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  • Compositional Technique: Poly-Clustering

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    Clustering (poly-clustering)

    This has evolved after alot of experimenting with it. I got interested in the technique after I heard the soundtrack of 2001 - A Space Odessey, where Ligeti used very colourful and interesting "clustering" to get that eerie and other-worldy feel to it. I began playing with this technique and found it to be very useful to creat colourful passages and a interesting plane for theme's. I got a little clusters-test which might be interesting for people who which to learn more about it:

    Clusters

    It's very simple and I use 2 clarinets, 2 bassoons and 2 oboes in it. They all change tone in intervals. For example:

    you can let the clarinets hold the tone for 1 bar, then it modulates to another interval. The bassoons hold their tone for 3/4 of a bar and then modulate and the oboes do this for 2/4 and so on. At the end you'll get a mixture of palets that makes you want to listen where this is going. But these are just the basics. It becomes more interesting when you weave melodies onto these clusters.

    Another example: I'll use 2 or 3 clarinets which play a chord of 3 tones. Under that I'll put 2 or 3 bassoons also playing 2 intervals or a 3 tone chord but one that totally differs from the one the clarinets plays and maybe even in another key. Put those together playing at piano velocity and you'll get a very interesting ambience.

    In "The Conference of the Birds" I'd let the oboe and the English horn play 2 diffirent melodies at the same time. At the end the oboe playing a wholetone-scale structure and the English Horn playing something totally diffirent. This way you can create very interesting disonant ideas. I hope this is informative...

    If you have questions, don't hestitate to ask and there are more music demos on my site...

    Take care,
    -Sid.

    -------------------------
    www.sidbarnhoorn.com

  • Interesting Sid!

  • Hey Sid, are you studying in Utrecht now?

  • Hi Mathis,

    No I study at Hilversum at the HKU now... how about you?

    Take care,
    -Sid.

  • Ahhhhh, now I get things straight... HKU is *also* in Hilversum. I really scratched my head quite some times when people were refering to Hilversum.
    I´m still in Den Haag.

  • I gather, but in Hilversum they're more oriented into the media as in film, tv and multimedia. I know that in Utrecht it's more theatre... so how is it in Den Haag? It's close to where I live, I live in Katwijk.

    Have ya checked out my new opus btw? www.sidbarnhoorn.com

    Take care,
    -Sid.

  • Ah... I wish I were 25 years younger with all these cool programs [:'(]

  • PaulP Paul moved this topic from Orchestration & Composition on