Ray Cole Music Samples

Experimental Music

• Fantasy for Computer-Driven Piano
  
  I composed this piece in 1995 or so to inaugurate a friend's brand new Yamaha Disklavier Grand Piano. The Disklavier is a regular acoustic piano that has been outfitted with sensors on each key and a computer port on the side that allows you to connect the piano to a computer. You can both record what you play into the computer and program the computer to play the Disklavier directly, like a very modern player-piano.
  
  The Fantasy is in a simple A/B form. In the A section, a constant chordal theme, which forms the "spinal column" of the piece, dominates and the fast runs play a subordinate role. In the B section, the fast runs dominate and attempt, without complete success, to subdue the imperturbable chordal theme from the A section.
  
  The style of this piece is heavily influenced by some of my favorite experimental music composers, particularly Conlon Nancarrow, who, in his most famous works--the Studies for Player-Piano--was effectively writing music for computer-driven piano as early as the 1940s, long before computers were available to composers. He did this by using player-pianos and hand-punching his complex music directly onto the paper rolls that control them. If you are curious about his music, do a Youtube search on him. Studies No. 8, 10, and 12 are my favorites, but any of the first dozen Studies are representative.
  
  
• Multiplex--Etude for Clarinet Solo
  
  An etude is a short musical composition designed to focus on the player's technique as a kind of study exercise. The technique under consideration here is "circular breathing" in which the player inhales through the nose while keeping air flowing into the instrument by emptying a reservoir of air stored in his or her cheeks. It allows the player of a wind instrument like the clarinet to seemingly play forever without taking a breath.
  
  Compositionally, though, the focus is on making the solo clarinet, which can only play one note at a time, sound as if it is playing multiple melodies at once. This is done by "time-sharing"--rapidly switching back and forth between the different musical "lines."
  

Film Music

• Powaqqatsi--New Opening Music
  
  Another of my musical interests is in background music composed for movies. To me, this is the "music engineering" to experimental music's "music research." In writing music for films, the composer has to achieve specific goals established by the drama unfolding on the screen. This piece was written as an exercise for a class I was taking. We were all supposed to rent the movie Powaqqatsi (the sequel to Koyaanisqatsi) and watch up through the title sequence with the sound turned off. There is no dialog, so this effectively allowed us to compose new music for that sequence without being influenced by the existing music (written by Philip Glass). The opening sequence shows an aboriginal people digging things (stones? gems? I no longer remember) out of a giant hole in the ground. Eventually, one gets injured and his companions have to carry him up the side of the crater-sized hole as well.
  
  The result of the assignment was very interesting. Every student wrote something quite different. When I watched the opening sequence, I thought the people digging stuff out of the crater were being forced to work this way against their will, that they were slaves, and the music I wrote tries to capture the sadness of that situation.
  
  But others interpreted the scene quite differently. One student's underscore music consisted only of drums, as he tried to capture the primitive, aboriginal quality of the people on screen. Anther student wrote music that was very martial, as if the people on screen were proudly marching off to build a bridge. And so on. No two were alike, though we all wrote music to accompany the exact same sequence of visuals in the film.
  
  I'm a bit embarrased about the quality of the performance in my piece. That's me on the clarinet. I hadn't really touched the instrument in something like 10 years when I decided to pull it out and play the clarinet part myself. Intonation could definitely be better. And I'm also not the greatest keyboard player. But, the long-held tones and the huge reverb still convey most of the mood I was trying to achieve.