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Song Information:

Maestra Discordia

Summary
While the gods revel, Eris, the goddess of discord, has commandeered the Mount Olympus Symphony Orchestra, and is turning it to her own purposes. Will Zeus wake up before the musicians lose all sense of order?

No loops, I composed all music from scratch. Created in GarageBand 2 using Garritan Personal Orchestra as an AU plugin.

The whole story
While the gods revel, Eris, the goddess of discord, has commandeered the Mount Olympus Symphony Orchestra, and is turning it to her own purposes. She starts with her own odd motif, and has the strings back her up. When they've got the hang of it, she goes a little wild with key changes. The cellos try to guess her pattern, which really makes her mad, since she doesn't want to have a pattern. Everything halts while she stews.

When Eris resumes, she has the woodwinds take up the background, entrusting her theme to the clarinets. Things are going so well that she lets the clarinets keep her theme, while she again scatters all over the place. The violas and basses join in when she does, providing a foundation for both the altered and unaltered themes. The snubbed cellos, feeling really left out at this point decide to join in, uninvited. Eris is not pleased, and calls another halt.

While Eris fumes, the cellos plead their case, with support from the woodwinds. This just makes Eris really cranky, and she goes off on everyone. The strings (except the cellos) then take up her angry theme, while Eris fumes and the cellos whimper.

Finally, Eris calms down a bit and decides to resume. She decides to try something a bit different, and starts off a 5-part round in shifting time signatures for herself and the woodwinds. This could warp the orchestra permanently, but Zeus wakes up and comes in with a very orderly round of his own with the brass. One by one the instruments abandon Eris and join in with Zeus' round, until Eris finishes off alone, subdued by a fanfare.

Eris attempts to explain herself, but Zeus rebuffs her. Order is restored on Mount Olymus, but Eris leaves us a parting word to let us know she won't forget this...

Instrumentation
Eris speaks directly through a solo flute and a solo piccolo. (She's a goddess -- she can speak with two voices at once.)

The woodwinds (3 clarinets, 3 bassoons, 3 oboes) respond well to Eris, and follow her orders. They are the last instruments to heed Zeus' call. They go out on a limb a bit backing the cellos, but not too far or for too long. When Eris is agitated they will imitate her, but they don't ever really manifest part of her personality.

The strings are a lot more complicated. The cellos always speak for themselves, and are so-so at following orders. They want to create a bit for themselves, so Eris sees them as usurpers to some extent. Eris never speaks through the cellos, and they do not pick up on her mood. The cellos are the first to go running back to Zeus. Physically, the cellos are represented by the Cello Section Sustains+Shorts patch and the Cello Keyswitch Combo patch.

The other strings (Bass, Viola, 1st and 2nd Violins) obey Eris and back her up. When she gets agitated, they pick up on and channel her mood to an extent. Eris entrusts them with minor themes of their own. Physically these are the Sustain+Short patches for the sections of each instrument, with the Tremolo for the Bass and Viola.

Percussion punctuates Eris at her most agitated. This is the Basic Orchestra Percussion patch.

Zeus speaks directly through all his brass (Trumpet, Trombone, Tuba, and Fr. Horn). He's a god -- he can speak with 10+ voices at a time.

Modifications
4/5/2005: Remastered using Audacity
4/6/2005: Realized I chopped out the last two seconds. This version is the correct length.
4/11/2005: Added song art back into MP3.
7/31/2005: Added the Sustain/Legato feature into the coding to make the rendition sound more natural.

Copyright
(c) 2005 This music free to share under a Creative Commons Music Sharing License. http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/2.0/deed-music Orchestral samples used in this recording are from Garritan Personal Orchestra.