Eclectic Edge Ensemble

Study Guide: A Musicians Perspective...

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When you hear the amazing sounds that EEE dances to, you might ask yourself; "how do they do it?" Well we wanted to know as well, so we asked. We are lucky to have such wonderful composers and musicians working with our company and they were excited to tell us all about their process. Each musician took some time to describe how they go about the process of coming up with their music for the show, Send in the Jazz. As you will read you will find that each person has a unique process, which truly classifies the art in the music. Happy reading, and enjoy!

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A few words from Richard Sloss:

My approach at musical composition is quite a bit different now than it was in the „70s, during my time at the U of MN and the years immediately afterward. That process was pretty standard and straight forward. Sketch the piece out. Score it on staff paper. Write out the parts. Rehearse with the performers. Attend the performance. Move on to the next piece. As any composer will tell you from that time, the process was very time consuming and exhaustive. Which is why, when Dana and I started our family, I pretty much retired from it.

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Around the time Karis created the Eclectic Edge Ensemble, she asked me if I would consider writing a piece of music for a dance she had in mind. Yep. I dusted off my composer chops, and soon a new process evolved. Many things dictated how this process would come about. The interaction with the creative process of choreography and dance required me to be very agile and adaptive in how my music would be created. “It needs to be faster here and slower there.” “Lose this part, it destroys the flow.”

“Can we have more of the C section? You know, about 30 more seconds?” 

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Advances in technology provided me with many more tools that would allow me to work in this manner: MIDI, DAWs (Digital Audio Workstations), sample-based virtual

instruments, and of course the computer. My objective had changed from creating notes for musicians to entertain audiences with musical performances to creating musical performances to be used by dancers to entertain audiences with dance performances. The interactivity of the musical creation process with Karis‟ dance choreography process was intriguing.

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Writing music for the fantastic dancers of Eclectic Edge Ensemble and Karis‟ choreography is tremendous fun and a great priviledge.

~Richard Sloss

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This performance is made possible, in part, by MRAC and the Minnesota Arts and Cultural Heritage Fund as appropriated by the Minnesota State Legislature with money from the vote of the people of Minnesota on November 4th, 2008