# Emergent



## Crudblud

So, I've been kind of inactive for a while, and there's a good reason for that. Binge drinking! But no, I've been busy making up for lost time (some of you may recall in September I lost most of my work, including a work in progress) and this here thingamabob is the first completed work since then. It is written for a pretty unusual instrumentation: Cristal Baschet, two Ondes Martenot (one of which is polyphonic), steel drums and Cloud Chamber Bowls. I am amazed that such things have been sampled, but there you have it!

Download (MP3)

Stream on Soundcloud


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## Crudblud

Well, I'd like to thank aleazk, BD and Mahlerian for their positive if muted response, but I'd definitely be interested to read specific comments if it's not too much to ask.


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## BurningDesire

Hey folks, get the anchors out of your pants! Its the triumphant return of Crudblud! This is an event! If you care at all about listening to awesome music you'll stream the hell out of this as soon as you can


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## aleazk

Hi, Crud. Haha, I knew you would say something like that. 
But you are right!. 
I'm working maniacally on an exposition I have to present next week, so I don't have the mental energy for writing a detailed review right now.
I really liked the piece, those Ondes Martenot make quite intriguing sounds.
I will come back next week.


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## ptr

Fun listen, very extrovertly meditative! Very easy to follow the lines listening on headphones, but can be a tad close/forceful at moments in this environment, I will give it a try on speakers on Monday!

/ptr


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## hreichgott

I think you did a lovely job exploiting the capabilities of those sounds.


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## BurningDesire

Oh CB, I'm sorry it took me so long to really listen, been kinda unwinding after the end of finals.

I love this piece. I love the surreal spatial mutations, where melodies go from sounding like they are in a gigantic hall to a small, reverbless space, and vice-versa. I especially love the flourishes in what I'm pretty sure are the cloud chamber bowls. And the beautiful sonorities you get on the cristal and other sustained glass sounds. The only thing I'm not a huge fan of (and really its just personal preference) are the articulations on many of the martenot notes, where they have a crisp, articulated, percussive attack, often with the note glissing up or down from there. It may be the nature of the samples, but it just makes them sound fake? I dunno. Other times, with the more typical soft articulation they sound pretty realistic at times. Regardless, that is a tiny gripe. I think this is a great piece, and a lovely return  and I'm glad to have had the privilege of listening to it.


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## Crudblud

Thanks, BD! I'm glad you could get into it, away from TC a lot of the response has been along the lines of "I don't get it," so as usual I am appreciative of the more thoughtful comments I often receive from you and others here.

One thing I've been trying to get away from is the idea of "realism" as meaning "what the physical instrument can do." I totally understand that a physical Ondes, even with some sort of mechanical operator that could input controls that quickly, would never be able to do what I have it doing here, but the fact I'm dealing with as a composer is that this is not a physical Ondes, it's a deconstructed and digitised Ondes that can do things its physical counterpart cannot, so to write for this instrument as though it had limitations it doesn't have (and this piece was by no means a complete exploration of everything I can make it do, only things that I felt were appropriate to the piece) just seems wasteful to me.


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## aleazk

That was a pretty surreal sound world, Crud. A quite interesting mixture of ideas; from musique concrète and electronic music to gamelan music. My favorite part is that at roughly 2:57.
I really like that combination of percussion instruments, playing gamelan-like sounds, with the spooky sounds of the Ondes Martenot. 
I see surreal images of a gamelan ensemble playing their music in a remote future, in the middle of an ultra-modern city.


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## Crudblud

aleazk said:


> That was a pretty surreal sound world, Crud. A quite interesting mixture of ideas; from musique concrète and electronic music to gamelan music. My favorite part is that at roughly 2:57.
> I really like that combination of percussion instruments, playing gamelan-like sounds, with the spooky sounds of the Ondes Martenot.
> I see surreal images of a gamelan ensemble playing their music in a remote future, in the middle of an ultra-modern city.


Thanks aleazk, I'm glad you like it.

As I was working on the piece a certain Oriental bent began to develop, especially when I included the steel drum and CCBs. Originally the instrumentation was somewhat different, and in fact featured some Korean percussion which I eventually removed, although I already had the Ondes and Cristal Baschet in mind. The writing for the Ondes was partially inspired by eastern varieties of the oboe and some of the playing styles I have encountered, such as this and this. Unfortunately my two favourite recordings to use as examples of these instruments are not on YT, but those videos are fine too.


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