ORCHESTRA
the emerging agitation (2016)
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This is an orchestra piece I wrote between the springs of 2015 and 2016. "the emerging agitation" is a ten and a half minute attempt to depict an organic rise and fall of a piece of music. Although the simplicity of a form featuring a strict ascent and descent is appealing, the compositional rigidity needed to accomplish writing such a piece is something I simply do not possess. I enjoy connecting my music to something involved with the human experience. This way, when I get stuck - and I will - I can revert back to the feeling that I'm trying to convey, or at the very least, I can imagine it. "the emerging agitation" depicts a hike up a mountain/canyon/elevated land mass, and since I can't think of a better term to describe it (and I have a degree so I can make up terms), it's a programmatic tone poem.
The following words are located on the inner cover of "the emerging agitation." Allow me to preface this by saying that these words were written with the understanding that college professors would be reading them. I realize that there are non-musicians who may be interested in learning about my music that maybe don't know what hexachordal combinatoriality is. I'm basically just going to copy and paste my program notes here, but when I get too carried away with musical terms and I lose you, I'll try to help you out (by doing this). |
"In March of 2015, I went on a walking tour of Zion National Park in Utah. While hiking up the particularly steep Weeping Rock Trail, I was visited by musical ideas that were rhythmically incessant and harmonically dissonant, but cyclical in their nature. The music that came to me that day perpetually propelled forward. My body had physically created a repeatable pattern for itself to execute, and my mind infiltrated itself into this repeated action, which caused the music - especially the principal melody - to spin back into itself. As my body's muscle memory fell into the rhythm of my steps, the higher I climbed, the deeper this music enveloped me. My awareness that I would soon be walking in the opposite direction along the same path became impossible to ignore, and consequently became an agent for development; I contemplated the implications - structural, thematic, and musical - of an organic rise and fall in a piece of music. Thus, imagining an emergence and "demergence" of the orchestra acted as the musical impetus for "the emerging agitation."
After my hike, I began to sketch the map for "the emerging agitation." This hastily and crudely drawn map, bereft of nuances, looked exactly like what I was picturing; a piece that ascends out of nothing, culminates with a short-lived climax, and descends into whence it came. However, despite the elegance in this simplicity, I still felt that something was missing. At first, strict adherence to this musical plot seemed most suitable to my vision for the piece, but after comparing my map to my experience hiking Weeping Rock Trail, I realized that in an effort to convey arch form's inherent symmetricality, I had disregarded the reality of the hike;
I began at the bottom and ascended with energy and uncertainty. Before I was aware of how high up I was, I had settled into the rhythm of the hike. My arrival at the summit not only provided a gloriously breathtaking vantage point, it also provided an opportunity to sit down, relax, and become entranced by the scenery. During this time, reflection on the process that led to the pinnacle was only natural. After ample time at the observation point, the descent began. Restoring its muscle memory and reverting back to its feelings during the ascent, my body was initially confused. To not have made the necessary physical adjustments, but to feel that I was descending was an awkward feeling, and from it, a tripping feeling resulted. Soon to be replaced by feelings of immersion familiar to me from my ascent, this tripping feeling did not last long. As I passed by significant landmarks with more frequency, my mind alluded to the recent past, making its final connections before the hike came to an obscure, yet decisive end.
That was the reality of my hike. Based on this observation, it became abundantly clear that using strictness and rigidity to achieve an organic ascent and descent are approaches that work against one another. This realization inspired me to develop a different musical plot; one that reflected the reality of hiking.
