Category: Backing Tracks

This is an odd one…

An instrumental musing on the affect of mediation on rules.

This piece is divided into 5 major sections:

Structure (0:00)
The piece introduces its harmonic structure, first with a drone, then adding a synth pattern (0:15), and finally add chords on electric piano (0:31).

Stumbling (0:46)
The guitar enters, trying but failing to play the pattern. The electric piano responds to failure by skipping chords in an attempt to remain consonant.

Testing Edges (1:18)
The guitar attempts to solo on a very fast and difficult series of chords, failing yet again. The electric piano now highlights the guitar’s mistakes by shifting chords by a half step, increasing dissonance.

Breaking Free (1:53)
The guitar now solos on a ten-tone scale, avoiding only the most “out” dissonances. The electric piano doggedly plays along with the synth’s pattern, abandoning any interaction with the guitar.

New Consonance (2:21 to the end)
The electric piano shifts to a series of chords designed to allow for a (relatively) high degree of consonance between the pattern and any note on the guitar. The guitar now solos freely until the end of the piece.

It’s worth mentioning that the “Stumbling” section nearly broke me. I wrote it to be misplayed, avoided practicing it, and set the music on a stand several feet away, all in the hope of increasing errors. It worked. And I got so frustrated at my playing, even though it was wrong when wrong was intentional, that I had to take a break and come back to it another day.

The Bandcamp download includes backing tracks and a leadsheet should you wish to annoy yourself playing wrong rightly. Or practice and play right wrongly.

Also, the title is because I sketched out the piece after watching the movie “Disobedience”.