From Sketch to Score to Song #1: The Tangible Tangerine
Lucy Moon A.K.A. Kupo Cat teaching me how to compose with my ears and not my hands.
Prior to this piece, I had dipped my toes a few times into so called “microtonal music”. Mostly this had been through using the wonderful Westlicht Performer’s highly immediate tuning system or through designing my own physical interface for exploring up to 48 divisions of the octave. However, “Tangible Tangerine” is what I would consider to be my first fully-fledged non-12-TET composition.
When I first set out, I considered it a fairly risky endeavor since it would ultimately have to be played for an end-of-year concert, and I wasn’t sure if it would just devolve into mud. In the end, I found it to be a difficult though highly affirming experience. I think it opened the door for me to continue integrating different tuning systems into my more finished music.
One personal experience I’ll mention that colors my memory of the creation of this song is that my beloved cat, Lucy Moon (pictured above), was in the process of dying as I was working on it. She spent most of her final days in my room since she seemed to find the most comfort in there. But Lucy was no great fan of acoustic instruments like the classical guitar. (She did, however, like electronic music, especially Jaga Jazzist.) As a consequence, I had to refrain from relying on my classical guitar through much of the score writing stage. Perhaps this was Lucy’s way of pushing me to develop my inner ear. We miss you Kupo Cat!
Solo guitar sketch of the first 2/3 of what would become “The Tangible Tangerine”:
Score version of the song:
Two things to note about this score:
Various pairs of instruments were written to be resynthesized together into hybrids; these were:
Oboe+Violin
Clarinet+Viola
Bassoon+Cello
Guira+Snare
Temple Blocks+Melodic Toms
Gong+Bass Drum
Due to lack of time and the fact that the part was firmly lodged in my head, the guitar part was not completely written out.
Excerpt from the recorded version of the song:
Look for the complete version of this and other songs on a forthcoming album.
