This week I composed a short piece with a Middle-Eastern flavor. It was intended to be an introduction to a potential film project. The film story is set in the Middle East during the Middle Ages. It is about a mythical encounter between a farmer and the devil. I won’t divulge more details at the present time, until the film is finished.
In order to give the proper flavor to the piece, I used samples from some Middle-Eastern instruments. In the first part, a wind instrument called a duduk is plays a melody, with quiet strings in the background. In the second part, a guitar-like instrument called a santoor plays an accompaniment to an alto singing a melody, with quiet strings in the background. The singer is not live, but sampled from the EastWest sample library titled Voices of the Empire.
I wanted the piece to have a very gentle tone. It is built on the harmonic minor mode, to give it an exotic flavor. The melody is haunting, to convey the feeling of the mythical story to follow.
Ancient Middle-Eastern Song combines some Middle-Eastern instruments with a haunting vocal melody.
