Blas Payri - Divagación de un día de lluvia

Notes:

«divagación» has the meaning in Spanish of digression, meandering, circling around. The title refers both to the composition technique of circling around a note with evolving intervals, and to the flowing of sensations on a rainy day.

Tuning information:

This piece uses continuous evolution of pitch, both for melodic and harmonic intervals. In the melodic line, it is loosely inspired by the traditional Flamenco «Cante hondo» where quarter tones and other micro intervals are used as a means of expression, using reiterations melismas on a note and its close chromatic tones. Here the timbre and musical colors differ from Flamenco, but there is a «circling around» a note with continuous pitch variations with increasing intervals, that are and are followed by timbral and spatial variations. The harmonic relations between the tones also follow a continuous evolution between microtonal intervals that create a harmonic tension that resolves into «natural» harmonic intervals.

Composer bio:

Blas Payri teaches Sound Design and Music Perception at Universitat Politècnica de València, Spain. He studied electroacoustic music composition in Lyon, Montréal and Paris, and one of his early concerns was the exploration of micro-intervals and continuous evolution of pitch and their influence in harmonic relations. A major goal is to create/use a language where micro-intervals and continuous pitch can be perceived as an expressive and «natural» part of the musical language, either by using traditional music utilization of melisma or by following the «musique concrète» approach of hearing the sound before writing.