Marc Mellits' interleaved grooves

Dissecting some of Marc Mellits churning grooves to see what we can learn

The music of Marc Mellits is distinctive for its layered ostinati that fit together to create complex grooves:

In many cases (and in Black above, recorded by bass clarinet duo Sqwonk) it’s a single monophonic line passed rapidly between two voices. The effect in-person or recorded in stereo is a kind of phasing or echoing. The effect becomes even more interesting when the two instruments have timbres that vary slightly from one another. Listen to the bass clarinet/bassoon pair and then the soprano clarinet/alto saxophone pair at the beginning of Splinter: II. Sugar Maple, recorded by Akropolis Reed Quintet below:

Listening and even looking at the sheet music, it can be tough to figure out what is going on. Here are the bassoon and bass clarinet parts for the first few bars of Splinter: II. Sugar Maple (2:03):

Mellits breaks up a running eighth note line between voices, each voice contributing three notes at a time. This both creates the cool stereo/phasing effect while making it technically easier for the musicians to play. The two parts make a composite line that uses different eighth note subdivisions to bob and weave to fit into the 3/4 time signature. Here’s what those two parts look like collapsed into the one line they are both expressing bits of:

Now that we can seen the line, something else also becomes clearer—the line is made up of two units that create subdivisions of five and two, respectively:

These are the subdivisions that give the line a bit of unpredictability and interest since the units alone don’t fit neatly into the prevailing time signature but in combination they do.

A few bars later (2:11), Mellits layers on another groove atop the bassoon/bass clarinet composite, this time expressed by the similar-but-different timbres of the soprano clarinet and alto saxophone:

This new composite has the same set of eighth-note subdivisions as the bassoon/bass clarinet composite:

This is a technique Mellits uses in other places as well, taking a monophonic line with odd subdivisions and breaking it up between multiple voices, like in the final movement of his saxophone quartet Ex Machina, recorded by Zzyzx Saxophone Quartet below:

Lets see if we can take this recipe and make our own.

An attempt

First, lets choose a length of subdivision that fits somewhat oddly inside normal duple and triple time signatures. How about 7. Here’s a go at a figure 7 eighth-note long we can treat as our first unit, repeated twice.

And lets use a similar eighth-note descending figure as Mellits uses in Splinter to fill in that quarter-note gap at the end of the 2nd 4/4 bar:

Now lets break this into little pieces and pass them between two similar-but-different timbres. How about flute and soprano clarinet? In the clarion (and altissimo) registers, the clarinet should nicely match the natural bright clarity of the flute. We’ll use the same three note pattern Mellits uses to break up the continuous line:

Now we’ve got something with a bit of life and color to it and with a rhythmic underpinning that isn’t obnoxiously or obviously agogic.

Lets make another ostinato/groove (using the same process) to layer on top of this one. Two more similar-but-different instruments could be horn and alto saxophone:

The result

Now lets put it all together, adding a few more instruments; developing and extending it with a contrasting melodic idea underneath all the busyness; and a short departure that builds to a return:

It doesn’t sound very Mellits-y, to be honest (though I didn’t try that hard to emulate more than his technique). However, I do like what’s happening and am looking forward to playing with this technique and idea specifically.

Happy writing!