Musical Engineering

A few years back Chuck was wrapping up a major project when he provided me with a golden opportunity.  He invited me to write the musical score as the background to the narration for his video documentary.  The show tells about the construction of the Crooked River bridges here in Central Oregon.   I had never written for orchestra before, but that didn’t stop me. 

For this piece I took a simple eight-note musical phrase and applied mathematical principles to create the harmonies.  Basically, I took a short sequence of notes and added layers of the same melody but applied different time values to the notes. Each layer is a multiple or division of the original phrase – twice as fast, twice as slow, etc.  It can get a little busy, but I like the dreamlike quality it seems to create. 

You’ll have to forgive my unorthodox notation.  As I was pressed for time, rather than write for specific string instruments, I took shortcuts and transcribed it as I wrote it on my Yamaha Motif.       

This video clip is an excerpt/chapter from the movie A Story of Three Bridges.  A highlight in the Hutchings household last year was having the show air on Oregon Public Broadcasting and on other local television stations.  How fun is that!?!

To download free SHEET MUSIC click HERE
To download an mp3 FILE of just the music (without the narration) click HERE