strange beauty

Date: 09/21/13
Orchestra: Chamber
Attendance: good!
Repertoire rehearsed: One weird song, and one not so weird.
Little things I noticed: I'm usually not the one who complains about things a lot, but honestly, I've never ever been satisfied with the lighting situation at the MAC. And the last two weeks in chamber rehearsals particularly bothered me. Hope we can fix this issue rather soon...

Note:
I may be the only one (I'm hoping that you will all join me later), but I'm really really excited about what we are doing with the Bulgarian Folk Song, for many reasons.
First of all, this is how we will sit for this piece.
          Db
      Vc   Vc
    Vla      Vla
  Vln2        Vln2
Vln1            Vln1

(with a clarinet between 2nds and 1sts, and in a more "V" like shape than a traditional semi-circle)

With this setup, I mean to provide not only music, but also a sonic experience to the audience. I would like to utilize the depth, and the locations of the instrument, to play with not only with the sound itself, but also with "where" the sound is coming from. I mean to play with the depth and the sides (right or left of the bass) of sounds' origin, and also visual effects (with bowings etc...), with this setup!

It's gonna be so much fun!

So this Bulgarian song is one of the songs I really like from the two Cd's I have of Bulgarian folk songs. You might ask "why Bulgarian folk songs???". The answer is simple. It is unique, and beautiful.

Bulgarian folk music is usually based on compound meter rhythm - a combination of 2's and 3's of rhythmic pattern - for example, the one we are doing is in 7/8, meaning each measure (in this case) is divided into two groups of two eighth notes (two quarter notes), and a group of three eighth notes (a dotted quarter note). So you'd count the 7 eighth notes of the measure with accents on the first, third, and fifth eighth notes. Like this, "ONE-two-ONE-two-ONE-two-three". It kind of sounds like a lopsided and awkward 3/4 (with an extra eighth note on the third beat). I think of a three-legged animal with the last leg longer than the other two, sometimes... Imagine it's walk.

Bulgarian folk music is often modal too (however, not in this particular piece, which is in F minor), and like in many modal pieces, the harmony is based on the interval of fourths rather than harmony based on the intervals of thirds, which is the kind of harmony we hear in most any kind of music most people listen to. This gives it a definitely more foreign and ethereal, and more dissonant, but yet somehow more open quality to the overall sound. And speaking of dissonances, they never seem to shy away from dissonances - in fact they seem to rather enjoy them. You can hear prolonged passages of parallel seconds (one of the most "dissonant" of the intervals) in many of it's music, which maybe it's primary characteristic sound of the Bulgarian music.

The music is often playful, so it is a perfect platform for us to really "play" with the sounds that we make!

Because it is unlike most music we ever heard or played before, it might take a bit of time getting used to, but once we have it in our ears, it should be quite manageable, and even easy.

I hope you all get excited about it as much as I am :)