Cicadas meet Dorothy

One of the nice things about coming out to see Charlotte is that she has a load of old music2work2 that I haven't listened to for ages; tracks that were being developed that never got finished, me experimenting with different voices etc, etc. I had reminded myself this evening that I wanted to record the noise of the cicadas from the back porch - they are so loud and such a part of the environment that I reckoned they would work nicely as an additional voice in a music2work2 piece.

So - I fired up Audioboo to record the cicadas and just as I started to record - the Dorothy theme came on the stereo - it is a theme I wrote for Wendi's grandmother who passed away a few years back; it has parts for piano, strings, bass and guitar - and while the execution isn't great - I love the idea.

So - I ended up recording the track and book-ending it with cicadas...

Think I'll be re-visiting this one when I get back to LA

via AudioBoo

Posted via email from Andrew McCluskey

November - 15 minutes 14 seconds

Strings, Electric Pianos, Bass lines and more.

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Written in November 2005 – this track has a lot going on: piano, two string tracks, electric piano and bass. I remember learning a lot about my own composition style at the time and being very conflicted.

My natural approach to music2work2 is to just sit and play; Sexercise aside – I always start with the piano track and aim to leave room for any subsequent voices. I have an idea when I’m playing the first track what the other parts could be but I never really know until I’m playing them. This approach is of course anathema to the trained composer so I spent 2005 worrying about form and attempting to define structure and parts in advance.

I began developing themes in the traditional way: 1A, 2A, 1B, 2B etc – and played with various different forms –the end result – to my ears anyway – was lifeless. Oh sure – every part made sense, the music stood as a finite recognizable piece – but – it had no soul. It was a very frustrating time.

This track was the first time that year where I just sat at the keyboard and recorded what came into my head – no structure, no worrying about where I was supposed to go and how every part was going to work – the minute I finished one track I changed voices and immediately recorded the next, right on top. It has a flow that had been missing all year and I was mightily relieved when I went back to listen to it. Coming in at 5:10 is an early development of “Andy the Barman,” it’s a good story and will be told when the theme is ready.

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November is part of The Thinker's Playlist.