Tape and ekphrastic catuskoti for strings. Cover art by Katie Taylor. Tadvanalila, Part II (for string quartet) Violin: Cecilia Garcia, Viola: Marko Otmacic, Cello: Ana Topalovic, Double Bass: Mihalis Kalkanis Score: https://www.sheetmusicplus.com/en/product/tadvanalila-part-ii-for-string-quartet-21792593.html Download: https://www.broadjam.com/songs/geoffgeer/tadvanalila-part-ii-cecilia-garcia-marko-otmacic-ana-topalovic-mihalis-kalkanis-geoff-geer

The idea of the moment, immanence and boundaries was important for me to get across. The abrupt cuts in this piece were meant to portray fleetingness, like the chapters of a book. The piece is both atonal and tonal, having experimented with various techniques of Claude Debussy, Arnold Schoenberg, Nikolai Roslavets, Luigi Nono, Iannis Xenakis and Natasha Barrett. Tadvanalila, Part II investigates the resetting of instrumental and sound-object phrases amongst varying material. There is constant resolution of dissonance, with moments of considerable consonance juxtaposing the dissonance, and an end fading to oblivion. It is highly lyrical and melancholy, but just when a theme begins to develop it inevitably veers off course. I wanted it to evoke peace, beauty and terror with fleeting, incarnating forms of complexity.

Tadvanalila, Part II (for string quartet)

Like the Night (for string quartet)

Mirror Beyond (for string quartet)

Love's Never

Like the Night (version 4)

The Broken Oracle is music for orchestra and tape, for concrète layer, alto flute, violin 1, violin 2, double bass and piano, and consists of two parts totalling roughly 10 minutes. There is a rapid pace of changing themes and coloration within and between the layers which blurs the distinction between themes and interventions. It is dense with only some passing shades of breaking. Some degree of impressionism is portrayed through use of fragmented whole tones and part two uses musical mismatch negativity (MMN). I used many of the techniques developed during the earlier works: lower pitches in the instruments to bring forward sound-objects, less shifting of pitches rhythmically to bring forward sound-objects, interventions with higher atonality that act as interventions to overall balance and cohesion (bars 82-101 of part 1), and cuts that abruptly change theme. Continuity of structure and order are done by much transposition, harmonic alteration, foreshadowing and recapitulation. Serialist sound-rows of eighth note (quaver) length take place, the phrases varying in length which create a sense of density, like at bars 89-101 and at the beginning. One passage started with dense sound-objects becoming gradually sparser, as I wanted to explore gradations (bars 103-113). Bars 92-102 has sound-objects starting dense, falling to sparse and then becoming dense again. I consulted the dice on dissonance, with higher numbers signifying high dissonance and mid-numbers signifying consonance and dissonance. For part 2 there are fast paced changes of themes with varying dissonances and changes which are somewhat disjunct and much like sectional cuts. I tried to experiment with palindromes in both layers. Palindromic sound-rows can contrast varying amounts of dissonance or consonance, and palindromic patterning between instrumental lines is explored to form texture and create gaps for the sound-objects to come forward.

The Broken Oracle, Part II

The Broken Oracle, Part I

Tadvanalila, Part II

A Desolate Market is a tone poem depicting my impressions of David Lindsay's The Haunted Woman, and the name is taken from Blake's The Four Zoas where "Wisdom is sold in the desolate market where none come to buy". It is a short 5 minute piece for orchestra and tape, written for concrète layer, alto flute, violin 1, violin 2, double bass and piano. After placing the central 4/4 theme of bars 29-62 from the preliminary work, and creating a similar expansive, bustling, toiling mid-section leading into tranquility, I ended with a soft consonant intervention and recapitulation of the beginning theme. The main dark, brooding 4/4 theme of bars 29-62 was greatly cut down, modulated down, refined, and has a tagged-on end which is further modulated. I did not get to implement mediant chromatics in the bass, but did so where I could, for example the shift from bars 25-29 that modulates from the static intervention into the mid-theme, and from bars 57-63. I felt that the piece is more developed in certain ways than the earlier pieces of Through the Six Worlds, because I knew about use of low and high frequencies between the layers, the use of longer instrumental notes and densities to bring out the sound-objects more, pattern-swapping of instrumental lines and gap patterning, and I had experience of forming contrast, continuity and discontinuity. The piece also experiments with slippages of instrumental lines that fragment ostinatos, which I began to develop in Tadvanalila, and I tried to have equality of lines. The flute is similar to Tadvanalila in that its appearances are often synced to the cyclic phrases and can be semi-atonal at times, while the violins are in thirds and sixths mostly, and vary from consonant to dissonant. Atonality is touched on, almost expanding the consonance into polyphonic multitonality, especially during the toiling second mid-section.

