Coalesence - For 5 Marimbas, Vibraphone, Piano, and Celesta

[Sheepdog]

Hey all,

It's been ... years... since I've posted anything I've done. Thought I might rectify that.

Full Conductor's Score (.pdf)
MIDI Realization (.mp3)

I started Coalescence in Fall 2010, and didn't finish it until this last week. It started as a musical exploration of identity and independence in a group collective. The primary compositional gimmick is a technique I pretentiously call "Gestalt Dissemination" (at least it will sound good in my thesis). Using a cyclical process, material is rotationally distributed amongst the marimba gamelan, resulting in a unique visual and stereoscopic phenomenon for the audience. The rotational pattern is simple: 1-3-5-2-4. You can see the process with AWESOME, SHINY COLORS here:
Measures 83-91
Measures 185-192 (mm83-91, Gestalt Dissemination)

Other fun gimmick: the simultaneous use of various modal scales of different lengths. The first instance of this is at measure 91. Marimba 1 has a 6-note ascending Bb Ionian scale; Marimba 2 has a 4-note ascending D Phrygian Scale; Marimba 3 has a 5-note G Aeolian Scale, and Marimba 4 has a 7-note Eb Lydian scale. The accents create fun phase patterns, and the harmonic wash has an unstable, fluid aesthetic. This device is used when the marimbas switch back and forth from the gestalt dissemination sections.

The piece is heavily influenced by Masashi Hamauzu's "Saber's Edge" from the Final Fantasy XIII soundtrack, and it also pays homage to the Bayonetta's final boss theme. I hope to have it premiered within the next year.

Let me know what you think!

[Xenu]

Those are some very interesting melodies, harmonies and chord progressions there.

You've given us the MP3 realization and the PDF score, why not give us the MIDI file as well? Here at vgmusic, we love MIDI. I'm curious how all the instruments sound by themselves. I'm curious how it sounds slowed down 75%. And I'm also curious how it's going to sound if you give every instrument a more distinctive tone color.

In other words: I just wanna mess with it a bit.

[Sheepdog]

Sure thing. I've exported the MIDI from Sibelius (the program I use for notation). It's fantastic at what it does, but, given that the primary emphasis is a visible score for musicians, the MIDI doesn't contain the sort of subtle nuances that a performer would see and implement. Let me know if you make anything cool with it!

I love the sounds of stacked perfect fourths and fifths; much of my harmonic style is derived from combining different intervallic structures. Due to the way the circle of fifths works, a lot of it ends up being pentatonic (hence why the latter half of the piece is on all black keys), or features a lot of jazz harmonies (especially 9th, 11th, and 13th chords). Something that Masashi Hamauzu (the composer of the Final Fantasy XIII soundtrack and most of the well-composed pieces in Final Fantasy X) does well: he treats extended-tertian harmonies (normally used for coloration or passing tones) as consonant, concrete pitches in his melodies. This is something I've adopted into my own style over the past few years (consciously or not).

Thanks for listening!