Orchestral Evolution Part 4 ‘Ready To Go’

In my previous blog I delved into some of the key ideas behind the composition. Creating a piece of music for a pop-up orchestra of all instruments and all abilities.

A modular piece of music that can be moulded and shaped in an infinite number of ways.

This blog is the last instalment before our final performance….and includes the scores.

The piece is ready to go, we have been into various school’s working away and workshoping the music and ideas, so in this penultimate instalment I wanted to give you an insight into some of the last minute ideas and of course to take a look at the music and how I have delivered that…

The composition was finalised in mid february, after finally finding a melody Im happy with…(helped massively by my high-tech guitar adjustment)

And getting the oportunity to try some of the more basic parts out on instruments I litterally cant play….

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The piece currently consists of around 8 loops for each section of the piece and they varied in degree’s of complexity. As you would have realised from reading the previous blogs…the idea was never to challenge the physical element of playing much, but more to offer stimulation for the mind, so to help players be able to focus and get in to flow. The plan was to offer students the chance to be part of a truly contemporary and relevant orchestra – working on playing and connecting to the detail in the sounds and textures rather than overwhelming and unconnected mechanical and physical mastery. I wanted this piece to help students master actual music/sound and the emotional communication of that, rather than mastering their fine motor skills, which so much of our musical education seems to aim to do…so each loop has been written with this in mind, a musical meditation of sorts.

You can view the music for each part here. You’ll notice each loop has a philosophy at the bottom, and crucially is notated in a variety of different ways to make it as accessible as possible. Have a look here….

PART A – ALL LOOPS
PART B – ALL LOOPS
PART C – ALL LOOPS

So have a look, let me know what you think. We’ve already been workshopping the piece in a variety of schools…

My next blog post will be after the performance. Wish us luck…

A huge thanks to Rachel and Michael all the soundstormers for quite literally keeping it on track, Dave Mastrocola and his wonderous team for making the bourne session so brilliant, Karl Hayman for being so supportive and making me feel so welcome at Leaf, Chris Block for getting together so many players and his orchestral tips, Helen Prentice for being fantastic, Chloe Inskip for making feel so welcome. Ben Taylor and Christian Ballistrari for being so helpful in the workshops and Andy for being great even though hthe snow stopped us, John K Miles for his time, advice and seriously helpful insight, Audio-technika for the support (more to follow!) and of course every single young person who took part so far…. wow! 🙂