Music for 18 Musicians

Researching into sound was quite a challenging area as we did not want to influence  the intimacy explored in the performance. We moved away from the idea of emotive sounds and pushed towards more minimalistic textures, structures, harmonies and dissonance.

We looked into various experimental and minimalistic sounds such as Phillip Glass and Steve Reich. Steve Reich composed one piece called ‘Music for 18 Musicians’ which consisited of 18 layers of instruments and vocals.

  1. cello
  2. female voice
  3. female voice
  4. female voice
  5. piano
  6. piano
  7. piano and maracas
  8. marimba and maracas
  9. marimba and xylophone
  10. marimba and xylophone
  11. marimba and xylophone
  12. metallophone and piano
  13. piano and marimba
  14. marimba, xylophone, and piano
  15. clarinet and bass clarinet
  16. clarinet and bass clarinet
  17. female voice and piano
Its important to consider that the use of different instruments within this piece creates a different quality, and through combining these different instruments creates thick contrapuntal textures.

The piece itself is based on the cycle of eleven chords and lasts for approx 55 minuetes. The sound itself creates an atmosphere that is easily forgettable. The use of this track is mainly just to fill the silence that resonates around the studio when there is no action occuring. This essentially means that the audience is led to focus on the intimacy created in the performance rather than the aesthetics framing it.

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