T E R Z A R I M A

This track was written right around the trailing days of September 2024, right about when the evenings slowly start to hint at a change of the season. The long summer was slowly being left behind and the evening breeze was starting to have a subtle bite. Even though the light from the setting sun stayed on to illuminate the evening, there was a slow but sure recess, a slow fading of the summer days.

In a similar sense, this track was a slow departure from my previous work.

'Marifa' was completed earlier in the year, mid summer; the weather and the warm evenings contributing to its energy and lightness. I thought of Marifa as a short story of the desert, as a wandering through the ancient sands and ruins, with a mystical aura that permeates these landscapes.

For TerzaRima something different was emerging to the surface. Something new. It felt like a new beginning , an effect of a change that was not immediate but closely related to me,

The Concept

I had been reading the poetry of Dante's 'Divine Comedy' . In Inferno , a dark and eerie prose, which is also an account of a journey, I started to sense the deep rhythm of the work. It was the structure of this vast and complex prose, the delivery and the consistent underlying rhythm of the work that effected me the most.

Rhythm and meter are concepts that are fundamental to many different forms of art. To me the way the rhythm of poetry adds to its haunting appeal, is a fascinating aspect and this is the concept that I tried to replicate in this track.

The TerzaRima structure in Dante's writings consists of tercets with interwoven rhymes (ABA BCB DED EFE, and so on). A concluding couplet rhymes with the penultimate line of the last tercet (Notice the letters in bold, here the letters denote a rhyming element of a poem).

Poetry can take the reader to a whole new world, and the almost hypnotic rhythm it subconsciously implies, grew on me the more I read through these works. As haunting as it was, this prose was otherworldly and yet real. As a reader, I was vocalising the poem, silently, creating an embodied sensation of rhythm.

Rhythm can create an "audible gestalt," even in silent reading, where the reader sub-vocalizes the rhythm, enhancing the poem's musicality and emotional impact.

Subvocalisation allows the reader to maintain the rhythmic structure, even when anomalies occur in the meter and rhyme. And sometimes in my experience, even when there is no rhythm at all, a certain flow remains, as a residue, continuing like a silent circulation into the future.

In many ways infinity is born out of a simple recurrence, a simple cycle of events which then obtains its own recurrence, to become part of a bigger whole and this keeps going till it becomes too immense to fathom.

For those interested in learning about this further, this paper is a great source of information. Also theres some great info about rhythm in the arts.

The idea, exploring this unseen rhythm, is so fascinating and ideologically similar to what I was feeling when making this track, and that, as a whole, and in parts, I was on a subconscious journey, through a repeated structure of time, creating a complex interwoven texture of thought with rhythm.

Artwork

Following on from the idea of an infinity in the rhythm of all things, the artwork for the track represents a similar idea, essentially enhancing the underlying metaphors and its depth.

The whale represents this sort of vastness and elusive infinity. Something unfathomable and large, and through its appearances in cycles of times from the depths of the oceans, symbolises to me , a great upheaval and return. Herman Melville's Moby Dick has a complex and multilayered symbolic representation of the whale, in which the whale symbolises chaos and calm, purity and terror, a force of nature's divine power which is impervious to the actions of man, serving as a symbol of "man's relationship with the universe" encompassing human fate, self-identification, awakened consciousness, and the interpretation of life's meaning.

To me the whale and the ocean symbolise the depths of our subconscious and the ongoing endless cycle by which, from deep within the entirety of thoughts and emotions arise, and equally submerges, or disappears, much like the whale.

What is truly fascinating is Dante's Divine Comedy and Herman Melville's Moby Dick create a similar structure of storytelling, which traces the journey of its main character. In this way, the poetics of both these works are deeply connected.

I was on Bray beach in Dublin and I was able to take a few photos of the expanse of the sea and the changing scenery

Composition

Intro

The piece around the acoustic guitar and have a tapestry of different guitar sounds evolve from that root acoustic guitar sound. The idea of heavier and darker guitar sounds had been brewing for a while I suppose. And, there was something interesting about exploring this as a departure from my previous track, the same way September is the first call of departure to a new part of the year, a sort of bridge between two different worlds.

The track starts with a steady drum and a pulse bass supporting the foundation. The bass track is my guitar with the -12 Semitone dropped sound. The track is in the key of D and the tonality is that of a dominants, and specifically the G Dom7 and also Ddom7/F also works really well.

This can be heard early in the song at about 00:58 to 1:30 when there is a cycling through of arpeggios of D7 -> DF#ACD

and G7 -> GFBDF

Considering D as the root the relative intervals are shown below which matches up nicely with the intervals of the D Phrygian Dominant scale which I am using for the Solo

1, ♭2, 3, 4, 5, ♭6, ♭7

The next part has the same idea but on a lush pad sound

D C D F# G A with a bed of lush keys

D Dominant 7  sus 4- D F# G A C (1 3 4 5 b7)

G Dominant 7 sus 4 -  G B C D F ( 1 3 4 5 b7)

The relationship between the Dmin6 chord and the G7 chord is of particular interest as shown below

• Shared Tones and Function:

  • A Dmin6 chord contains the notes D, F, A, and B.   

  • A G7 chord contains the notes G, B, D, and F.   

  • Notice the shared notes: B, D, and F. This overlap is crucial to their relationship.

  • The B and F notes create a tritone interval, which is a key element in the dominant 7th sound. This tritone is what gives the G7 its strong tendency to resolve.

• Substitution and Voice Leading:

  • In some contexts, a Dmin6 can function as a substitute for parts of a G7 chord, or vice versa. This is especially true in jazz, where chord substitutions are common.

  • The shared tones facilitate smooth voice leading between the two chords. This means that the individual notes in the chords move in small, connected steps, creating a pleasing and natural sound.

At this point the distorted guitar start, light at first but more heavier and in the front of the mix as the track progresses.

Middle and Solo

At 2:55 there is a bridge with the triad chords Dmin, Gmaj, Fmaj of sorts which creates a pathway into the solo section with the guitars. The solo is in the G minor scale (G, A, B♭, C, D, E, and F♯.)and it meanders till at 3:52 it returns to a Dominant D7 based outro.

Whats next?

The life that I live from day to day somehow changes the way I approach the next composition. The seasons, the sun, the walks, the reading, the making of meals, the work, the evenings and the listening, all these activities play their part in creating a composition. Its not just the moment of epiphany, but the larger rhythm that somehow permeates this daily life. And then from it all emerges the next thing. Stay tuned!