The Great Awakening

Here I’d like to expand on the ideas behind each of the movements of Practical Mechanics. More for documentation than for the sake of anyone reading (oh that’s you, sorry).

Let’s start at the very beginning.

Practical Mechanics Movement I: The Great Awakening.

This piece is the perfect opener for Practical Mechanics, as it encompasses almost all of the things I wanted to explore in the larger work. The harmony is simple and reminiscent of pop or folk music, the rhythms and structure are all very mathematical. It plays with misleading senses of meter at some points, but at other points has the stern driving momentum of a rock groove. It also has a sense of unashamedly building towards a grand epic climax, and doesn’t shy away from a bit of classic melodrama.

Here is a video of Nonsemble performing the piece at Stephen Bartlett’s Docking Station Studios on June, 2012.

[vimeo http://www.vimeo.com/43796144 w=500&h=281]

The earliest version I can find of this piece on my computer is from March 2011, but I remember playing with the ideas on the piano long before that. In particular, the piano part of the long first section, and the climactic 5/4 against 4/4 section towards the end. I think the piano-based origins of the piece are evident in these ideas. However, the piece was fleshed out using a combination of pen and paper, logic, and sibelius, and these media too have left their mark on the final product.

For the first two minutes or so, the piano plays persistent repeated octaves in the bass, and a descending dotted rhythm of planed triads in the right hand. The triads in themselves don’t make for very complex harmony, but with the sustain pedal on, the effect of this planing movement is the gradual building of 11th and 13th chords. Each time the figure is repeated, the right hand descends further into the chord, getting closer to connecting it with the bass notes.

The arrangement surrounding this section serves the purpose of keeping the meter perceptually ambiguous. Each repeat of the main cycle is peppered with seemingly random events, but each event is placed carefully so that the listener’s perception of the beat is drawn smoothly from duple and triple meter and back again a number of times. Once the main percussion groove hits, we are locked into the meter and the ambiguity is gone.

As the percussion groove kicks in, a complex texture is created in the strings by very simple layered patterns. Each player only plays one note, repeated at fixed intervals. The violins play every 5th and 6th quaver, the viola every 7th and the cello every 8th. This pattern is probably the best example of my interest in complexity derived from simple rules. It is also a great example of the influence of using loop-based productions software such as logic, which is unsurprisingly where this idea emerged and was developed. 

The 5/4 against 4/4 section is an isorhythm fairly typical of my compositions. As the melodic figure is 5 beats long, and the accompaniment is in 4, the melody seems to shift around the bar until it resolves after 5 bars of 4/4. This is emphasised by the chord changes, which for the most part happen every 5 bars. To further complicate matters this is pitched against a crotchet triplet feel, which gradually gets stronger and pulls further away from the original feeling of pulse.

Finally the piece is capitulated by a dramatic solo vocal moment, draped across a rough texture of arhythmic plucking. This is the first iteration of the vocal theme which ends the final movement. The melody is mostly the same in both; the difference is the great optimism of the lyrics in Movement I versus the more realistic and depressing sentiments that close Movement IV. In both instances, the final chord unexpectedly modulates using the melody note as a pivot point - however the first movement ends on a bright, assured tonality, whereas the final movement suddenly shifts to a darker, unresolved tone.