Echoes Through The Ages
8 Oct 2014
For my current project, the score for Queens of Syria, a 60' documentary about a group Syrian women refugees rehearsing and performing an Ancient Greek play, I've had to dig a little deeper than usual.
The brief and the subject matter meant obvious tropes of Middle Eastern-sounding film music were a complete no-no. Although the doc was filmed in Amman in Jordan and involves mainly Syrians, the focus is not on bringing out regional or local colour. Also, since part of the key audience for it will be from the Arabic-speaking world, it would be highly unlikely I'd be able to pull off regional music in any convincing way. And there's of course the very real danger of sliding into what Edward Said coined as orientalism.
Instead, there is a deeper, more historical aspect to the story - the story of women displaced and affected by war throughout the ages, from Antiquity to the present. So I went on a little journey looking for Ancient Greek musical references in order to have some timeless elements to reflect this.
Fortunately there are some remaining fragments of Ancient Greek musical notation. There are performances of some of these fragments available and I was able to translate a few of them into modern notation for myself. I then adapted them slightly - especially the rhythmical aspect, as most Greek music was lyrical and designed for verse, which had its own cadences and timing.
These adapted melodic fragments are now my main mood and tonal reference. There are of course lots of other things going on (my violin bow is coming into lots of different uses especially) but as starting points go, it's a definite winner! Older Post Home Newer Post
The brief and the subject matter meant obvious tropes of Middle Eastern-sounding film music were a complete no-no. Although the doc was filmed in Amman in Jordan and involves mainly Syrians, the focus is not on bringing out regional or local colour. Also, since part of the key audience for it will be from the Arabic-speaking world, it would be highly unlikely I'd be able to pull off regional music in any convincing way. And there's of course the very real danger of sliding into what Edward Said coined as orientalism.
Instead, there is a deeper, more historical aspect to the story - the story of women displaced and affected by war throughout the ages, from Antiquity to the present. So I went on a little journey looking for Ancient Greek musical references in order to have some timeless elements to reflect this.
Fortunately there are some remaining fragments of Ancient Greek musical notation. There are performances of some of these fragments available and I was able to translate a few of them into modern notation for myself. I then adapted them slightly - especially the rhythmical aspect, as most Greek music was lyrical and designed for verse, which had its own cadences and timing.
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| example of one of the unedited Ancient Greek fragments |
These adapted melodic fragments are now my main mood and tonal reference. There are of course lots of other things going on (my violin bow is coming into lots of different uses especially) but as starting points go, it's a definite winner! Older Post Home Newer Post