The circular melody that initially came to me eventually became the solo line that gets passed through the orchestra during the initial ascent. Beginning from the darkest and most distant colors, and traveling to the brightest and most shrill timbres, this melody emerges - by design - through the orchestra. While this is happening in the foreground, sustained pitches underly the texture and drive the music forward, building tension through their dissonant relationship to the prevailing harmonies. After the principal melody tracks its way through the orchestra, a dense passage characterized by rhythmically-charged obstinate (repeated rhythmic patterns) and colorful orchestration follows. During this section, the subtle and subservient dissonances which previously drove the music ahead mutate into melodic material, becoming - incessantly - more and more present. This subsection blends into the final ascent and ultimately leads to the climax of the piece: the only measures with tutti balance and with a fortissimo (loud AF) dynamic. After the climax, which is interrupted by a period of rhythmic development, the sustained pitches change function yet again, eventually becoming the source of the melodic material for the flute's solo. This segment of more expressive music, representing the period of reflection after the summit has been reached, then repeats for a second time, but with an added rhythmic element in the percussion. This musical moment alludes back to , and although the note values change from sixteenths to triplets, the rhythmic ratios and the orchestration in the percussion remain consistent. Finally, the slower music culminates by increasing the tempo and expanding the percussions' rhythmic ratios from triplets to eighths. At the beginning of the final descent, the sense of tripping is accomplished as the original motives make their return, but in 5/4 (meter with an asymmetrical feel). Then - just as suspected - the orchestration strips down, tapering away until we are left with what we began - viola; "the emerging agitation" recedes into itself, subtly referring to its past and ending as mysteriously and ambiguously as it began."
After my hike, I began to sketch the map for "the emerging agitation." This hastily and crudely drawn map, bereft of nuances, looked exactly like what I was picturing; a piece that ascends out of nothing, culminates with a short-lived climax, and descends into whence it came. However, despite the elegance in this simplicity, I still felt that something was missing. At first, strict adherence to this musical plot seemed most suitable to my vision for the piece, but after comparing my map to my experience hiking Weeping Rock Trail, I realized that in an effort to convey arch form's inherent symmetricality, I had disregarded the reality of the hike;
I began at the bottom and ascended with energy and uncertainty. Before I was aware of how high up I was, I had settled into the rhythm of the hike. My arrival at the summit not only provided a gloriously breathtaking vantage point, it also provided an opportunity to sit down, relax, and become entranced by the scenery. During this time, reflection on the process that led to the pinnacle was only natural. After ample time at the observation point, the descent began. Restoring its muscle memory and reverting back to its feelings during the ascent, my body was initially confused. To not have made the necessary physical adjustments, but to feel that I was descending was an awkward feeling, and from it, a tripping feeling resulted. Soon to be replaced by feelings of immersion familiar to me from my ascent, this tripping feeling did not last long. As I passed by significant landmarks with more frequency, my mind alluded to the recent past, making its final connections before the hike came to an obscure, yet decisive end.
That was the reality of my hike. Based on this observation, it became abundantly clear that using strictness and rigidity to achieve an organic ascent and descent are approaches that work against one another. This realization inspired me to develop a different musical plot; one that reflected the reality of hiking.
The circular melody that initially came to me eventually became the solo line that gets passed through the orchestra during the initial ascent. Beginning from the darkest and most distant colors, and traveling to the brightest and most shrill timbres, this melody emerges - by design - through the orchestra. While this is happening in the foreground, sustained pitches underly the texture and drive the music forward, building tension through their dissonant relationship to the prevailing harmonies. After the principal melody tracks its way through the orchestra, a dense passage characterized by rhythmically-charged obstinate (repeated rhythmic patterns) and colorful orchestration follows. During this section, the subtle and subservient dissonances which previously drove the music ahead mutate into melodic material, becoming - incessantly - more and more present. This subsection blends into the final ascent and ultimately leads to the climax of the piece: the only measures with tutti balance and with a fortissimo (loud AF) dynamic. After the climax, which is interrupted by a period of rhythmic development, the sustained pitches change function yet again, eventually becoming the source of the melodic material for the flute's solo. This segment of more expressive music, representing the period of reflection after the summit has been reached, then repeats for a second time, but with an added rhythmic element in the percussion. This musical moment alludes back to , and although the note values change from sixteenths to triplets, the rhythmic ratios and the orchestration in the percussion remain consistent. Finally, the slower music culminates by increasing the tempo and expanding the percussions' rhythmic ratios from triplets to eighths. At the beginning of the final descent, the sense of tripping is accomplished as the original motives make their return, but in 5/4 (meter with an asymmetrical feel). Then - just as suspected - the orchestration strips down, tapering away until we are left with what we began - viola; "the emerging agitation" recedes into itself, subtly referring to its past and ending as mysteriously and ambiguously as it began."