When Shadows Take Over

When Shadows Take Over: the final “let’s explore dark, minor modal mixture” of this album.

I already listed the other pieces exploring similar concepts, this one included, in Strong Currents in the Unknown Waters. Now I will list some peculiarities for this piece. The 0:33 mark (see player below for playback) flirts with a minor7th harmony, which will permeate the rest of this improvisation. By opening the seventh sonorities, I like to think of an analogy of applying more saturation to the harmonic palette. Referring to the many pieces of this album “exploring dark, minor modal mixture”: interestingly, the minor seventh sweetens the bvi:m7 in the 00:38 mark somewhat. The subsequent passages remind me of Nobuo Uematsu’s middle period style, something like Final Fantasy VI or VII soundtracks, to be honest. FinallyFantasylly, I didn’t anticipate the 13 & +9 chords in the 1:02 mark? In the 1:33 mark an arpeggiated dominant introduces an allusion to augmented harmony, which is unheard of elsewhere in this piece; however, since we’re in the middle of repeating the opening material, this does provide some variance. The 1:50 mark introduces a half-diminished harmony: however, in my thinking, it actually acts as a “dominant for the natural phrygian closure”, or in other words the final harmony in the 1:54 mark.

For playback (& if you like this album, consider buying it in BandCamp to support my art):

Here’s the recording session video of the piece:

• Category: Wherever The Wind Takes Me