KIND OF LIKE A BRILLIANT ACCIDENT

An essay on the String Quartet No.1 in E Minor composed by Ali Helnwein. 

...The String Quartet No.1 in E Minor starts like a windswept landscape – overcast and abandoned.  A strong current of all four instruments introduces the theme with an unexpected immediacy and pulls you into a story of which you are about to be the author.
From the headstrong first movement you’ll soon be dropped into five minutes and thirty-four seconds of someone’s bleeding heart – the second movement.   Starting with a minimalistic plucking that sounds like the last raindrops of a storm, the music gracefully gives way to the slow and lulling depths of the cello.   By the way, you’d be surprised how something that sounds like velvet  can cut like a razor.  But whatever  dreams you might have lost yourself in, the third movement will wake you up.  This is probably my favorite one.  It starts with a perfectly planned turmoil of a rhythm.  The rhythm attacks you without much of a warning and then lets off into a swaying dance through which you can sense the tension trembling.  When the melody is at it’s most vulnerable the wrath of all four instruments climaxes again into chaos...

--Mercedes Helnwein

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ABOUT THE MUSIC

To aquire a unique sound I generally don't use purchased sample libraries. I would either record all the instruements (which one can do affordably if you have many friends who are musicians) or create my own sample libraries.

For example, the piano on "Greed" and "Gluttony" is a very old, detuned piano from Ireland, which I used to record each note on a very low quality tape recorder. I then put it all in the computer and created a sample library out of it. Other sounds I sampled are random and percussive sounds, pizzicato violin and staccato violin, a music box, a toy piano, etc.

I have gathered lots experience by playing in several different style bands and in an orchestra; working with top of the line studio musicians, engineers and recording studios; working with international film festivals; recording, mixing and mastering string sessions; training under composers such as David Campbell and the composers at Media Ventures; writing music for short films and commercials; and playing with the traditinal folk musicians of Ireland, but I'm always interested in learning more from different sources. On top of this I studied various musical styles, ranging from medieval, unaccompanied choral music, baroque counterpoint, the sonata forms of the classical and romantic times, modern film scoring, traditinal jazz, folk music, klezmer music, books by Arnold Schoenberg and "Principles of Orchestration" by Korsakov.

Since independent movies are gaining more and more popularity and a much bigger audience, the film scoring trends are changing along side of that. If you look at films from the middle of the the 20th century you'll hear a lot of full orchestral, gushy and more traditionally composed scores. Toward the end of the century music took a more simple and minimalistic (yet still fully orchestrated) turn -- playing on a film session for an earlier film composer such as Leonard Bernstein would have been technically a lot harder than playing on a modern film score such as something like the Lord of the Rings or Pearl Harbor score. Now it seems that more and more film scores have an unushual edge to them, incorporating bizzare sounds and instruments and experimenting even more with the combination of synthesized sounds and real instruments. This is what I'm trying to work on with my music, in order to create an atmosphere to scenes that haven't yet been fully explored.

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Quotes

"I just called you, I am into the second movement now. Wow! I really love this. It is awesome. It really touches me.
You have great scores within you. Right from the Divine within you through your Heart.
Knowing the gift is a blessing and key to your acknowledgement of the Grace involved in Composition and Poetry.
Deep emotional tones come out of your music - soft colors of sound with an edge of rawness.
My insides feel a lot like this melody. It is breathing and alive.
It is an experience it takes me out of my limitations and I soar in the realm of Angels and non materiality yet it still works on this earth in this age and this hour.
The feeling is immense and it oozes out. Love , Stevie"

-- Stephen John Kalinich (Poet/ lyricist)

Copyright © 2006 Ali Helnwein