I thought I'd relateto you what I told the producer about these pieces.
Only the first one is broadcast quality. The rest are just mock ups to see how hey sound with no regard to sound quality.
None of the pieces have introductions yet except Burma and Mukalinda. The pieces Arirang, Nada Sutra, and Anmaqam were not originally planned to be included because they are so minimalist but you might find a place for them in the other work which so far constitutes 9. I had requested 13 evaluations but I respectfully request that you evaluate, but not count, those three pieces.
So that leaves 4 more for me to mock up. I've started on 3 of them already but I think some of them are going to bomb.
I don't always know how they're going to sound when I write them. I've got some other unfinished things which would constitute one section of a piece which I'll also send along to see if they could be turned into something.
I don't know exactly what to include in a list of things that I should want you to advise on. I'm aware that amateurs don't know what it is that they don't know. But generally, let me know which parts/pieces you think are weak or could be improved as far as form, melody, rhythm, dynamics, and how one might go about making them better.
Other areas I'm concerned about are endings and introductions. A composer/arranger I was reading said that it's best not to start with middle dynamics and to either start soft or loud so this is my plan. I've tried to include a variety of approaches for introductions such as Change of Timbre(e.g. starting with Sarons for the intro then switching to gender for the rest of the piece), polyphonic inversion (placing the melody in the bass and the bass line in the melody), registral progression (adding instruments one at a time), Change of register from high, change of register from low, registral expansion (starting with instruments in the middle range then adding others moving out towards high and low instruments simultaneoulsy),
I think it might help you if I describe some of my process. Then you can determine if I'm leaving anything important out or what.
In order to have a variety of structures to place the music in to keep things interesting for the listener, I decided to use the theory that you can repeat two rhythms indefinitely as long as you have just one more constrasting rhythm no matter how short. So, I made the decision to give all of the pieces three sections each, A, B and C respectively. (I didn't do this on River of Stars) I wanted the music to be accessible to modern listeners so I adopted the popular song form.
After listening to some other world music, I noticed that my favorite one's had three sections and a different instrument in each section of music. So, that's another practice that I've adopted. Another point is that popular song form is usually in 8 or 16 bar sections but I also wanted to have parts that sounded like transitions so I modified that to different combinations of 2,4,8, and 16 bar sections.
For these pieces, I went through the different permutations of forms with these parameters such as ABC=8 8 8, 8 8 4, 8 8 16, 8 2 8, 16 8 8, 16 8 4, 2 8 8, 4 8 8, 8 16 2, 4 16 2, 8 2 8, 848, 4 4 16, 8 8 2,16 8 2, 8 16 8, 4 8 4, 4 2 4, 4 16 2 etc...
I'm not a very intuitive composer yet so, I tend to stick to rules so to at least be somewhere near the ball park. Then, if the music is bland I make adjustments until I find it more appealing instead of just waiting for inspiration which rarely comes. My strength as a composer is in finding these rules through research and experimenting with their different combinations. My intuition tells me which combinations are likely to be successful.
I've written the music with only 6 staves. The extra one being percussion which can be multilayered.
Well formed rhythms (what people expect to hear) have 2-6 events per 5 seconds (that must be the parameters for a moderate amount of complexity in that musical dimension). So, I put together a list of rhythms that fit this parameter and used them for these pieces.
The tempo 100 beats per minute is in the center of the perceptual field (moderate complexity?) but for varieties sake, I used the tempos of my favorite music which are all different but not far from the 100bpm center.
For varieties sake, I mix it up between diatonic and pentatonic substituting the western notes that constitute C major for the Thai 7 Tet and CDFGA for the Indonesian 5 Tet.
I didn't write anything which uses the chromatic scale but I have heard it used successfully in this genre on the World music album which was the sound track for the movie called Siamese Twins. The composers "name" is Bankok Blue. He plays jazz marimba and won a grammy for his work. He is one of my big inspirations in persuing composition.
I just love the way he combines jazz and traditional Thai music.
Of course there are different places where you can end or start a chorus for sure and they all have different feelings of how much rhythmic "consonance" or finality there is but I've started all my "choruses" on downbeats.
Where I put the chorus is another matter. I mix up starting on the downbeat/chorus between A, B and C respectively in different pieces. For example, in one piece the chorus is in the A section, in another piece it's in the B section.
Though one of Seal's albums has every song in some key of E, I've tried to place each piece on a different mode of the pentatonic scale that my gamelan is tuned to C, D, F, G and A.
I'm also mixing up which instruments carry the melody. For example,
A,B and C= Gender, Gambang and Bonang Panerus respectively.Or Bonang Barung, Khaen and Kayageum etc...
I also mix up which compositional technique appears in each section. For example, I've put Ranaat Ek styled lines in the A section on one song, in the C section in a different song or it doesn't appear at all and is replaced by Bonang Panerus technique in the A section etc...
I also don't restrict the technique to be played by the instrument which traditionally plays it. The Ranaat Ek compositional technique is played by Bonang Panerus instead in one song and the Bonang Panerus technique is played by flute in a different song.
I don't have access to an adequate high hat sound so I've been substituting various sized cymbals. I of course use small finger cymbals I bought in Thailand to play open and closed sounds first appearing in the open-closed position in one piece then in the closed-open position in another piece, first slow in yet another piece then fast, first on the beat then off the beat, then playing composed rhythms.
I have not written in or played any drum fills (which you will let me know if it's a mistake or not) instead using cymbals, various gongs or temple blocks to announce section endings/beginnings. This seems to work well.
Gongchime
