Bamboo Shoots and City Streets

This piece is an exploration of the blend between tradition and urbanization, inspired by bamboo shoots I saw growing in the middle of the pavement while on a walk with a friend. I wondered what it would sound like to tell the story of the resilience and adaptability of these bamboo shoots as they continue to grow and adapt in an ever-urbanizing environment. I explored this concept by blending genres of music that represent both tradition and urbanization. Tradition is represented through the sounds of traditional Japanese music forms (such as gagaku or taiko), while urbanization is represented through the inclusion of elements of pop, rock, metal, and jazz. The piece begins in the midst of a forest of bamboo shoots. With each sudden percussive impact a new shoot bursts through the ground. The woodwinds and xylophone assist us in moving forward while weaving through the narrow spaces between bamboo stalks. As the texture thins out and moves outside of the forest, we are suddenly thrust into an urban landscape. The next section features stereotypical city sounds: car horns via muted trumpets, passing traffic in the trombones, and a general sense of busy hurriedness represented through the constantly moving and evolving textures. The string bass, drumset, low brass, and low reeds are frequently treated as a jazz rhythm section. It is also in this section that we are exposed to the introduction of the main theme of this piece (first seen in the horns at measure 44). This theme, for me, brought to mind the image of bamboo swaying in the wind, and returns multiple times in several environments throughout the piece, displaying the many places this bamboo is able to adapt and flourish. While the soundscape painted here sounds largely urban, it is important to note that the majority of material in this section is based on traditional Japanese music forms: The initial rhythmic figure in the horns and saxophones is derived from solo shamisen music, the woodwinds regularly interrupt phrases with shakuhachi-like motivic elements, many of the harmonies featured later in the section are directly taken from gagaku, and the initial "bamboo forest" triplet figures found in the xylophone and woodwinds in the beginning are hidden within the jazz saxophone solis. As all of these sounds and textures develop, they grow increasingly urgent and intense, building to an overwhelming extent. Next, an escape into the countryside. The business and complexity of the city disappears, and we are able to reflect on the beauty of the bamboo in its more natural habitat. A modified form of our original bamboo forest theme, cognizant of a river, is developed in sequence to build into a new presentation of the main theme (rhythmically modified with transposed pitches, but otherwise the same). This restatement of the main theme is accompanied by the nostalgic sounds of a fuurin (wind chime), shakuhachi-like figures in the flutes, more fragments of the bamboo forest theme, and harmony that I largely associate with pop and rock music. We come to a full realization of the beauty of this scenery in measure 140, and then return to our sequential river texture from before which fades into a serene stillness. Suddenly, in a very unexpected location, we are thrust back into the bamboo forest theme once again. This is the bamboo in the pavement: defiant and resolute. Taiko drums set an underlying determination that drives this section forward while an assortment of battle cries in the brass intermingle with the familiar sounds of festival music in the woodwinds. This section ebbs and flows, growing into a shameless metal groove before thrusting us, once more, into a majestic and powerful resurgence of the main theme. This theme reminds us of tradition's firm roots that have persisted and adapted through an ever-urbanizing environment, continuing to grow in power and intensity up to the very last note.