ogueMiddleChild

Intelligent Machinery

Composed by Russell Kahmann

Intelligent Machinery was composed in 2015 as a commission piece for the Collins High School Titan Thunder Marching Band in Shelbyville, Kentucky.

The basis of the show is how, as technology progresses, people are losing their humanity and interconnectedness.

The first movement is the starting of the machine. As the machine progresses, the Dies Irae (Catholic Funeral Mass Chant) is introduced, foreshadowing the coming doom. Listen for the "Terminator" rhythm! The metric complexity also increases as the machine's intelligence grows. Near the end, look out for the opening two chords of Halo Reach and the Matrix Chords (two major chords a tritone apart).

The second movement depicts an assembly line where humans are now serving the machine. The low-brass and percussive repetition lull the listener into a false sense of comfort. The two large cadential phrases incorporate both a metric expansion of the Dies Irae and the chord progression from the Final Fantasy save-point music.

The third movement is a minor-key waltz with a nine-measure phrase. It should call to mind a demented carnival ride. At this point, humanity realizes that it is too far gone and is now living in a dystopian nightmare. There is then a clearing, featuring both a beat-constant and subdivision-constant metric modulation.

The final movement is short, but powerful. The machine has won, and humanity is lost. Key features involve a strong low brass with interlocked phrases that change in length. The woodwind solo line is the most complex melody of the entire piece. The work culminates in a full-ensemble performance of the Dies Irae and a repetition of the first-movement cadential figure.

n.b. The versions in the audio recordings and video recordings differ in the third movement, with the removal of the pitched-percussion interlude and subsequent replacement of a percussion feature.