Prickliness V. Normalcy
Right now I'm composing a setting of an old Irish poem. So naturally, the music must sound Irish. What does that mean? Harmonically, I think there's an emphasis on shifting between a major tonic and the minor built on the sixth. Melodically, from listening to tunes like Be Thou My Vision and the improbably named London Derrière, I've decided the secret is a pseudo-pentatonic sound that is disrupted by the occasional addition of a leading tone. This addition adds a surprising sweetness and refinement to the pentatonic scale's rustic rigor.
So now, not only is my music not chromatic, it's not even using all seven notes of the diatonic scale. Sheesh. I'm caught in a downward spiral of caution and traditionalism. It's taking all my effort to find a way to make this piece more "prickly" without loosing the "normal" Irish sound. I fear this fetishization of the pentatonic...
[Sometimes you write something because you think it is, you know, true. And sometimes you write something because you hope it will prove to be Googlewhackable. Let's try Googling fetishization pentatonic right now! It will be fun!]
...is all part of a mistaken attempt on my part to write bogus Irish music. I may be committing an act of cultural insensitivity. I who have never conversed with a leprechaun or played a harp or killed someone over religion or bathed with any green-colored deodorant soap or eaten any breakfast cereal consisting of dessicated marshmallows or staggered out of a Dublin pub at 2 a.m. and puked my guts out on the sidewalk -- what right do I have to compose Irish music, I ask you?
Umie the Umlaut says, "ask your doctor about the Fredösphere!"
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