Hi everyone,
There are times when writing music when we don’t want people “tapping their feet” to the music. We don’t want them to know where beat 1 is. “Why,” you might ask, “would we want to do that?” One reason is so that the music sounds more natural and human instead of the regimented feeling of a predictable beat occurrence. To feel like it was conducted instead of sounding like the players were following a click in their head phones. Another reason is to give the listener a “suspended” feeling so that they can’t anticipate what is coming next (or at least where it will be placed at least!). This is often done in film scores and dramatic writing in general. In my case, I used the idea of suspending the forward movement and dismissing the sense of where beat one occurs in an orchestration of a song I recently recorded.
The name of the piece is called, “Memory.” The song it came from was written by Chee Yih Lee. Now, one could simply conduct the section in question and while doing so use “rubato” (no steady time) and a lot of accellerandos and ritards to achieve this illusion. With the recording of “Memory” a very real problem presented itself though that is unfortunately all too common – not enough string players because of a limited budget. The way writers often get around the problem of “not enough strings” is to hire a small section and then record several “takes” or “passes” of them playing the same notes each time but on different audio tracks. In the mixing stage they are combined to get a fuller sound. So, in theory, if you have ten string players and record them three separate times playing the same exact material they will sound like thirty players, right? Not quite. Nothing can replicate the sound of thirty strings in the same room. BUT, it sounds far better than ten, that’s for sure. On with the story….
Since I only had ten strings (6 vln, 2 vla, 1 cello, 1 bass), I needed to record them three times for a fuller sound. Each “pass” or recording of those ten strings would have to be recorded with the same exact timing to be able to layer them on top of each other correctly. The problem is that you can’t conduct exactly the same way twice. This is where the click comes in. By using several meter changes, I was able to keep the listener from having a sense of where beat one occurs. Take a look at the pdf below to see how I laid out the measures in the intro.
Note that the measures are staggered in this case between 4/4 and 5/4. The entrances happen in the same spots except for the last one. By the time the listener has a chance to get a sense of predictability, the last entrance occurs. This technique allowed me to place a specific, even click through the intro (easier to conduct) and yet it still feels natural – like the music is floating.
Another contributing factor to the sense of suspension/ floating is in the high pedal point, also known as a “wire.” This high pedal point also holds the energy in one place and keeps the music from moving forward to quickly. I’m sure you’ve heard this device used in films quite often – typically creating mysterious, or even scary, feelings in the listener.
Below is the full score for “Memory.” Feel free to post any questions or comments you have.
The audio can be found at:
www.reverbnation.com/jerrygates
or
www.myspace.com/compjgates
Additionally, there is a solo piano version that you can listen to to get a sense of where the basic song came from – very pretty.
Until next time,
Jerry
