notionally electric


track: 09

recorded: 20140506 - 20140712

duration: 12.00

type: progressive rock



clocking in at an extraordinary 12 minutes 00 seconds in length, “notionally electric” in some way, defies description. this is a piece wherein I really and truly learned how to score for guitar, and it’s all about guitar – distorted lead guitar – the piece pretty much exists to support twelve minutes of scored guitar parts and guitar solos!

I never, ever meant for it to grow as long and as complex as it did, but I am actually glad of that – because in a way, this is one of the first pieces of truly, truly complex progressive rock that I’ve ever done, and, all done without playing a note on a real instrument – entirely done with the pen (or the fingers, to be more accurate) within Notion.

I love prog, but I’ve struggled to write or record much of it, mainly, because I never had a band that could play like that, until recently at least, but recently is more about the advent of having the tools to create quality backing tracks, which made prog rock pieces such as “wettonizer”, from 2012’s “gone native” CD possible – and there are a few examples of prog on “gone native”, but nothing quite of the duration and intensity, and extreme musical complexity, of “notionally electric”.

this is in some ways, too, an acknowledgement of how much I have learned about notation in an incredibly short time, I found that I know a lot more about it than I thought, and at the same time, I am now aware that I have an awful lot to learn. but, because I am good at learning software or apps, I was able to really get a head start with Notion, and “notionally electric” closes the four month “loop” that began with my first-ever piece made with Notion, “notionally acoustic”.

“notionally acoustic” is three minutes of two acoustic guitars duetting, while “notionally electric”, coming some four months after “notionally acoustic” is a twelve-minute long multi-instrumental scored piece of progressive rock music – what a difference.

“notionally electric” is the eighth official “Notion” piece I’ve released, eight pieces over four months, and travelling to the almost naïve simplicity of “notionally acoustic” to the incredibly forward thinking complexity of “notionally electric” – it’s difficult to conceive that this is the same person making this rather long piece of scored guitar given the simplicity of my first piece made back in March, 2014.

of course, it’s not just guitar, and my statement above about it being 12 minutes in support of one long guitar solo is not entirely accurate. the piece is full of musical surprises, for example, starting out with a classical horn duet; where alternately, cellos or bass guitars are holding down the low end duties; where the piece moves from prog/rock to classical and back not once but a few times; when somewhere in minute nine, the piece just about stops and turns into a soft, solo jazz piano interlude (!!?!)….before building back up towards its final rocking crescendos and ending.

but guitars are heavily featured, and along with scoring every single note of guitar music, I spent many, many hours experimenting with musical notation “effects” that I could apply to said guitars, to make them more realistic and more interesting.

in the end, I did “mutate” or “alter” many of the guitar parts and guitar solos, and again because it’s scored rather than “played”, I am able to make some musical leaps that I may not possibly be able to replicate on a real guitar (although it would be fun to try, I admit). I try not to write guitar parts that are totally impossible – but – occasionally, I might do so. It is fun to push the envelope, and it’s in long pieces like this one where I can really “stretch out” and see what Notion is capable of.

and I found that Notion is capable of quite a lot!! It has some very realistic whammy effects, some very realistic slide effects, and it’s kind of amazing what you can make a distorted lead guitar “do” within Notion :-)

I don’t really know how to describe this piece of music, other than to say it’s a bit like a musical roller coaster ride, some of it is calm, some of it is very, very calm, some of it is very, very serious classical music, but the bulk of it is prog rock, and prog rock that features a lot of lead guitar – supported by drums, bass, and strings.

I found, for example, that I could use a repeating viola section pattern of just three notes behind a guitar solo, and it sounds uncannily like a mellotron playing the three notes of a chord separately in the background.

there is no mellotron in Notion, so that worked for that purpose, beautifully.

once the piece was done, with it’s odd octave-based guitar parts, it’s strange tempo changes, I realised that it was absolutely unlike anything I’d ever attempted, and it does include some nods to the progressive rock heroes of my past – including one riff that accidentally sounds quite similar to a track from the first Utopia album (1974, “todd rundgren’s utopia” – the song is “freak parade”) but beyond that, it’s just influence, not actual copying, and I hope and believe that beyond that one section that has an unplanned similarity to Utopia, that this piece is 100 percent original – which really pleases me.

I am using those beautiful stuttering (trem) violins, to trade with the guitars, and it just sounds so wonderful – I am also making use of “trills” on some of the horn parts, something I’ve only used once before, and one of the guitar solos is a slide solo, which I think sounds amazing given that it’s not a human playing it!

sudden changes of tempo, sometimes, three or four changes within one minute of music, keep the listener (and the composer!) guessing – you never know what will happen next.

at the same time, there is structure; there are sections that tie back to theme presented in the very beginning of the song, repeating themes that bring a full circle closure to the piece, as the most important musical themes are visited more than once, to reinforce their importance within the piece.

throughout the piece, octave guitar parts remind me of Hendrix (Villanova Junction improv at Woodstock) and a few other players too, I even threw in one extremely avant- garde guitar riff just for the pure fun of it – why not?

The drummer gets a real work out too, with all of the tempo changes, and various drum fills between sections, he is a busy guy, but he works so well with the bass player and the guitarist. the other supporting instruments, cello, viola section, and the three horns, all contribute when they need to and lay back when they don’t.

the pianist surprises everyone when he appears to play the almost childlike piano solo, which quickly becomes a duet with the violas section, giving the section a more classical feeling.

the piano slows to a stop, and then, the violas take over with the
same theme, but played in a very, very sad manner, a beautiful, sparse arrangement, with sad, descending lines from the cello, playing against the much higher pitched violas – a nice touch. then, a final all orchestra part, with piano and horns, joined by the drummer briefly…

I won’t tell you about the ending, because after 12 minutes, you never quite know when to expect it, but I can say it ends on a very firm one, two, three ! and that is it.