"Shout" for 23 String Instruments

[pianoguy]

On YouTube here.

"Shout" synthesizes several of my musical influences. In my misspent youth, I was a rock and roll guitar player, and the main theme is loosely inspired by the first phrase of Johnny Winter’s “Rollin’ and Tumblin'.” I first encountered the incessant piling on of riffs in the music of Charles Mingus. The slow, sometimes mechanical thematic evolutions are characteristic of minimalism, though "Shout" is better described as minimo-maximilist. And there are several connections – such as the proportions – to Bach’s stupendous Chaconne.

On a VSL note, I doubt I would even have conceived of "Shout" without Dimension Strings. There's also a touch of Solo Strings, most importantly the opening solo violin. The instrumentation is 6/6/5/4/2, but the piece is written at the level of the desk, with several desks joining together for the important voices - but also occasionally dividing at the very dense spots.

Thanks for listening!

Mark Arnest

[Paul McGraw]

I truly enjoyed this piece. I'm not sure exactly why I liked it, because I am no fan of minimalism. And I have no idea what minimo-maximilist is, yet I did find the piece interesting and enjoyable. Your mix sounds great, and the actual performance sounds extremely realistic and convincing. 

I don't know exactly why no one else has commented. You can be proud of this work. 

[pianoguy]

Many thanks for your kind words, Paul. "Minimo-maximalist" is just a silly term I made up - somewhere else I used the Matt-Groening-like variation, "maximo-minimalist" - to suggest that, while the musical techniques recall minimalism, there's so much going on that the effect is not minimalist. It was a lot of fun to compose.