Ku Ga Ga

For this challange I wanted to focus on the "exotic" part. I took this challenge as a chance to make something inspired by Gagaku, the old traditional court music played in ancient Japan.

For the melodic aspect I used the scale ryo. This scale has a pentatonic core of C D E G A but F# and B can be also be present. In the middle section it did end up sounding more natural minor though to what notes I ended up using. The harmony is based on the chords from the instrument shō. As I wanted the piece to be a bit more exotic I used a kinda nonstandard form. The percussion is made by a few ryhtmic cycles that all synchronise at the first beat after 8 meassures, resulting in some kind of semi obachi. Though not japanese, I used the chinese instrument xiao and erhu to get even more of an exotic flavor.

Soundcloud: https://soundcloud.com/per-loennqvist/ku-ga-ga?si=5bd63f0782d949938604d187209749...

Youtube: