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Omar's Shuffle
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Omar y los Bandeleros play every Friday night for the wealthy retired Americans in Ajijic, mostly Mariachi Music in the Moonlight at the Posada in town. But on Saturday nights they move to the school gym off the town square and step up the tempo.
microtonal csound prent r
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Microtonal Music by Prent Rodgers. Made with Csound.
I am a composer of music using Microtonal intonation systems, including the Harry Partch Tonality Diamond. These systems draw on Just Intonation, which is different from the normal 12-tone equal temperment that western music has been based on for the last 300+ years. Some of the tuning may sound "off" to modern ears, but if you listen, you will hear sounds that are unique in the world, with a whole world between the 1:1 and the 2:1 octave. The music is created using the tool Csound, which is a publicly available, freely distributed digital signal processing tool with the ability to specify exact tone, timbre, and other characteristics of individual tones with greater specificity than the MIDI standard. All the pieces on this site are built using sample-based instruments from the McGill University Master Sample Library.
Song Info
Genre
Classical • Contemporary
Charts
Peak #251
Peak in subgenre #38
Author
Prent Rodgers
Rights
2001
Uploaded
December 11, 2003
Track Files
MP3
MP3 7.4 MB • 128 kbps • 0:00
Story behind the song
Recently I was in Guadalajara, Mexico on a business trip; I rented a car and drove over the mountain to the small town of Ajijic on Lake Chapala. At a party, I heard and made a recording of an amazing band of terrific musicians. I posted one song on MP3.com yesterday, in the Mariachi section, under http://www.mp3.com/OmarBandeleros . Take a listen and let me know what you think; I swear I hear some 7:4’s 11:8’s, and other microtones in their playing. Omar y los Bandeleros play every Friday night for the wealthy retired Americans in Ajijic, mostly Mariachi Music in the Moonlight at the Posada in town. But on Saturday nights they move to the school gym off the town square and step up the tempo. Omar is the band's leader, and tuba player. His wife Angelina plays the piccolo. Omar is tall and thin and has a neatly trimmed mustache. Angelina has let her weight get away from her, and is pushing 120 kilos, easy. Earlier, on the night these recordings were made, Angelina and Omar had been fighting over something. Enrique, the lead trumpeter said it was over Omar losing money at the cock fights. Roberto, the bongo player, felt that Angelina was angry over Omar spending all Friday afternoon helping the new guitar player, Rosa, learn the changes in his shuffle. Angelina felt the new changes were not all for the good, if you know what I mean. Omar wanted to diffuse the situation by playing some romantic music with Angelina, and that is how this tune starts. Francesco the marimba player begins the tune with a gently rocking ostinato in C major otonality. Omar entices Angelina to join in with a sweet bass line on his tuba. Hector and his trombone section join in to complement the sound. When Rosa joins in on guitar, the pace quickens rapidly. Pretty soon the tempo and the heat rise as it becomes clear Angelina wants more than sweet music from Omar. The group is rocking through some bizarre changes at 150 bpm. After this recording was made, Omar left the stage with Angelina, and the remainder of the band finished out the set without them. Rosa was asked to leave the band the next day, and has been hanging out in Colorado with a guy named Nelson in Durango, driving a Suburban into town every day to pick up her mail and her royalty checks. Omar continues to lead the band every weekend, but Angelina is thinking of quitting to join the Guadalajara Philharmonic. She says she is going to be the next Latin Herbie Mann, with or without Omar. I'm not sure where the group first learned to tune their marimba to the Partch 43 tone scale. Rosa the guitarist found her axe in a dumpster outside Peteluma and quickly fell in love with the big chords made possible with the otonality. Omar just likes the chance to show off his embouchure, if you know what I mean. I hope to post more recording of Omar, once I’ve cleaned the tequila out of my Sony Minidisc recorder.
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