Untouchable Part 1

[Kayleen]

Untouchableis a live album by English progressive rock band Anathema released on 24 June in double vinyl format. It was scheduled to be released in its audio visual CD/DVD version in August 2013.

"In May 2012 Anathema released Weather Systems, the most successful album of the band's two decade plus career. Scoring high in end of year polls around the world, the album cemented Anathema's reputation as one of the most interesting bands of recent times. Following the release of the album, the band embarked on a lengthy world tour.The European part of the tour opened with a special one-off gig at the ancient Roman theatre of Philippopolis where the band were joined by the Plovdiv Philharmonic Orchestra. Untouchable captures the magic of this unique evening."[1]

Even before touch became a subject of discussion in my therapy, I was always acutely aware of any occasions when my therapist and I were in very close proximity, or when we touched fleetingly or accidentally. Once, as I got up to leave, she pulled down a book from her shelves to show me something. We stood side by side, very close, not quite touching. As well as the physical proximity, I suddenly became aware of the height difference, particularly as I was wearing heels. When sitting down, that difference is not at all apparent, and it felt strange being taller; somehow incongruous with the fact that I often feel like a child in her presence, and she feels like my shelter and high tower.

Categories: Therapy Tags: borderline personality disorder, BPD, bullying, feeling untouchable, healing touch, therapeutic relationship, therapy, touch in therapy, wanting hugs from therapist, wanting touch in therapy Permalink.

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You were starting to think that you underestimated just how touch starved Yelena really was. You reassured the others that eventually she would calm down, and be willing to share you with them again. But a few weeks went by and she was still possessive with your cuddles and hugs.

I've reproduced the first few bars of the chorus of 'Grey Skies' in diagram 1. As you can see, the chords move at the rate of one per bar and the vocal line has a largely quarter-note rhythm, against which the high string line moves very slowly. Coupled with the fast, bubbling percussion and a half-time drum feel, these different rates of change combine into an agreeably ambiguous rhythmic stew. The simple counter-melody also introduces the subtle harmonic colouring of an F note over a Gbsus2 chord, a nice way of playing a (kind of) major seventh that avoids the sleazy, lounge-jazz connotations of that particular chord name.

Diagram 2: A fleshed-out string arrangement of the 'Grey Skies' excerpt designed to support the high violins counter-melody in diagram 1. The three-note chords are played by divisi second violins (marked in blue) and violas, while the bass line is played by cellos and basses in octaves. Some chords contain tone intervals, a harmonic coloration favoured by your author that is often considered de trop in conventional pop/rock arrangements.

The compositional basis for this song is a simple piano figure played by Danny Cavanagh, shown in diagram 3. The top notes of the chords (marked in red) pick out a simple, engaging melody. This is a good example of effective 'voice leading', a vital skill every composer and arranger should strive to master. I particularly like the way the final melodic movement from F to Eb transforms the harmonic make-up of the chord from a Gm7 to an 'Eb over G' (aka 'Eb first inversion').

My string arrangement for 'Untouchable Part 2' features the piano motif played in various registers: it starts out low and subdued on violas, before moving up an octave into the violin register. In the second chorus, it ascends again and is played in octaves by violins. Diagram 4 shows how the lead vocal part works in tandem with the violins' counter-melody; while the vocal is rhythmic and syncopated, the strings play straight, slow on-beat whole and half notes (or semibreves and minims, as we call them in the trade).

Diagram 4: The four-part string arrangement for the chorus of 'Untouchable Part 2', written for an instrumentation of first and second violins, violas and cellos. The slow movement of the violins counter-melody (marked in red) contrasts with the faster, more rhythmic vocal line.

Another example of counter-melody occurs in Anathema's song 'Kingdom', but this time the roles are reversed: as you can see in diagram 5, the high strings line is far more rhythmically active than the sparse vocal line. Note the 'div' marking in bar 6, an instruction (as discussed previously) to the first violins to divide into two equal sections to handle the upper and lower part respectively. Without this instruction, a player might think he or she should play both notes simultaneously. Notating the note stems in opposite directions (as in the last bar) also confirms the section division.

Although it seems to have fallen out of favour in pop circles recently, the aforementioned fast ascending violins run is another staple of old-school string arranging. For that reason, virtually every strings sample library under the sun contains ascending and descending octave runs. Some, such as Peter Siedlaczek's Smart Violins and the more recent Orchestral Tools Orchestral String Runs, even specialise in the style. In the past, sample library manufacturers would record these runs in a choice of tempos in the hope that one might fit your track, but nowadays time-stretching can be used to force the runs to your song tempo.

An alternative to fiddling about trying to make these pre-recorded phrases fit your track is to play them yourself, although that naturally requires the ability to perform a scale on a keyboard. However, you don't have to play the run at a quick tempo; when sequencing a run, slowing the tempo down to half speed will take the strain out of the performance and ensure all the notes get played in the correct time span!

Keep in mind that although a conventional octave run can conveniently be played as eight 16th notes over two beats, you don't have to use eight notes in a run; a recent string arrangement of mine contained a fast ascending run of 15 notes, as shown in diagram 6. I didn't have this particular number of notes in mind when I composed it. The idea was to ascend quickly from Middle C to a high C over three beats, and the maths just worked out that way.

When confronted with such a run, string players don't perform complicated mental arithmetic to work out the precise length of each individual note; they simply treat the phrase as a whole and make sure it fits the allotted space in the bar. The result is an exciting 'whoosh', a bit like a fast harp glissando; small discrepancies within the section help to blur the rhythm and create the flowing quality that's unique to strings.

Diagram 8: Excerpt from the 'Sunset of Age' string arrangement. The upper line was played by first and second violins, supported an octave down by cellos. When the low part moves into the higher register (as in the second half of bar two and the first half of bar four), the violas take over from the cellos.

Enough of such musical triumphs. Disaster can strike when you're least expecting it, and no treatise of this type would be complete without a few string-arranging horror stories. I've been lucky enough to avoid the worst of these, although I did have a nasty moment when recording strings on a film score (sadly, the cinematic opus in question remains unreleased, hopefully not as a result of my contribution).

These are not the words you want to hear when poised to record the first cue of your film soundtrack, and I had horrible visions of having to teach the bass players their parts by whistling them. Fortunately, it turned out that only one part was missing, and of course Sod's Law decreed it was for the cue we recorded first. Thankfully, the bassists were able to read their part from my score, after which we were back on track. Not a great way to start a session, though!

As disasters go, this pales into insignificance compared to the story of the arranger who set off for a strings session without realising a train strike was scheduled that day. The players showed up at the studio to find there were no parts, so amused themselves for the next two hours by doing the world's longest soundcheck and whipping out classical pieces they knew by heart. When the poor arranger finally showed up with the parts, two hours late, the string players saved the day by playing his scores absolutely brilliantly on the first take, thereby cramming three hours' work into the remaining hour left on the session clock.

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