The SoundJunction compositions

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David Horne, Jason Yarde and Tunde Jegede

SOUNDJUNCTION asked three leading composers each to write a new piece of music in their own chosen style.

They were all given the same simple musical idea – the seed rhythm. The idea was to let their compositions grow in a free way from this seed idea. David Horne, Tunde Jegede and Jason Yarde had about three months to compose their pieces. They met before, during and after the writing process, to discuss and compare their ideas.

Here’s the rhythm that was given to the composers. This is exactly the form in which they were given it – it wasn’t written down, but sent out as an MP3 file.

David Horne, working in the Western classical tradition, wrote a piece called Emerging Dances for an ensemble of 14 instruments. David uses fragments of the seed rhythm in many different ways throughout the piece. Here’s the recording of Emerging Dances, along with an excerpt of where he’s using the rhythm.

Tunde Jegede’s musical upbringing combines both the traditional music of West Africa and Western classical music. Tunde composed the song Moving Away for a diverse group of instruments and voices, including guitars, koras and congas. Here’s Moving Away, and an excerpt that uses the seed rhythm.

Jason Yarde’s background combines jazz, hip hop and R&B. For his piece, Where Will It Take You?, singer Eska Mtungwasi joined a jazz big band. Here’s the result…

You could take on the same 'seed idea' composing project yourself. You could listen to these three compositions first to get some ideas. Or you could compose your own piece first, then compare it with the SoundJunction pieces.

The SoundJunction compositions

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