[Minimalist Orchestral] Forty-three (WMA)

[bvanoudtshoorn]

Title: Forty-three
URL: http://web.csse.uwa.edu.au/~vanoub01/music/Forty-three.wma
Duration: 3.37
Filesize: 5.0MB
Started: 19.10.2007
Completed: 22.10.2007

Notes:
Well, here's my latest orchestral piece. It's in the minimalist style, a bit like John Cage or Phillip Glass. It's also got elements of Ravel's Bolero... It's made up of one, two, four, and eight bar "fragments" which are layered one upon another during the course of the piece, and which (hopefully!) create something which is much more than the sum of its parts.

I wrote it based on an extract from "Le Petit Prince" (below); the minimalist style just seemed write for the text.

On a side note, apart from the composition itself, I'm not sure what to enter in the Novus Compo this month. Should it be this piece, "Remember", or "Welcome back"?

[From "Le Petit Prince", Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, 1943. Section VI]
Ah, little prince! So it was, gradually, that I cam to understand your melancholy little life! For a long time your only pleasure had been to watch the gently setting sun. I learned this new detail on the morning of the fourth day, when you said to me:

'I am very fond of sunsets. Let's go this moment and look at a sunset.'

'But we shall have to wait...'

'Wait for what?'

'Wait until it's time for the sun to set.'

At first you seemed very taken aback. Then you laughed at yourself and said:

'I still keep thinking I'm at home!'

Just so. For as everyone knows, when it is noon in the United States the sun is setting over France. If you could get to France in a twinkling, you could watch a sunset right now. Unfortunately France is rather too far away. But on your tiny planet, little prince, you had only to move your chair a few steps. You could watch night fall whenever you liked.

'One day,' you said, 'I watched the sunset forty-three times!'

And a little later you added:

'You know, when one is that sad, one can get to love the sunset.'

'Were you that sad, then, on the day of the forty-three sunsets?'

But the prince made no answer.

[Sam_Zen]

Beautiful. The build up and the total form is very good controlled.

One could argue about the trivial factor whether this is minimalistic or not. Cage is still far away from this, I think, the piano is Glass-like, but the rest still follows a more chord change structure plus melody. There's no 2nd or 3rd voice playing counter lines with the piano, like Glass often does.

[bvanoudtshoorn]

I agree, Sam_Zen. It's not really all that Cage-y or Glass-y, but I figured that it was more minimalist than anything else. :wink:

Thanks again for your feedback.

[aGIANTpupafish]

really good. beautiful piece.

i have to write a piece in the minimalist style for my music project, so this is of course very helpful. (http://forum.openmpt.org/index.php?topic=2047.0)

[bvanoudtshoorn]

Thanks, aGp! Always glad to be of service. =P Although you'll probably want to listen to "real" composers like Cage and Glass as well...

[aGIANTpupafish]

[Warning: Off Topic Post]

i have lol.  it's just good to hear different musician's takes on the minimalist style...


(don't foget einaudi, some of his music is brilliant)

[mrvegas]

Sounds very nice.  I was never a big Philip Glass fan, but the elements build up well in this tune and, unlike much minimalist music, it doesn't overstay its welcome.  Thanks for posting it.

Just curious, why WMA?

[bvanoudtshoorn]

Well, my phone doesn't play OGG, and WMA is better than MP3... =D

[Saga Musix]

WMA suxx coz it's proprietary and OGG is free...

[mrvegas]

Actually, that's a good point about the phone.  Some companies (Verizon) sell phones that only play wma.  I know, I've got one and I hardly ever use it for music.

[bvanoudtshoorn]

Well, I've got an SE (k800). I've contacted Sony Ericsson asking for OGG support, though. =D Hopefully they'll get their act together, 'cos I really like the phone.

[mrvegas]

Interesting.  I've got a Razr (V3m or V3cm).  The original phone itself is perfectly capable of playing mp3s, but, from what I understand, Verizon disabled that feature in its firmware -- I hope my terminology is correct.  I've thought of converting some music to 64kbps wma just to have on the phone micro card.

Actually, I agree with you that at low bit rates, WMA does sound a little better.  Ogg seems to be pretty good, but there's just no hardware support yet.

[Novus]

Hmm... very gentle, nice piano motif, good atmosphere. Not very meaty musically, but this sort of piece isn't meant to be. 8 out of 10 from me.

This would work great as background or soundtrack music. Absolutely PERFECT for that.

To answer your compo question, though, Barry, I'd worry about this holding up well in a public vote. If the other entries were similarly minimalistic, you'd win running away. But the other entries would probably be meatier than this and would draw more voter attention. But I could be wrong... I'm not always very accurate in predicting how the voters will behave.

I've heard "Remember" already, of course, so I'll have to check out "Welcome Back" next.

[bvanoudtshoorn]

Thanks for the feedback, mrvegas and Novus. =D