Broken Gourd

Broken Gourd for Wind Ensemble uses elements from Dominican and Haitian folklore such as rhythms taken directly from the Afro-Latinx communities (mainly from Haitian voodoo drumming) combined with melodic lines that imitate the Taino way of singing and playing. In the Caribbean Taino culture there is a tale that describes the formation of the seas. The tale talks about a man named Yaya, whose son, Yayael, would have tried to kill him. In order to avoid his demise from the hands of his son, Yaya decided to kill Yayael instead. Yaya placed the remains of his son in a gourd where the bones turned into fish. One day, a zemi (a Taino ancestral spirit) named Deminán and his three brothers walked into Yaya’s house with the intention of stealing and eating the fish. Deminán accidentally dropped the gourd and broke it. The water and the fish that came out of the gourd were plenty to fill up the earth leading to the creation of the seas. This piece is a depiction of the moments right before, during, and after the gourd breaks. Through a cumulative process using a set of numbers derived from a fibonacci sequence I make the ensemble gradually grow in intensity. It builds up until reaching a climax right at the moment where the gourd is dropped and breaks, leading to the resolution of the piece that portrays the earth being filled with water and life.

Name thesis:degree_name

M.M. (Master of Musical Arts)

Level thesis:degree_level

Masters

Discipline thesis:degree_discipline

Music Composition (UMKC)

Grantor

University of Missouri--Kansas City

Year dc:date.issued

2021

Author dc:creator

• Gallo-Balma, Giuseppe Junior

Advisor dc:contributor.advisor

• Rudy, Paul, 1962-

Handle dc:identifier.uri

https://hdl.handle.net/10355/84165

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:mospace.umsystem.edu:10355/84165