Scratch the Surface I

cchaplin

Get Flash to see this player.

Description

"Scratch the Surface I" is the first movement of a 3 to 4 movement orchestral piece which I hope to complete in the near future. The title refers to a technique used by painters who scrape back thick layers of paint which they applied previously. It also refers to scratches found on vinyl records, which would bounce back the pickup arm, repeating a passage over and over again.

This might not be everyone’s cup of tea, but I’m quite happy with the result for now. My main concern is playability. A lot of the instruments are stretched to the limit of their range, especially the French horn which must jump big gaps. But I’m counting on the fact that if the melody line is shared between the 4 horns, it should be possible.

There are two sampled string effects which I use in this piece called "Penderecki" (01.27) and "Scratch" (01.52) which I was unable to notate in the score, and which I indicate with an approximate word written instruction. If anyone knows how to notate them, and would like to enlighten me, I would be very grateful.

For those who wish to see the score, it can be found here:
here

or drop me a note, and I will email it in PDF format.

Leave a Comment

You must be registered and logged-in to comment.

Song Stats

Hits: 1115
Comments: 16
Fans: 6
Plays: 138
Downloads: 53
Votes: 3
Uploaded: Mar 15, 2009 - 05:41:52 PM
Last Updated: Mar 16, 2009 - 04:58:01 AM Last Played: Nov 25, 2009 - 02:35:20 PM

Song License

Creative Commons License:
NoDerivs-NonCommercial

Song Actions

Hardware:

Yamaha Keyboard

Software:

East West Symphonic Orchestra Pro
Wave plug-ins

Comments

Feter

Feter said 256 days ago (March 15th, 2009)

Scratch the Surface I
WO ... the first word came to mind listening and reading the describtion..
is ...Creative ..this is certainly so interesting ..and impressive at
the same time ..impressionist ..still melodic ..I know the midi can give us
boundaries away of the actual instruments abilities are ..but fun to do ..
thnx alot for sharin !!!!

Check out my latest song called A Night With Feter feat'(Roxylee sloparts crissew johnwhitehead and Yamin AL Yamani )

cchaplin	cchaplin said 253 days ago (March 18th, 2009)
	Thank you Feter I guess this would be difficult to perform, there are a lot of time signature changes, and, as I mentioned in the description above, some of the instruments are probably stretched quite a bit, but I’m still hoping it is in the realm of the possible. Check out my latest song called Rappatack suite

LunaTrick	LunaTrick said 256 days ago (March 15th, 2009)
	Wow This is excellent... great composition with a full sound... really well conceived and performed. I love the use of the mallet instruments in particular. I can hear the Penderecki influence... perhaps some Messaien and late Shostakovich in there too. Really excellent work! Check out my latest song called Luna Gypsy Heart II (Eternal Firelight)

cchaplin	cchaplin said 253 days ago (March 18th, 2009)
	Thank you Luna Trick The mallet instruments are "anvils", quite a lot of them, in fact I haven’t really figured out the practicality of the whole percussion section, i.e. how many percussionist would be needed ? I think this piece would turn out to be very expensive to perform... oh well, one can still dream ! Check out my latest song called Rappatack suite

drakonis

drakonis said 255 days ago (March 16th, 2009)

Wow...
I hear some rhythmic (and orchestration) nods to Stravinski (a goof thing)... and although this style of orchestral music is on the edge of my comfort zone, I really enjoyed this. Still enough of a foothold for me to keep up, and little bits of bombast sprinkled with whimsy, loved it. You'll certainly keep the percussion section busy! My wife and I recently attended a world premiere concert of a "modern" Chinese piece that had tons of percussion effects... the redeeming part was at one point, it called for a couple of the percussionists to step forward, and alternately rip in half, different colors of paper, and throw them forward... we speculated, "how do you score the slow ripping of a piece of red, then blue paper?" :-)

This sounds playable, although (being a clarinet player) I heard at one point you really gave the clarinet a run for his money :-)

Anyway, no idea how you notate a "Pendrecki maneuver", sorry, neither Pendrecki nor "scratch" show up in my notation software either.

The East/West software sounds awesome, sigh. A very ambitious piece, but looks like you have a good handle on things!

ttfn,
Drakonis

Check out my latest song called Lullaby for the Inner Child

cchaplin

cchaplin said 253 days ago (March 18th, 2009)

Thanks Drakonis
I'm thrilled, you stayed with it, even though this was on the edge of your comfort zone. I think that's the best compliment I could get !