A Desolate Market

This piece uses mediant relations and serialism with tonal banding of serialism in the piano, knocking out notes to produce shifting sets similar to synthetic chords, with the time between sifting sets determined randomly. One phrase uses mediant relations overlaid onto atonality through symmetry. A shifting piano contrasts the mediant chromaticism elsewhere. I tried to use more variations and repeating sound-object phrases and instrumental phrases, which would contrast each other. Also, I would roll die for sound-object placement, length and frequency knockout. I used a high degree of sound-object and instrumental symmetry but also used image breaking for discontinuity and decoherence.

Demon Sands

US Born musician Geoff Geer is a songwriter, composer, music theorist, singer, guitarist, producer, performer and educator with over 70 releases and 30+ years in the industry. His PhD compares 20th century art musics between concrete and instrumental styles. Viva was with top composer Howard Skempton (student of Cornelius Cardew). Finalist 2007 in UKSC with 14 semi-finalists, television finalist Rollin' Good Times 1995, music for Barron's educational CD Wordfest! and independent film, online radio and radio. Highly followed author on Academia in the top 2%/3% 2023, top 4% 2024. Geoff worked with artists like Lawrie MacMillan from Stiltskin / The Iron Horse, Tony Looby (The Skatalites And Friends – Ska Splash), Iain McKinna with chart toppers like Spirit of the Glen and Mouth Music, renowned acousmatic composer Jonty Harrison, Niall Muir from Mouth Music / Seelyhoo, Andrew Nicholls (pre-production engineering for Sade's Babyfather & Long Hard Road), Scottish function band Callanish, the Kalamandir Orchestra (Temple of Fine Arts), Heather Burnett-Rose singer for Clapton, Mike Oldfield, Angelina Jolie, Paul McKinna music in Meet the Spartans, top lithographer Nele Zirnite, leading Greek jazz double bassist Mihalis Kalkanis, Cecilia Garcia (Argentina National Orchestra), Ana Topalovic (Sony), Marko Otmacic (Zagreb Philharmonic Orchestra), The Anglia Chamber Choir, The Oxford Improvisors, The Dagmars, Steve Moore (BBC, Netflix, ITV), Nick White, Agung Mountain, Auld Reekie Rocks, Know, artists Alissar McCreary, Blanca Rodriguez Beltran, Katie Taylor and many others. Studied with Paul Whitty (student of Michael Finnissy), Ray Lee, Paul Dibley (Brit Award Experimental Music), Patrick Farmer (student of Michael Pisaro), Chandrakant Kapileshwari (Ravi Shankar's favourite singer), Kevin Flanagan (Led Zeppelin, Katrina and the Waves, James Brown, Roger Waters, arranger for Jools Holland show and others), Paul Rhys, John Banks (Club Inégales with Peter Wiegold), Alexandra Wilson (The Puccini Problem: Opera, Nationalism, and Modernity), Julio d'Escrivan (A&E/HBO), Phil Brooke (Jazz Unlimited, Radio 3’s Jazz Line-Up, Radio 2’s Arts Programme), Abigail Aronson (Berklee) and Steve Wark (Berklee). Geoff worked in over 33 kitchens and only uses original software / plugins.

Geoff Geer

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