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Home→Tags composition

Tag Archives: composition

Dronescape 9 (Matters of Life or Death)

Oscar van Dillen Posted on June 28, 2022 by oscarJune 28, 2022

The 3 tracks follow a path of reverse deconstruction and unraveling, going back to the origins of this composition, and presenting earlier stages of creation as later tracks progressively. In this way the listener is not only able to hear details that might be hard to hear in the tutti version (track 1), but also the tracks become more introvert, while striving to keep their emotional impact. Gradually the clear and concrete music of We will never forgive you merges into the slightly more abstract The song without words, which is in fact a minus-two version, to be followed by the even more abstract Planet of the Ants, connecting to the sound universe of van Dillen’s earlier Dronescapes. The title of the last track explicitly refers to Dronescape 5 – Myrmecology, this time as a planet of the ants, which may be the very thing we are currently creating and heading towards. As mammals succeeded the dinosaurs, now ants may have a good chance to succeed the mammals, once extinct. If that happens, may they thrive and develop collective intelligence instead!


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Posted in Album, Composition | Tagged composition

Dronescape 6.3

Oscar van Dillen Posted on June 3, 2022 by oscarJune 3, 2022

After having recorded all the 40+ tracks in Italy, Falconi sent these to van Dillen in Rotterdam to composite and compose the final blend of both composer’s work by creating the mix and final master. His creative mixing went through several stages before a satisfying result was approached, which was refined in his mastering process afterwards. With great care this very complex music had to be mixed, composited, composed and mastered, so as allowing for the complexity to come out while maintaining transparency and optimal spatial placement and width of every sound as well as the overall sound. After sharing the result, this time sending from Rotterdam to Rome, both composers finally agreed on the end result after what had amounted to over a year of intense collaborative work.


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Posted in Album, Composition | Tagged composition

Elements 2: Helium

Oscar van Dillen Posted on May 24, 2022 by oscarJune 28, 2022

One can imagine that at the reality of a larger than primal atom, the road is open for more complex atoms, and so it was: in the heavier stars, thermonuclear fission processes produced heavier elements still. In fact, there is not a single heavier atom that was not created at some point in time in some star. All matter is stardust. All heavier atoms are the product of nuclear fission in stars.

We ourselves are the children of stars become aware.

It is with Helium that this process of atom creation takes its very first step: forming an atom with 2 protons, over twice as heavy as the primal atom Hydrogen. It is a strange coincidence that so many human cultures worshipped the sun as a creator god: the sun being our star is de facto one of the many creators of matter, in its shining we see the life-giving light: a waste product of this process.

Now imagine ourselves the size of a planet, listening to the sounds of this process of matter creation. We are become huge cosmic ears now, listening to the sounds of the sun.


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Posted in Album, Composition | Tagged composition

Elements 7: Azote

Oscar van Dillen Posted on May 19, 2022 by oscarMay 19, 2022

One of the main aims when creating Azote was to create a music in which sounds move musically, and where the pitches are not the necessarily most important sound aspects, but sound, register and dynamics are, and it was composed so that each sound has its own sense of space with it. Also sometimes these spaces move independently within the music, allowing for sounds to enter and sound in these spaces. Thus beat becomes breath, or the lack of it. Although at first hearing it appears that rhythm is the main musical area explored, deeper listening reveals that the music is happening within the virtual spaces created by what we can call breathing rhythmic bubbles of sound. The importance of the sense of architectural space gives Azote aspects of soundscape, but the fact that these spaces are formally treated and move about in an overall very rhythmical way, points again to a possible symphony. But these are mere words, insufficiently able and possibly obsolete to describe let alone categorize this music.


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Posted in Album, Composition | Tagged composition

Dronescape 6.2

Oscar van Dillen Posted on March 25, 2022 by oscarMarch 25, 2022

Although perhaps 5 formal parts plus an introduction can be discerned, the work is here presented as a single track, in the spirit of the sister productions in the Dronescape 6.* series. A single almost 54 minutes long track does require some patience contemporary listeners are mostly unaccustomed to, being used to either the standard 3 minutes long popular songs, the standard 3-7 minutes long jazz recordings, or the standard 12 to 20 minutes long composed works, with which the musical mediascape of today is flooded. In this sense, the listener is offered an opportunity to enter another timescape. A dreamscape. A dronescape, where one can make sense or nonsense at will and decide what threads and paths of sound and music to follow with undivided attention.


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Posted in Album, Composition | Tagged composition

Dronescape 7: Jñāna – Rigpa

Oscar van Dillen Posted on February 22, 2022 by oscarMay 20, 2022

The work Jñāna – Rigpa is exploring the boundaries of autonomous drone composition, both in the sense of its duration (it has the longest single-track duration streaming platforms allow today), as in the sense of its minimalism of musical and technical means used. While creating an atmosphere of almost trance and meditation, it also serves as a means, a tool, for deep and inner reflection. Reflection on one’s own hearing is intended explicitly here: a music that serves to listen to one’s own hearing.


