Cloud Forest for marimba and percussion quartet by Blake Tyson

Cloud Forest was inspired by my visits to Ecuador, my travels between Quito and Esmeraldas, and the Ecuadorian cloud forests. It begins with the spinning, uneven journey from the top of Ecuador to the Pacific Ocean and ends with the trip back to Quito. The work also depicts the beauty of the lush forests and the great times I had with my friends in Ecuador.

When I arrived in Esmeraldas after my long journey from Quito, the marimba I had expected to perform on was not there. The only marimba available was a small traditional instrument that had been built by a local musician. The piece I had planned to perform would not fit on this marimba. Rather than give up, I took the two hours I had before the concert, came up with some ideas, and then improvised a work that I entitled Journey to Esmeraldas. The main themes in Cloud Forest come from this improvisation.

Cloud Forest was commissioned by Spindrift Percussion Group in 2005. The original version was for percussion trio and soloist. In 2008 I revised the work for marimba soloist and percussion quartet.

The score and parts for Cloud Forest are available from SteveWeissMusic.com
Visit www.blaketyson.com for more information.

Category:

Music

Tags:

• Cloud
• Forest
• marimba
• percussion
• university
• of
• central
• arkansas
• florida
• state
• Blake
• Tyson
• Pro-Mark
• Dynasty
• Megan
• Arns
• Brian
• Baldauff
• Stephen
• Kehner
• Connor
• Stevens

[FeistyCoconut]

Absolutely fantastic! When you came to Batesville and performed "Barely Contained" I fell in love with this piece!

[BlakeTysonMusic]

@FeistyCoconut Thanks for your comment! I'm glad to hear you like it.

[MERTx123]

Very nice composition, and such a lovely title. Excellent job to the marimba player!

[BlakeTysonMusic]

@MERTx123 Thanks very much! I'm glad you enjoyed it.

[cristileni7]

im ecuadorian... lovely! great job!

[BlakeTysonMusic]

@cristileni7 Thanks! Sorry I am just now seeing your comment. I loved my visits to Ecuador and I hope to visit again sometime soon.

[BlakeTysonMusic]

@baconpatrol1 Sorry I'm just now seeing your comment all these months later. I appreciate it and I'm glad you like the piece. My recording of Firefish will be up soon. The UCA Percussion Festival this year (2011) will be on March 5th. If you're free, please come on out.

[BlakeTysonMusic]

@LoticaStudios Thanks for your comment. I am somehow just now seeing it. I appreciate your very kind words and I'm really glad you like the piece.

[BlakeTysonMusic]

@sammysungsung Good comment. It's not meant to be terribly obvious, just slightly disorienting. The compound meter at the end of the piece (same material) is meant to be more driving (and obvious). The conflict between perceived meters relies a lot on the vibraphone (with C# offbeats, then melodic material after the 5/16). Unfortunately it is very low in the mix because it's farthest away from the mic (that's attached to the camera). The djembe pickups to the 3/4 downbeats are important, too.

[sammysungsung]

i cant tell the difference between the intertwining 3 4 and 3 8 bars in the intro section? sounds like there's no metric difference.

[baconpatrol1]

Dr. Tyson came to our school and played this piece and another piece he is working on. I can't wait till its up on the web to hear again. It was seriously the best display of percussion mastery I've ever seen and heard