Tibetan Tension

[Mike]

My first song of this kind.. I don't know what type of music you would call it..
I used the 7-tet tuning of Thailand with the sitar part.

I rendered the midi file using the computer of a guy down the street from me, he has Eastwest Colossus.

please give me your critiques =)

[Anne Goodwin]

Not a critique Mike but a response . . . the music is undeniably dark, scary, haunting. It is beautiful and it is effective. It gives a picture of the place and I think of the people. Intriguing and mysterious. Would we dare go there?

[Mike]

well at least I know it conveys the mood I wanted it too. =)
I wrote it shortly after watching a new report on the whole situation going on there. It just brakes my heart.

[Jack Pickett]

Spooky! Its good to hear someone genuinely politically inspired - there isn't nearly enough of it in music these days. Have you seen a film called Kundun by Martin Scorcese - its a film I never tire of and has truly spine-tingling music!

Your piece is cool - I'm not feeling the midi choir - but I guess these are constraints we all have to work within. There is a sense of loss in your work that reflects the situation well. The sitar is nice too - is that you playing?

[Mike]

I have seen kundun once in a class at collage. I think it was a philosophy something or other dont remember off hand it was a long time ago.
The sounds used are all from EastWest Colossus VSTi
the sitar is tuned to 7tet that means the octave is divided 7 equal divisions instead of the 12 that most of us are used to.

Im glad you enjoyed it. I agree with the sound of the choir.. if I actually had a copy of colossus I would be able to tweak it but I just took a disk with a midi file over to my neighbor and used his software.

[Harpsichordal]

Yes, this piece would fit well to a scary movie! I really liked the sitar section...you wouldn't have expected a sitar part with this piece, but it worked well. Thanks for sharing.

[Mike]

the fun part is that it started as a study of alternative tunings and the sitar was composed first the rest was filled in later as a practice in using cluster chords (the vocal parts) and using the steel scraping noise as a timbrel texture. To further the exploration into texture, if you listen close the sitar is doubled and the double is run through a phaser and a slapback echo that is slowly increased in intensity. its fairly low in the mix but it adds texture and thickens up the sound.

[Jan Civil]

sort of movie music theme for a demonic possession story? because the strong root movement calls to mind the Church, which somehow, cause of The Exorcist, nah actually cause it's always terrified me.... anyways...

you can get the choir to be more authentic sounding with some convolutions of big halls. Vienna Suite is killer in this regard. you're saying that this is Colossus out of the box? what processing did you use in Colossus then? it has a pretty big sound for just a vsti. but EW does produce their stuff to do this and make it movie composer viable in the most competitive way now, what.

When I hear sitar and other intonations, I don't like it when there are lotta chord changes around, it takes me out of the space I appreciate for that sort of sound.

[norah lorway]

This is wonderful! I've listened to it a bunch already. Good work. Are you using any electronics, btw?

[Mike]

Everything on this is composed and arranged with Guitar pro.
I exported a wave file from that running through Colossus. and yes that is colossus out of the box..

I did widen the stereo field a bit and I ran a very subtle compression when mastering it useing cooledit pro.