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Posted in Album, Composition | Tagged composition, modular

Elements 14: Silicon

Oscar van Dillen Posted on January 4, 2022 by oscarFebruary 22, 2022

Silicon is the second most abundant element in the Earth’s crust, after Oxygen, the latter being also abundant in the atmosphere. In the periodic table Si is placed just below C and the two elements share many characteristics. Still, Carbon is the basic element for life, and no Silicon-based …
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Posted in Album, Composition | Tagged composition, modular

Elements 8: Oxygen – Ozone

Oscar van Dillen Posted on December 14, 2021 by oscarFebruary 22, 2022

Oxygen is all around us: surprisingly, it is even the most abundant element on our planet. But the free, breathable oxygen O2 found in the Earth’s atmosphere, without which human and animal life would be impossible, has not always been here; it has been freed from its stable compounds …
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Posted in Album, Composition | Tagged composition, modular

Elements 6: Carbon

Oscar van Dillen Posted on December 9, 2021 by oscarFebruary 22, 2022

Carbon is above all the Element that makes life possible. As symbolized by the pencil drawing at this album’s cover, it forms chains, and as basic carbon-based chains the amino acids are found in all life forms. As are the very long chains of amino acids, such as DNA, …
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Posted in Album, Composition | Tagged composition, modular

Elements 118: Oganesson

Oscar van Dillen Posted on December 9, 2021 by oscarFebruary 22, 2022

Elements 118 Oganesson is the last in the Periodic Table, completing its structure with 7 full layers of electron shells. As an element, Oganesson fits in the group of the so-called “noble gases” but is predicted to be a solid at room temperature. Predicted, because only a handful of …
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Posted in Album, Composition | Tagged composition, modular

Dronescape 6.1

Oscar van Dillen Posted on July 11, 2021 by oscarJuly 11, 2021

Oneirology 2 In Peter Brook’s 1979 film Meetings with Remarkable Men there is a scene in which musicians will attempt to produce a sound that will make the stones of a valley vibrate. In this re-enacting of a famous scene from Gurdieff’s memoires, Kudsi Erguner is one of the …
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Posted in Album, Composition | Tagged composition

Dronescape 6.0

Oscar van Dillen Posted on April 21, 2021 by oscarApril 21, 2021

Dronescape 6.0 is the sixth in a series of albums, containing new Digital Symphonies by Oscar van Dillen. The work on this album was composed January-April 2021. Similar to the earlier Dronescape releases, this work can be considered to be an Electronic or Digital Symphony. This one-part work is …
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Posted in Album, Composition | Tagged composition

Dronescape 5

Oscar van Dillen Posted on December 16, 2020 by oscarApril 21, 2021

Dronescape 5 is the fifth in a series of albums, containing new, digitally created, compositions by Oscar van Dillen. The work on this album was composed November-December 2020. Similar to the other Dronescape releases, this album too can be considered to be an Electronic symphony, the 5th by Oscar …
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Posted in Album, Composition | Tagged composition

Dronescape 4

Oscar van Dillen Posted on October 29, 2020 by oscarApril 21, 2021

Dronescape 4 is the fourth in a series of albums, containing new, digitally created, compositions by Oscar van Dillen. The works on this album were composed October 2020.


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Posted in Album, Composition | Tagged composition

Dronescape 3

Oscar van Dillen Posted on September 9, 2020 by oscarApril 21, 2021
Dronescape 3

Dronescape 3 is the third in a series of albums, containing new, digitally created, compositions by Oscar van Dillen. The work on this album was composed August-September 2020. The third Dronescape album by Oscar van Dillen contains a single long composition: Infinity – Pantonal Dronescape (duration 2 hours 56 …
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Posted in Album, Composition | Tagged composition

Dronescape 2

Oscar van Dillen Posted on September 8, 2020 by oscarApril 21, 2021

Dronescape 2 is the second in a series of albums, containing new, digitally created, compositions by Oscar van Dillen. The works on this album were composed July-August 2020. In music, a drone (or bourdon) is understood to be a continuous sound, interval or chord, usually an accompaniment to a …
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Posted in Album, Composition | Tagged composition

Dronescape 1

Oscar van Dillen Posted on September 8, 2020 by oscarApril 21, 2021

Dronescape 1 is the first in a series of albums, containing new, digitally created, compositions by Oscar van Dillen. The works on this album were composed June-July 2020. The title Dronescape suggests the contraction of the terms Drone and Soundscape, inferring a music which might at first sight be …
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Posted in Album, Composition | Tagged composition

De Stad – remastered

Oscar van Dillen Posted on September 8, 2020 by oscarApril 21, 2021

de Stad, originally released in a more surround sound type of mix, the time is ripe to now release a remastered version, much better suited for our present times and today’s streaming platforms used for listening. The composer himself has meticulously revised the original recordings, corrected and remastered these …
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Posted in Album, Composition | Tagged composition

Selfies and other stuff 2013-2018

Oscar van Dillen Posted on December 19, 2018 by oscarDecember 19, 2018
IMG_0937 by .

