Alluvion

Alluvion is a contemporary piece for violin and piano about the flow of water. In the dictionary, ‘alluvion’ means ‘the wash or flow of water against a shore’. After discovering the definition of this word, I was inspired to write a piece that represents this type of water flow through music. The piece has a tempo of 80-120 and most of the piece is in common time, with one section alternating between 4/4 and 5/4 time. The song is in D major and rarely uses notes outside of the key, this was an intentional choice as the piece is meant to be easily listened to, as it is intended to be used for modern medias such as a film or TV show. Throughout the piece, the treble clef piano part will play a repeated syncopated line whilst the bass clef and the violin play with much more straight rhythms. The smooth, straight rhythm represents the flow of water, and the syncopated line represents the jagged edges of the ‘shore’. The contrast between the ‘water’ and ‘shore’ are put together in this piece to create alluvion.

The piece starts off with the ‘main theme’ of the song, a repeated syncopated line along with a violin melody that is used both at the start and at the end of the piece, a technique that’s often used in contemporary music and is also used in my other piece ‘Makin Pancakes’, but with this piece it’s the rhythmic idea of the piano that carries on through the piece while the violin changes to a new melody. The song transitions into the second segment at bar 17 by using a glissando to transition smoothly into it. The section in bars 17-23 lacks harmony as an intentional choice, because the rest of the piece lacks loud and extreme dynamics, this section is used to contrast the much greater amount of harmony in the other sections with the basic harmony. Bar 24-33 continuously alternate between 4/4 and 5/4 to create a 9/4 feeling, with strong pulses in 2+2+3+2. By using this unique rhythmic grouping it makes a slightly unsettling rhythmic feeling, as there is an extra beat for every 8 beats which creates rhythmic diversity in the piece. Bars 24 and 33 also have a rhythmic differentiation between the bassline in the piano and the violin melody, this combined with the 9/4 rhythm create a more nature-inclined sound without pulse, like how the ‘movement of water’ can wash up at random on the shore.

The piece once again changes time signatures to 6/8 and the tempo changes to 80BPM, this is done to create a powerful, triplet rhythm that almost sounds like metric modulation.  In bars 33 – 45, the piano part in the treble clef reinforces the 6/8 whilst the bass clef part goes through different rhythms, it starts with a syncopated line in bars 33-37 that creates a polyrhythm, this is an intentional choice to confuse the listener on where the strong pulses are, it prevents the section from sounding like a waltz and it once again recreates the sound of water, which does not have a strong pulse in its rhythm when it flows. In bars 38-45 the last section is contradicted with a more basic rhythm that plays on the strong pulses, this is a contemporary technique and makes the piece easier to listen to. After a piano and violin run in bars 46-47, the piece goes back to 120BPM in 4/4 and the piano goes back to playing the theme used at the beginning of the piece, now with an added countermelody that progressively includes more harmonic depth until bar 63, where it quiets down. The violin plays a new melody between bars 48 and 63, techniques such as syncopation and quick leading notes are used to add complexity and depth to the melody. In bars 64-67 the piano continues to play the theme in the treble clef while having chromaticism in the bass line, this invokes a nostalgic feeling in the listener where they may feel more related to the content of the music. The bass line ends on bar 68 as the treble clef and the violin melody finishes on the 3rd degree of the scale to leave it open to the listener, a technique that is also used in “Makin’ Pancakes”. The piece ends with the piano doing an ostinato of the theme, gradually decreasing in volume until it ends on a rolled chord, like the flow of water dying down, leaving a simple yet open ending.