Sunset at Owl's Head - music for solo performances
All the non-collaborative music I have written in the past required organizing groups of musicians to perform it. The current music trend of performing with backing tracks in a live setting was not something I intended to explore. However, the unustainable nature of hiring musicians for orchestral work, along with the opportunity to intermingle instruments that wouldn't normally be grouped together, have made the idea more intriguing. With this in mind, I started working on a perfomable solo project , which became "Sunset At Owl's Head." This approach also helped me bridge the gap between eastern and western music. Being born in the Philippines, I have always been interested in folk traditions in music. As a main performing vehicle for this project, I was exploring alternative guitar approaches that didn't use the strumming of chords, common in western pop music. Instead, I was interested in the use of eastern and western Asian techniques and modes, which I synthesized within pop structures. A guitar played this way helped me keep the live guitar elements completely enganged, to help keep balance with the non-liveness of the backing tracks. But the use of the backing tracks also allowed me to use ensemble passages to give the pieces a more modern western texture. Large group performances and non-western approaches to music are ongoing motivational factors for me, and this project is a culmination of both influences, as well as a culmination of the various approaches I have been experimenting with in other projects. I am looking forward to playing more solo shows in the future and am currently working on new music for this project.