Oh, Lord! was composed and arranged for contrabass, two cellos, viola, baritone voice and alto voice. It originally existed in song format for slide guitar and voice. When ASM asked for vocal pieces, I thought this would be a perfect experiment to try to blend a blues song with contemporary classical music. John Fahey, guitarist & composer, created the term American Primitive for his style of acoustic guitar playing in which he infused classical music into American Roots Music. My goal with Oh, Lord was to do the reverse.
Oh, Lord is based off of an E chromatic blues scale in which all twelve notes are available and pits minor against major. The dichotomy of the blues is minor melodies against major chords and minor and major melodies intertwining. The basic structure for Oh, Lord is a song format with an intro, outro, verses, choruses and a solo. The solo section emphasizes chromaticism. As for the performance of Oh, Lord!, the performers are to treat it like a blues. Manipulate the pitches as they see fit.
credits
from Venimus, vidimus, audivimus vocem (NOC 6/21/15),
released June 21, 2015
AL GIUSTO wrote "OH, LORD!" songs for low strings and voices. It’s played by Brad Kemp (bass), Loren Dempster and Pat Muchmore, cellos, Jeanann Dara on viola, and sung by George Wright and Kamala Sankaram.
A brain-melter from Belgium’s Joeri Chipsvingers, this album goes full Beefheart on contemporary classical music, turning it inside out. Bandcamp New & Notable Oct 19, 2020