One Media® presents "Green Jig" by Nowhere Near (Electro-acousitc Celtic Folk Electronica streaming mp3)
"Green Jig"
Electro-acousitc Celtic Folk Electronica, Green and at a Crossroads ...
One Media® humbly submits its Steemit Music League #smlchallenge season two, round six (S2:R6) entry in keeping with the Celtic Crossroads theme...
When the composer visited Ireland a lasting impression he took with him was how verdant the landscape was. As part of his 'day job' at the time, it afforded him the opportunity to give presentations on Renewable Energy at Trinity College Dublin and University College Cork.
While the two aforementioned events certainly can allude to a 'green' theme, a third factor influencing the title "Green Jig" manifests as this Jig is the first attempt ever to replicate a Celtic folk sound for Nowhere Near. If this recording achieves the goal of authentically presenting an original Celtic folk musical theme, one may attribute such success to beginner's luck, hence the choice of four leaf clover, also alluding to one species of clover of course also known as shamrock in Gaelic, for the cover image.
Predominantly acoustic instruments embody the piece for the first two minutes. A harp simulating a dulcimer, a tenor register hand drum, and claves are the only electronic sampled patches played until around 2:15 where pink sound sculpted to sound like the winds in early Springtime sweeping a North Atlantic island along with other electronica sets the tune in the Twenty First Century. Of course this electronica thus fulfills the motif of 'crossroads' as a moment in time between the Celtic tradition and the contemporary period.
Concerning the music theory behind this, the melody sits mostly on the fourth, 'G' of a D minor pentatonic, which in this case, although a minor key, stays mainly on the fourth and fifth, to bring a more bright and hopeful sound than staying purely around the minor third interval. It's actually somewhat modal because as the sub-dominant persists throughout the melody, it actually sounds as though it's the tonal center with a Dorian mode (F major pentatonic relative to D minor) played over the key of G throughout the melody line. The 'bridge' of the tune is purely a descending D relative minor scale.
The Baroque recorder and violin were recorded in two takes each on a total of four tracks to simulate a small ensemble upholding a Celtic tradition as genuinely as possible. A small pair of 'bongito' handheld drums were also added in a manner befitting folk music. These three instruments were recorded using a Sennheiser MD421 microphone. The native harp patch on a Korg T1 simulated a dulcimer here, along with 'T1 Drums' patch availing the low register hand drum and claves also resembling folk percussion. A PAiA Gnome provides the 'windy' pink sound and the composer's own SIDnth prototype produces the ringing and clacking electronica in the last minute.
Happy listening!
Zig