Here is a first photoblog of my life as artist and teacher, enjoy! ©Oscar van Dillen


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Posted in Biographical | Tagged art education, codarts, composer, composition, interdisciplinary art, students

Music for a Sculpture

Oscar van Dillen Posted on March 21, 2018 by oscarJune 12, 2022

Paradox, Music for A Sculpture was written 2007 to be performed on the sculpture “Grote Sext” by Harmen Brethouwer. The composition was written for two percussionists, and is envisioned to be the first in a series of pieces to be performed on objects becoming instruments. In this way, Edgar Varèses old …
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Posted in Composition | Tagged composition, visual art

Circles of scales collection

Oscar van Dillen Posted on November 15, 2016 by oscarNovember 10, 2021

***page currently under development*** Structures of scales In the program of the minor World music composition in practice there is a module where scales are studied, especially from North India. As this minor has the aim to incite and inspire students to create their own compositions, their own music, …
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Posted in Composition, Drawings, Music theory | Tagged composition, drawing, modal music, music philosophy, music theory, scales, visual art, world music composition

Forecast

Oscar van Dillen Posted on October 8, 2016 by oscarSeptember 23, 2019

FORECAST “Look up, marvel at the ephemeral beauty and live with your head in the clouds” Theme This production has a threefold output: A film, to be showed in movie theaters A film, to which the music can be performed live (with and/or without the soundscape track) A composition …
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Posted in Composition, Posts | Tagged animation, composition, short film

Memos for a New Millennium

Oscar van Dillen Posted on November 24, 2013 by oscarJanuary 9, 2014

Memos for a New Millennium was created by Oscar van Dillen for disklavier and pianist (MIDI file for performances is available through the composer) In this composition a balance and cooperation between man and machine is the central theme. Memos for a New Millennium was inspired by Italo Calvino’s …
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Posted in Composition | Tagged composition, disklavier, piano

De Stad

Oscar van Dillen Posted on April 20, 2013 by oscarJune 30, 2022

Chamber Symphony De Stad means: The City. It is the title of my chamber symphony written in 2003. The work was jointly commissioned by Prof. Dr. Paul van de Laar and the Museum Rotterdam1(at the time called Historical Museum of Rotterdam) and the Performing Arts Fund (by the special …
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Posted in Composition | Tagged chamber symphony, composition, stad, urbistics

Codarts project week Day 3 – Thursday 8 November 2012

Oscar van Dillen Posted on November 8, 2012 by oscarMay 21, 2016
IMG_0895 by .

This year the project week at Codarts University of the Arts Rotterdam includes a worldwide composition project, including students from the global academies for Jazz music, World music and Pop music. This is a report of the final day 3 of this project, after a concept of Carlo de …
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Posted in Codarts | Tagged codarts, composition, recording, students

Codarts project week Day 2 – Tuesday 6 November 2012

Oscar van Dillen Posted on November 6, 2012 by oscarMay 21, 2016

This year the project week at Codarts University of the Arts Rotterdam includes a worldwide composition project, including students from the global academies for Jazz music, World music and Pop music. This is a report of day 2 of this project, after a concept of Carlo de Wijs and …
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Posted in Codarts | Tagged codarts, composition, recording, students

Codarts project week Day 1 – Monday 5 November 2012

Oscar van Dillen Posted on November 5, 2012 by oscarMay 21, 2016
IMG_0773 by .

This year the project week at Codarts University of the Arts Rotterdam includes a worldwide composition project, including students from the global academies for Jazz music, World music and Pop music. Working after a concept of Carlo de Wijs, coordinated by Ronald Kool, and with a working plan by …
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Posted in Codarts | Tagged codarts, composition, recording, students

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Recently published

  • Dronescape 9 (Matters of Life or Death)
  • Dronescape 6.3
  • Elements 2: Helium
  • Elements 7: Azote
  • Dronescape 6.2
  • Dronescape 8: The four Pillars of Reason
  • Dronescape 7: Jñāna – Rigpa
  • Elements 14: Silicon
  • Elements 8: Oxygen – Ozone
  • Elements 6: Carbon
  • Elements 118: Oganesson
  • Elements 1: Hydrogen Deuterium Tritium
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