Kyle Gann - Charing Cross

Kyle Gann is probably the flag bearer of minimalism. This is one of his compositions.
"Sometimes I like to use microtones in a songlike, almost pop kind of context to bring the tuning weirdness into even greater relief. Charing Cross moves among chords based on the 7th, 9th, 11th, and 13th harmonics, as well as on the tonic and on 15/14 (a virtual 17th harmonic, though actually slightly more exotic). Using software that let me add microtones freely as I went along, I ended up with 39 pitches to the octave. (Only 37 different pitches were used in the realization; when two pitches are closer than five cents I merge them, just to simplify the realization.) The form of the piece is a loose additive process: first the 7th-harmonic and 13th-harmonic tonalities are introduced, later the 9th and 15/14, and the 11th-harmonic tonality is saved for the very end. The opening bass line started ringing in my head as I was sitting outside near the Charing Cross underground station in London, and I commenced composing the piece on a napkin at the closest outdoor Italian restaurant."
brought here under the Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial 3.0 License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/3.0/).

Category:

Music

Tags:

• Kyle Gann
• Minimalism
• Charing Cross

[CrimsonZsexy]

@mikern2001 that's only because u look at the images

[sweetlittle]

I really like this. I have never heard of him but I was reading about minimalism on wikipedia.

[llaoll]

this joint here's the shit

[thallocub]

amazing, i knew him only by his essays on minimalism but i see he's a great composer, too.

[rfc1able]

FULL OF PAKIS NOW ,, THEY HAVE THE BEST HOUSES

[mikern2001]

The images are better than the musak.

[Hirfel]

I like it

[herma57]

very nice, has a grittee edge;