For the past 6 months I've been putting together a collection of piano works. I really want to come out with a polished album sometime since I've been working on OS forever and I don't really have anything concrete as a musician to show people who don't use OS.
Since I just finished Marseillaise Regicide, I think now would be a good time to make some author's notes on what I have so far.
The album name is still undecided, but in general the album pulls inspiration from the Middle Ages and the Enlightenment. However, these periods only influenced the titles and aren't representative of the music at the time. Instead, I was more interested in interpreting the particular themes that can be grasped from its history.
I wanted to represent various institutional beliefs—and so I intend to cover concepts that are encompassed under religious, superstitious and monarchical contexts.
I do not have direct inspiration for either Prescience of Augur or Marseillaise Regicide, but you can find similar music under my listening playlist
here.
Prescience of Augur.
This originally started out as a potential jazz trio with Celt and Muhngkee, but the idea has since been scrapped.
As a standalone piano composition, Augur already felt complete and was considerably dynamic without the support of percussion and bass.
The title is a pleonasm—prescience meaning "to know something before it takes place" whereas an augur is someone who practices divination to predict omens.
The naming structure was modeled after the songs in
this album and felt rightfully pretentious for the piano collection.
During Prescience of Augur, I tried focusing on creating a foreboding, theocratic(?) kind of feeling. While these are the best adjectives I can offer, there are further nuances that I'd like to explain.
The idea of God comes to me as a warm yet purposely distant and enigmatic presence. While many religious pieces come off as sacred and sterile, I wanted to try paying particular attention to agape—the unconditional love between humans and God. For this reason I've kept Augur casual and upbeat to represent this kind of relationship.
However, no unconditional love goes without a deistic fear. I composed a small passage illustrating the intimidation of God around #t824 where it starts feeling more grandiose. Personally I think this is the most "heartfelt" section of Augur and that it heavily contrasts with the other sections of the sequence.
There's a common theme with upward progressions sprinkled throughout the piece. At this point I'm really just making up what the song means, but I envision an augur trying to abandon his former ideologies of the church in order to pursuit a deeper understanding of God. Usually going one's own path can also leave ambiguity and a lack of control which most of these progressions seem to portray to me.
In comparison to my other piano works, Prescience of Augur was more deliberately paced. It was a refreshing experience to compose something where I could fit in more nuanced techniques. Aside from the free-form melody, using longer rest sections such as in #t552 helped balance the song out and set the listener up for trickier sections. As always, most of what I wrote was mental improvisation and I can't be bothered to explain everything I've done up to this point.
Overall, I'm very happy with how Augur turned out. It had a variety of compositional techniques—which I don't normally use—that painted the piece in a good way. I rarely finish music on OS, but the process was very quick and took a little over 2 weeks to write.
Marseillaise Regicide.
I composed this as a direct continuation to Prescience of Augur. I intended Marseillaise to be darker and much more intense in comparison.
Marseilles is the oldest city in France, whereas regicide is the act of killing a king. It is clear that the sequence derives inspiration from the French Revolution—but really, Marseillaise Regicide was just a solid name that worked.
Historically, monarchs prior to the French Revolution resided in the Palace of Versailles. Louis XVI was the last king of France known for his indecisiveness during the revolution. Characteristically, the king was not evil and wanted to support his nation—however his conservative misguidance and lack of virtues gave him weak ruling power. Louis abandoned his duties as king (making the situation worse through financial expenses) and was eventually guillotined for treason.
The title can also be interpreted from "
La Marseillaise", the national anthem of France. In relation to Marseillaise Regicide, I think the two have a distinct delivery that is critical in nature. Rather than being patriotic towards ones' own country and fallen soldiers, it seems that the national anthem focuses on the downfall of monarchy.
While the history is extensive, I wrote Marseillaise more from a musical standpoint given that I looked up the details after making the song. I wanted to work under the lines of viciousness and bloodshed, as well as incorporating a little bit of "begging for forgiveness".
As a sequel, I tried to write it in the same flavor as Prescience of Augur. However, since Marseillaise Regicide is a faster song, it becomes more difficult to write interesting rhythms. Instead, I've tried to go for more spontaneous, climatic movements towards the end.
In regards to music theory, I've used quartal harmonies in places that don't necessarily need it. Starting from #t192 you can find them in the counter melody as well as the downwards arpeggio in #t1071. While I frequently use fourths as a compositional preference, I think it also helps contribute towards the unease and disorient of Marseillaise. Since stacked fourths are in the middle of the consonance-dissonance spectrum, you get something that feels oddly out-of-place as they don't completely resolve.
Marseillaise Regicide had a certain kind of energy that I'm used to—so I don't think it was too difficult to compose. At a certain point I became unlucky in finding ways to connect parts of the song tastefully. If I wanted to keep a certain section, often it would feel like juxtaposing two completely different songs. In general, Marseillaise took over 2 months to write.
(btw it's a bop):
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