Nocturnes
- 1Nocturne 7
- 2Nocturne 8
- 3Nocturne 9
- 4Nocturne 12
- 5Nocturne 14
- 6Nocturne 16
- 7Nocturne 18
CHRONOLALIA001
•
Open edition
Just-intoned Nocturnes for virtual piano.
Recorded over the second half of 2024, much of this work emerges from my player piano studies at Comfort Station in Chicago for 'Bret Fall'. Both the virtual & player pianos are tuned to the same custom scale used for my prevoious Fantasias — a tuning built on Perfect Fifths & Septimal Minor Thirds. The minor thirds exude a dreamy, strange quality, having no near equivalent in equal temperament, while also cultivating evocative third ear phenomena. Like all of my music, the goal is to synthesize the last half-century of acoustic experimentation with modern beauty — here, the Nocturne form. Likewise continuous with previous music, rhythms are tuned to subharmonics of the scale, following their own meandering lines that augment the harmonic progressions & regressions. My ongoing attempts to foster dreamspace & reverie has also led to my tuning rhythms in the 'theta' (θ) frequency range, which neurological research suggests is the brainwave frequency most commonly associated with the subconscious & daydreaming. This frequency range is also relative to the slight difference tones in the tuning, which creates a great variety of formal interplay & integration between different perceptual modes (rhythm & pitch). Repetitions are also scaled, fostering a new type of hypnagogic experience.
— Bret Schneider, 11/22/24
Recorded over the second half of 2024, much of this work emerges from my player piano studies at Comfort Station in Chicago for 'Bret Fall'. Both the virtual & player pianos are tuned to the same custom scale used for my prevoious Fantasias — a tuning built on Perfect Fifths & Septimal Minor Thirds. The minor thirds exude a dreamy, strange quality, having no near equivalent in equal temperament, while also cultivating evocative third ear phenomena. Like all of my music, the goal is to synthesize the last half-century of acoustic experimentation with modern beauty — here, the Nocturne form. Likewise continuous with previous music, rhythms are tuned to subharmonics of the scale, following their own meandering lines that augment the harmonic progressions & regressions. My ongoing attempts to foster dreamspace & reverie has also led to my tuning rhythms in the 'theta' (θ) frequency range, which neurological research suggests is the brainwave frequency most commonly associated with the subconscious & daydreaming. This frequency range is also relative to the slight difference tones in the tuning, which creates a great variety of formal interplay & integration between different perceptual modes (rhythm & pitch). Repetitions are also scaled, fostering a new type of hypnagogic experience.
— Bret Schneider, 11/22/24
