(Sharbaugh)
Michael Ash Sharbaugh: keyboards, synthesizers, drum machine, and found sound
Composed and Recorded ca. June 12 to 15, 2015.
sm5 [ARIA(D)].
Having read this week’s Disquiet Junto assignment—“use the Russian nesting dolls [Matryoshka] as a model for a musical composition,” I knew instantly that I wanted to build a theme using a collection of notes that approximated a Russian folk scale on my ‘Western’ instruments; I, also, knew that I would compose a theme that I would repeat six times throughout the piece—once for each nested doll, as called for in the assignment guidelines.
I initially chose a C-sharp harmonic minor scale, but had inadvertently come across a field recording of a ‘Russian canary’ [ http://www.soundsnap.com/search/audio/russian+canary/score ] and was smitten by its musicality. I thought, “why not form a central melody that mimics the canary’s thematic trill and add melodic layers to compliment it—the canary is Russian, after all.” Needless to say, the canary’s call was not in a C-sharp harmonic minor scale, but feigned an altered F-sharp; thus, I utilized that scale as the basis of the piece.
I imported the canary call into my DAW, edited out its ‘thematic section,’ and repeated it six times. Its tempo came to 92.4 BPM. I then molded a bass register piano line around the bird’s call that mimicked its melodic shape, and added sonic seasoning to it—contrapuntal notes and pitch-bent, portamento figures using my arsenal of Korg and ensoniq synthesizers. I punctuated the track twice with a muted clave rhythm and made sure the canary theme repeated six times—once for each of the nesting dolls.
More on this 180th Disquiet Junto project — “Use the Russian nesting dolls as a model for a musical composition” — at:
http://disquiet.com/2015/06/11/disquiet0180-matryoshkamusic/
More on the Disquiet Junto at:
http://disquiet.com/junto/
Join the Disquiet Junto at:
http://soundcloud.com/groups/disquiet-junto/
Disquiet Junto general discussion takes place at:
http://disquiet.com/forums/
