrast, are "close-ups" of the atoms that make up the crystal. Although they don't move much, each atom has a swarm of electrons buzzing around it like bees. More rhythmic activity (and less reverb) is therefore needed to represent this, so the B sections are filled with grooves and improvisations. I alternate between these two extremes twice, then transition into the C section. This sounds similar to the A sections in that there is an "openness" to it. However, there aren't any "solid" hits (aka I don't hit my doumbek). This section serves as a transition into the section movement, where a "flame" is lit and the crystal molecules begin to move.
Next week will be devoted to editing and mixing the ballet's second movement, which is "on the table" (or specifically, on Ableton Live). As such, I won't be discussing it; instead I'll be discussing...something else...which I'll think of this week. If you haven't gotten to hear the first movement yet, I've imbedded it below!
As I said last time, this week I'll be going more in-depth into the structure of the Crystal Ballet, specifically the first movement, Solid Crystal. A solid crystal-type structure has its molecules arranged in a tightly packed, grid-like format. This immediately brought to my mine the concepts of stability and rigidness. Laura also thought of the idea of stasis, or an unchangeable constant.
Obviously the music couldn't be completely static; no one would want to listen to a piece where nothing changed! Still, the concept of stasis and stability I felt had to be represented somehow. I settled on giving the first movement a constant tempo, or pulse. From this came the idea of subdivisions. Rhythm in music is made by chopping up, or subdividing, sound and silence into smaller and larger chunks. Simple subdivisions of a pulse are made by continually cutting the pulse in half. Despite being smaller than the main pulse, subdivisions are still related to it by this halving. Therefore, to remain within the "rules" of the movement I could only play rhythms that were subdivisions of the main pulse. This restriction still left room for plenty of variety, as I could mix and match subdivisions at will.
Being a percussionist, I believed the best way to show these rhythmic "slices" is with a drum. I choose to use a doumbek, a goblet-shaped hand drum frequently used in Eastern European, Middle Eastern and North African music. There's an enormous variety to the sounds it is capable of making, which fit the ever-evolving background track I play to quite well. Also, I had joined a Gypsy band called Kavazabava earlier in the year and played doumbek quite frequently with them. I wanted to get better at the instrument, so I considered this a good training/practice tool for it. As for the background track, that is mostly all...cymbals. Specifically, I recorded myself playing a pair of china cymbals in every manner I could think of, then altered their sound electronically...also in every manner I could think of. How do cymbals relate to solid crystals? To be honest, I don't know. I simply liked the sound of a china cymbal and thought its rich harmonic spectrum could be used to make the varied musical textures I was to play behind.
Now for the musical form: how in the world can a crystal influence this? A crystal's structure is a grid, which as stated above does not change. I still wanted some variety, so I decided on a simple ABA'B'C form. The A sections are what I call a "birds-eye view" of the entire crystal. These sections have relatively little rhythmic activity and a hefty amount of reverberation to give the impression of a large space. The B sections, in contrast, are "close-ups" of the atoms that make up the crystal. Although they don't move much, each atom has a swarm of electrons buzzing around it like bees. More rhythmic activity (and less reverb) is therefore needed to represent this, so the B sections are filled with grooves and improvisations. I alternate between these two extremes twice, then transition into the C section. This sounds similar to the A sections in that there is an "openness" to it. However, there aren't any "solid" hits (aka I don't hit my doumbek). This section serves as a transition into the section movement, where a "flame" is lit and the crystal molecules begin to move.
Next week will be devoted to editing and mixing the ballet's second movement, which is "on the table" (or specifically, on Ableton Live). As such, I won't be discussing it; instead I'll be discussing...something else...which I'll think of this week. If you haven't gotten to hear the first movement yet, I've imbedded it below!