Music for Vibraphone & Electronica - Matt Moore [DIGITAL]

Music for Vibraphone & Electronica fuses together three different sounds and styles: electronic drum and bass music, as pioneered and popularized by artists Square Pusher and Aphex Twin, the Indonesian music of Bali, and the eclectic world jazz of Pat Metheny. The vibraphone part is of medium technical demands but high musical demands, and fills many roles within the composition, from legato melody lines, to background ostinato, to improvisatory passages.

Genre: Vibraphone (4-mallet) with CD | # of Players: 1
Level: Medium | Duration: 6:20

Instrumentation
Vibraphone (3-octave)
CD accompaniment

Program Notes
Music for Vibraphone & Electronica is an attempt to fuse together three different sounds and styles to which I am drawn: electronic drum and bass music, as pioneered and popularized by artists Square Pusher and Aphex Twin, the Indonesian music of Bali, and the eclectic world jazz of Pat Metheny. The piece is composed almost entirely in a Balinese melodic mode often found in the music of gamelan gong kebyar, the five-tone pelog selisir. This mode is then rotated harmonically through three opposite-yet-equal starting points of Bb, Gb, and D, each vying for supremacy. After an open improvisation and a transient period of non-related harmony, Bb emerges in a victorious arrival, and all prior themes are re-stated in a new light. This imbalance cannot last, however, and in the closing section the three starting points resign themselves back to equality in a stable cycle that seems to last indefinitely. The vibraphone part is of medium technical demands but high musical demands, and fills many roles within the composition, from legato melody lines, to background ostinato, to improvisatory passages.