Incubus: A Dream in Three Parts (final project)

I sat down and decided that I wanted to know exactly what my musical parameters were. That is, in my attempt to make it as musical as possible, what were things I could do convincingly and well? Once I realized that there was little chance of me being able to do anything particularly melodic or rhythmic in a traditional sense in such a short amount of time, I settled for pursuing a free-floating sensation in my piece, where specific rhythms and notes might reoccur, but the listener was to drift decidedly forward. I wanted to build at sense of urgency, but at the same time, the sense of directionless-ness.

My aural goal was to play with pitches and rhythms inherent in non-musical sound. That is, I believe all sound is somehow musical, even supposedly non-pitched sounds or droning sounds with supposedly no rhythm. I picked sounds and tried to arrange them in such a way that the listener might be brought to hear the music of non-musical instruments – namely to reproduce as closely as possible the sounds of established, accepted, musical instruments using those of random objects. I threw in two phrases of actual instrumentation to provide an anchor (something for the objects to ‘copy’) and a source for comparison.

The title is incubus, meaning ‘nightmare.’ Hopefully you’ll find the music bizarre yet familiar, like some dreams. 🙂

Ben-Zhen

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Sound credits to:

Crow calls by inchadney
http://www.freesound.org/samplesViewSingle.php?id=52450
thunderstorm by RHumphries
http://www.freesound.org/samplesViewSingle.php?id=2523
castanet by theoriginalcrazydave
http://www.freesound.org/samplesViewSingle.php?id=24227
Persia by ERH
http://www.freesound.org/samplesViewSingle.php?id=30310
cello 1 loop by ERH
http://www.freesound.org/samplesViewSingle.php?id=30188
siren with echo by guitarguy1985
http://www.freesound.org/samplesViewSingle.php?id=67309
synth alarm 12 by phons
http://www.freesound.org/samplesViewSingle.php?id=35434
clock ticking by acclivity
http://www.freesound.org/samplesViewSingle.php?id=13712
bowl struck by suburban grilla
http://www.freesound.org/samplesViewSingle.php?id=2166
1 by heatfuse
http://www.freesound.org/samplesViewSingle.php?id=13302
goblet ping by acclivity
http://www.freesound.org/samplesViewSingle.php?id=17870
dark church bell by DJ Chronos
http://www.freesound.org/samplesViewSingle.php?id=45137
water1 by pushtobreak
http://www.freesound.org/samplesViewSingle.php?id=16795
sandpaper5 by HerbertBoland
http://www.freesound.org/samplesViewSingle.php?id=28541