Knock em Down (feat. Cash Cobain & lougotcash)

Cash Cobain-Slizzy Picasso

Track 16 from Vontee The Singer's album "LOVERS & FRIENDS", originally released on June 30th, 2023. All credit goes to the respective artists and their labels.

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LOVERS & FRIENDS

Vontee The Singer - Sarah's Interlude

No More - Cash Cobain , Kyle Rich, Bay Swag, & Chow Lee (PlaqueBoyMax Stream)

keep it a buck

Fasho - Gunna (unreleased) 2025

GREATEST LOVE CASH COBAIN UNRELEASED

Phalanges, for Harp solo (1995) - program notes
The title "Phalanges" refers to the fingers' bones, the very skeleton of the player, the subcutaneous motor skills that underlie the act of playing/touching the strings. Compositionally, there are three main ideas that intersperse in this piece:
1) The ergonomic or motoric one, referring to the way the hands accommodate the technical demands of the instrument; 2) The Rhythmic ‘sculpting,’ referring to the interaction of complex rhythms and the use of my system of Micro-Metric Modulation, a mathematical way to link very complex rhythms/ratios through common speeds; 3) The use of extended-techniques dividing the harp in three different sonic regions in which the middle one employs a cloth/paper that mutes the pitches subsequently creating a kind of timbral asymmetry in the sonic presentation of the instrument.
First, the ergonomic aspect: the creation of motives and themes in this piece are a direct result of the very patterns of the player's hands/fingers. New sonic material emerges as a result of the dislocation of the hands throughout the harp. This is accomplished in two ways: a) When the harpist stretches hands widening or contracting the gaps between fingers while maintaining similar fingerings’ patterns - thus, creating small melodic distortions; b) Through the mere pedal- retuning of the strings providing a diverse melodic or harmonic contour for similar hands' patterns; Even if the fingers’ patterns are not “thematically audible,” (since they only refer to the techniques that propel the sounds) they acquire, nevertheless, the status of "articulatory themes" being as important as the audible ones.
Second, using a mathematical way to mediate between two adjacent rhythms through a system I developed called Micro-Metric Modulation. Although complex rhythms can be very demanding to execute it is possible to imagine an effective rhythmic bridge that is common to two adjacent and differing rhythms or ratio configurations. This approach is based on commutative and associative properties and is derived from Elliott Carter’s polyrhythmic ideas, but in a “compressed” way. It is fully developed on my Doctoral Thesis from 1997-8 (Micro Metric Modulation: New Directions in the Theory of Complex Rhythms), although uses of it on my own music are anterior to the thesis itself).
Third, employing a series of devices (paper between strings, tuning fork, constant pedal glissandi, half-pedal “buzz” sounds, etc.) I managed to destabilize the typical way of playing the instrument and the way it is commonly heard. More than seeking mere effects, I was “seeing” the instrument as a sonic (found-)object that could be “subjected” to different types of timbristic and ergonomic demands. Finally, studying the way the instrument behaves under certain rhythmic constraints it was possible to manipulate with similar flexibility pitch and noise (extended-techniques) zones.
The theatrical aspect of Phalanges conveys its deep meaning: Navigating between the fingers' technical demands and its almost magic output (the music itself) the harpist questions the public with a bleak and distancing (‘Brechtnian’) look, as if saying, - “...where does music begin? And where it ends...?”
© Arthur Kampela 2014

Phalanges For Harp Solo (©Arthur Kampela) - Harpist: Anne Bassand

Arthur Kampela

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