The musical tree of life is as difficult to apprehend as the biological one - but it is clear that there are common, if mysterious, origins. Raw rhythms and primordial pitches combine compellingly, leading to modern practices that are not as different as one might think.
Featuring operatic tenor and soprano voices, renaissance drums, psaltery, percussion, full orchestra, brushed drum kit, upright bass, muted trumpet, tenor sax, piano, electric bass and guitar, rock drum kit, and synthesizer.
Process - I’m a sucker for evolutionary themes, so I started by actually studying a bit what phylogeny means (basically it’s a formalization of “tree of life” stuff). Then I selected “common ancestor” (i.e. old) instruments (voice, renaissance drums), wrote a simple motif, and developed it from there - moving chromatically and switching to incrementally more modern instrumentation (orchestra, jazz quintet, synth-rock).
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