* MUSICAL GEOMETRY *

I have been drawn to geometry since I was a child. Some of my first works of art, at age 8, were large pastel drawings of multi-colored geometric figures. I continued drawing geometries as a teenager. Around 2006 I began researching the role of "social geometry" in music (i.e. how people are arranged in space in musical contexts). I was also studying geometric forms in botany, crystallography, and African village design. I then began composing music (Faces of Sound) with graphic scores that displayed the geometric arrangement of performers in space. Then through a chain reaction of sound, a scored-improvisation, using diverse instrumentation, repeated in a respiratory cycle. This music was rooted in Portland, Oregon and very dependent upon the incredible community of friends and artists there. After leaving Portland, I composed one last ensemble work in this manner (Frond) at Princeton University. When I returned to Portland in 2018, I also returned to my musical geometry, this time inspired by my dreams (Natural Magic). Through Third Angle New Music, I explored a form of animist dream karaoke for solo performer, featuring a pre-recorded soundtrack and an open score. More recently, with Wondering Stars I experimented with applying this geometry to an abstract sound space, and the chain reaction to myself through blind studio overdubs. Animator Orland Lónglight has also animated the geometric score for "birth of phanes."

*  • .

WONDERING STARS (2020)


 

Wondering Stars

Matt Marble

In cart Not available Out of stock

Wondering Stars (2020) is a pair of works for acoustic and electric guitars, synths, shakers, bells, jaw harp, harmonicas, garden sprayer, and baoding balls. Each work is based on a geometric score, which I use to orchestrate and map the instruments in a fixed radial sequence. I begin with the center point, which I mute at the end of the work.

Wondering Stars (2020) is a pair of works for acoustic and electric guitars, synths, shakers, bells, jaw harp, harmonicas, garden sprayer, and baoding balls. Each work is based on a geometric score, which I use to orchestrate and map the instruments in a fixed radial sequence. I begin with the center point, which I mute at the end of the work. Then I layer each instrument in isolated response to its geometric neighbor. I do this without hearing the whole audio, only different local relationships, one at a time. Subtle variations in response-timing then coalesce incidentally into synchronistic chords, shimmering textures, and hocketed melodies. Then I edit by deletion and overdub holistic parts, not unlike the way I develope the original geometric form into colorful design through layered sheets of velum. In a cyclical chain reaction, this music rearranges itself like a kaleidoscope, flickers like lightning bugs, and breathes like an enigmatic lung.

These works are solo realizations of a previous series of ensemble works called “Faces of Sound.” For more on these ensemble works, visit:

https://mattmarble.net/faces-of-sound

Godspeed, M

birth of phanes (11:58) for acoustic and electric guitar, synth, shakers,

blue flower (10:28) for acoustic and electric guitar, synth, bells, baoding balls, harmonicas, jaw harp, garden sprayer

All instruments, recording, mastering, and images by Matt Marble

© Matt Marble Music contact: memarble@gmail.com

Greensboro, North Carolina April, 2020

Read more…
0:00/???
  1. 1
    Your price

    blue flower

    Please choose a price: $ USD ($3.00 or more)

    Please pay at least $3.00

    Out of stock
    0:00/10:28
  2. 2
    Your price

    birth of phanes

    Please choose a price: $ USD ($3.00 or more)

    Please pay at least $3.00

    Out of stock
    0:00/11:58

* • . 
 
Animated geometric score for "birth of phanes" (2020)
Animation and video: Orland Nutt • Drawings and music: Matt Marble

NATURAL MAGIC (2018-Present)


 

Natural Magic

Matt Marble

Natural Magic (2016-present) is a series of experimental animist karaoke meditations for pre-recorded soundtrack and solo instrumentalists, inspired by Michael Maier's Atalanta Fugiens (1617) and Jerry Hunt's Song Drapes (1992). Each piece draws from a series of dreams in which I've communicated with various animals (wolf, spider, turtle, and

Natural Magic (2016-present) is a series of experimental animist karaoke meditations for pre-recorded soundtrack and solo instrumentalists, inspired by Michael Maier's Atalanta Fugiens (1617) and Jerry Hunt's Song Drapes (1992). Each piece draws from a series of dreams in which I've communicated with various animals (wolf, spider, turtle, and others). Dream symbolism is applied to the compositional process, as well as methods of esoteric divination, melodic translations of natural patterns (from botany, entymology, zoology, and mineralogy), and intuitive geometries. With an "open" graphic score the performer interprets the work such that every performance is somewhat or significantly different.

Conversation with a Wolf features Jonathan Sielaff on bass clarinet and uses botanical inflorescences to derive melodic material. Arachnomancy was commissioned by Carl and Margery Abbott via Third Angle. It features John Nastos on alto saxophone and uses the form of the spider web to derive melodic material.

Read more…

FACES OF SOUND (2006-2008)