Another piece from my cycle "the Stars of the Constellations" for Altais in the northern constellation of Draco, for chamber orchestra. Scored for: flute, oboe, clarinet, bassoon, 2 horns, trumpet, trombone, piano, harp and strings.  Mostly sequenced, but some live parts played by me: flute, strings and a bit of harp.

Altais - Draco by Michel Plourde

An improvisation for recorder quartet (S, S, A, T), tape and effects I made one night in 2014 while delaying work on a big arranging project.  I improvised the first track, did a rough graphic sketch and then recorded the other three parts. I liked it without the tape part but kept it in anyway.  I'm not sure what to make of it other than it's dissonant and odd. It now has a companion piece for recorder quartet - Ahfa al Farkadain. 

Both these pieces are part of my cycle of pieces entitled "the Stars of the constellations" for the constellation Ursa Minor.

Anwar al Farkadain - Ursa Minor

A piece that started and finished as an improvisation, with some composition in the middle of that. Scored for male choir (well, many tracks of me using Garage Band). Part of a series of studies for me to figure out "how would I write this or that?".  This is part of a few ideas I had recently that involve weird sounds, microtonal tunings and just intonation (near the end).

Vocal Experiment #1-2014

My score for a non-existent cartoon. Written in a Carl Stalling style for med. orchestra (minus all the brass). I played all the parts myself (on the actual instruments - no samples other than the organ).

Scored for: piccolo, 2-3 flutes, 2 clarinets, (ten, sop, sopranino) recorders, trumpet, garden hose horn, slide whistle, harp, piano, organ, banjo, orch. bells, percussion, acoustic bass & strings (anywhere from a sextet up to 8/6/5/4/2)

My Imaginary Cartoon Score by Michel Plourde

A demo of a Renaissance inspired ditty for chamber ensemble composed and performed by me in Aug. 2016. It was performed on:
2 flutes, sopranino, soprano and tenor recorders, 2 clarinets, melodica, 3 percussion, 5 violins, 2 violas, 3 cellos and bass.

RenaisSong

This is a demo/sketch of the first 1/4 tone piece I've ever written that I like. It's a dissonant and difficult interval to write with and a few people have handled it well but most pieces are just not very good. All my earlier attempts have had neat bits but didn't work over all. I like this one for some reason - maybe because it's short. I will do a video for it with the notation. It is dedicated to Monika, who just left the Trebas Institute after working there for 21 years. She will be missed.

What Shall We Do Now that Monika has Left?

The initial sketch for part of a now large scale micro-tonal piece for guitar and string orchestra (about half done).  It took me years to learn how to notate this properly.  Part of my cycle "The Stars of the Constellations" for Canus Major - Sirius (& the Pup)

Recorded in 2005 on my Fostex 8-track. One track of detuned guitar, and about 30 tracks of strings (3 basses, 6 cellos, 6 violas, 16 violins)

Sirius - The Pull of the Pup by Michel Plourde

A work in progress for vocals and drone.  I got to sing some overtone throat effects (birdsong) but have to redo the parts and some of the drone.  I probably won't get to do that until the summer.  All parts played and sung by me (recorded in Garage Band).

Sterope is one of the dimmer of the seven bright stars in the loose star cluster "the Pleiades" in the constellation of Taurus. Part of my cycle "The Starts of the Constellations - for Taurus".  Sterope (or Asterope) is the smaller star at the top to the right of centre of the cluster in the picture.

Sterope (Taurus-The Pleiades) by Michel Plourde

This is the 1st of three tunes I did in colaboration with Wayne Lorenz back in 1997 to 1998, which were all demos and never really "finished". He gave me a cassette with 4 or 5 rhythm tracks on it to see what I'd come up with, and I ended up using 3 of them for the project, which is based around the concept of multiple basses.  This one has 4 main bass tracks and a "chorus" of 4 or 5 basses doing the background parts.  I took these 3 pieces and anything else that was done with multiple basses and slapped together an album entitle "Music to the Centre of the Earth", but the production was awful on most of the tunes (all demos) that I stopped handing it out a year or so later.

The title on the cassette was "Funky B&N Power" but I couldn't make out Wayne's small writing, so I guess that's the name of the rhythm track and Funky Ben Dower is the name of the tune I used it in.

Funky Ben Dower (demo) by Michel Plourde

Another huge orchestral piece of mine that will take a very long time to finish, so I'm sticking up the draft now.  This started as some of the cues for Buck's movie ScareHouse and I assembled them into a rough piece and worked on it for about a year or so before it got shelved.  After studying microtonality a few years more, I worked on until it was almost a different piece.  So. I'm left with this half-way piece demo thingy I recorded between 2004 and 2006 (then my 8-track died).

All the parts are played by me and were recorded on my FD8 8-track.  At that point, the piece was scored for 3 recorders, 3 flutes, 2 or 3 clarinets, piano, 3 percussion and a large string section: 16 + 14 violins (I think I only recorded 20), 12 violas, 10 cellos and 8 - 10 basses.

This is sort of "the beds" for the piece as most of the piano and percussion parts are missing from this recording.

Ancha for orchestra (1st draft) by Michel Plourde

I am a composer/musical researcher/performer who spends most of my time teaching or doing live sound. All of the pieces are composed, recorded and played by me, on acoustic instruments.  
( but there are a few electronic things )

Michel Plourde (Spock)

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