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- Myles
#2. Double Gypsy is the second of ten tracks being released on YouTube and Tumblr for the album, TUNE, by composer Myles Marlow. TUNE is the first album to be released completely, and solely by means of Social Media only, with no physical, digital, or buyable product. Every Monday for ten weeks, a subsequent track, including a new Scot Howard illustration, will be released here.
DOUBLE GYPSY is a dance, a performance. I picture it with a stage that’s a bit too small. Or maybe the stage is the right size, but the dancers and musicians are a little overly enthusiastic.
With some music I think in terms of a story or a sequence of events where something happens. With DOUBLE GYPSY, it’s a moment in time, a snapshot of these performers and their little stage. The instrumentation is quirky and feels like they made the best of an eclectic assortment of orchestral players, percussionists and drummers, along with a quartet (violin, guitar, trumpet, and clarinet) that enjoys passing the tune back and forth.
In the first draft it was a wink to a mid-century French cafe. It was focused on three instruments: accordion, guitar and a violin with the accordion being the central focus. But as I developed it, I realized the tune wasn’t about a time period or a place as much as it was about quirky instruments with quirky players, moving on and off that little stage. I pulled back on the accordion more and more until I finally pulled it out entirely. The accordion can be a quite bossy instrument. In many ways this tune still has an accordion soul, so I wasn’t real satisfied by ditching it. If I’m thinking about it, I often hear it arranged for solo accordion in my head. But I wanted the other instruments to be competing and posturing with each other. So it was hello clarinet, goodbye accordion.
DOUBLE GYPSY is the second oldest piece in TUNE. I wrote it about 2-1/2 years ago. It was one of the first pieces I wrote where I particularly wanted to blend different synths with an orchestra with guitars and with various percussion. So there’s clarinet, synth, guitar, oboe, trumpet, violin, double bass, xylophone, drums, percussion and of course a tuba. No wonder the stage seems so small.
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There’s nothing to buy here, so if you enjoy it, please share it with your friends and link to it on your web pages. We appreciate the support. Here’s a link to cut and paste for the YouTube video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DK6rX2thnXI
All 10 tracks of TUNE will be released, in this format, — one per week, every Monday. The third track will be released at MylesMarlow.com next Monday. February 7, 2011.
Illustration by Scot Howard, The Digital Butterfly Project, http://DigitalButterfly.com
(c) 2011, Myles Marlow, All Rights Reserved