I'm pretty sure that the "Penderecki" sample I use in this, is from his "Threnody for the Victims of Hiroshima". I tried to procure a score, and found out that it's more or less out of print and very hard to come by. It's strange because it is one of the most quoted scores in orchestration books regarding new ways of notation. Anyway, I've since been given a link to a website SheetMusicPlus.com which sells the score, so I will hopefully get my answer.

Thanks for stopping by.

Check out my latest song called Rappatack suite

guitapick	guitapick said 255 days ago (March 16th, 2009)
	Cup of tea... ....more like a full pot...with milk and sugar...and little pastries... But seriously...this IS my cup of tea...blows me away that this is virtual instruments...awesome Check out my latest song called Outside the Corral

cchaplin	cchaplin said 253 days ago (March 18th, 2009)
	High Tea ! Lol, this pot was a particularly long and difficult brew ! but seriously... my favourite tea is the one which comes with warm scones, jam and Cornish clotted cream... yum! Check out my latest song called Rappatack suite

Day-Dreamer	Day-Dreamer said 255 days ago (March 16th, 2009)
	Scratch The Surface! It's my cup of tea can I have two sugars please. I ike it sweet just like this great musical adventure. Love it:) Check out my latest song called IT'S OVER (V2)

cchaplin	cchaplin said 253 days ago (March 18th, 2009)
	Thank you Day-Dreamer for your kind words, and I'm glad you enjoyed it. Check out my latest song called Rappatack suite

lengold	lengold said 254 days ago (March 18th, 2009)
	Christopher This is a massive work - I would totally believe that this was a real orchestra playing. Although I am a complete novice as far as classical music goes, I can say that I really enjoyed listening to this. Very impressive. Cheers Len Check out my latest song called Dodgy Doughnut

cchaplin	cchaplin said 253 days ago (March 18th, 2009)
	Thank you Len I'm glad you enjoyed it. Whilst working on this, I was listening a lot to Thomas Ades (a favourite English composer of mine), and Elliott Carter, who has grown on me more and more. Elliott Carter recently celebrated his 100th birthday ... I really only do classical because I want to live long ! Check out my latest song called Rappatack suite

composerclark

composerclark said 251 days ago (March 20th, 2009)

Excellent!
I am REALLY enjoying this music! I particularly like the clarity of textures you choose; no overscoring here. I tried to have a look at the score but it didn't work for me... I may be using an outdated version of Scorch.

I'm inundated with work right now, but I'll try to look up a copy of Penderecki's Threnody to see how he notates things there. If I want a scratchy sound in the violin(s) I just write something like "Scratch sound - apply very hard pressure to bow" over the notes. It sounds like there's some "col legno battute" going on at around 1:27 of your piece — tapping the strings with the wood of the bow, or with the tip.

Check out my latest song called Scarlet Nightfall

cchaplin

cchaplin said 251 days ago (March 20th, 2009)

Thank you Clark

There is a new version of Scorch you need to download at Sibeliusmusic.com, but I wouldn't bother because, ever since they upgraded it, it works even worse than before, assigning many wrong MIDI instruments to the parts.

Thanks for your offer to look up Threnody for me. I actually ordered the score from SheetMusicPlus.com, and will hopefully be getting it soon.

What I've done in the score is mark those two effects "Penderecki" and "Scratch" with a worded instruction. For "Penderecki" I put: "rapid 'col legno battuto' effect covering the whole range of the violins, and divided between them, some running from top to bottom, and some from bottom to top"
And for "Scratch" I put: "rapid scratching effect with slight crescendo".
My only concern with "Scratch" effect is that it is very loud in reality, and in my piece the effect happens during the more quieter sections.

Thanks for stopping by. Hope you are not too overworked, but hope some of that work will result in you posting some music soon.

Check out my latest song called Rappatack suite

pigeon	pigeon said 251 days ago (March 20th, 2009)
	Ughhh This is not Classical as I know it. It is experimental not even modern classical. My god. It's ... a noise The Pigeon has spoken

cchaplin	cchaplin said 250 days ago (March 21st, 2009)
	Yes, the Pigeon has spoken, and Mike Tyson said "I don't understand why people would want to get rid of pigeons. They don't bother no one" Check out my latest song called Rappatack suite

Fan List

Artist Info

Ever since I was born, I've been taking one breath in, one breath out... so far so good! In the mean time Si tu savais - Bireli Lagrene ... [see more]

Check out some of my other songs:

Genre Info

More songs in Classical:

Chat

drakonis	62
Feter	41
Gaylen75	3
Hickling_Stan	0
jiguma	55
Komrade K	52
perceptualvortex	55
Pete_NB	39