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Musical sketches

Following the breakdown of the film's psychological 'through-lines' for each of the teenage girls, a suite of musical sketches was composed by Philip.

1. Theme A1
Violins & bass guitar with harp-pluck improvized solo

2. Theme A2
Clarinet' wavering' & rising/ cut-off guitar drone & occasional guitar-train & violin slide with high clarinet improvized solo

3. Theme A1
(i) Guitar fingered-chords & bass guitar - then (ii) clarinet melody added - then
(iii) violins added as bass guitar cuts out; guitar-train improvized solo.

4. Theme B
(i) Hi-pitched background guitar with choral-voice improvized
solo - then
(ii) guitar riff with clarinet harmonies added - then
(iii) occasional bursts of guitar-train with choral-voice; improvized solo

5. Theme C
Bass guitar randomly played & guitar-drone with guitar-train solo

6. Theme A2
Clarinet' wavering' & rising/cut-off guitar drone & occasional train with guitar-fingered chords & clanging-piano

7. Theme A1
(i) Clarinet harmonies & string with high clarinet improvized solo & harp-pluck improvized solo
(ii) guitar-fingered chords & clanging-piano & harp-pluck improvized solo continued - then
(iii) clarinet harmonies, strings & harp-pluck. improvized solo; combine - then
(iv) clarinet harmonies alone with harp-pluck improvized solo

8. Theme C
(i) Noise guitar chords with occasional guitar-train bursts - then
(ii) guitar-drone added - then
(iii) return to noise guitar chords alone

9. Theme A1
All instruments included

10. Theme A1
Hi-pitched background guitar only

11. Theme A1
Guitar-drone only

12. Theme Al
Guitar-fingered chords only

13. Theme A1
Guitar-train rhythm only

Instrumentation

These themes were composed around a restricted palette of instrumentation:

a. clarinet (recorded and sampled)
b. 'bass guitar' (constructed from a close-miced drastically re-EQ-ed pluck of an acoustic steel guitar string)
c. 'electric piano' (constructed from majorly re-edited wavesamples of close-miced nylon and steel guitar strings)
d. 'electric feedback' (constructed from a fusion of harmonic overlays created by the wavesample edits plus re-samples of analogue synthesizer tones tuned to complement the harmonics
e. 'de-tuned school hall piano'(constructed from majorly re-edited wavesamples of close-micked nylon and steel guitar strings)
f. vocal textures (edited and processed from fragments of the actor Dora Kaskanis singing in the film, plus the voice of the singer used in the recording/recreation of the 70s single of Alex's mother)
g. percussion (edited and processed from fragments of the drum multi-tracks used in the recording/recreation of the 70s single of Alex's mother)
h. acoustic guitar (recorded)
i. cellos (edited and processed from a miniscule sample from the original recording of "Seasons of Change")

Following discussions with director Ana, the various themes were relocated and positioned, with changes made to the original sketches' multi-tracking (some tracks were pared-back; other were built-up). The final mixes were done in stereo in preparation for the video release, and mono-mixes were configured for the 16mm film release.

Complete contents of this page © Philip Brophy