10. End Class
CD Baby link to purchase La Commune
The Impetus:
This piece was inspired by the vision of a post class/post Capitalist society. Capitalism like Feudalism, is a system based on labor which is organized specifically along class lines. The main two classes found today are owners or the appropriating class (Capitalist who own and control the means of commodity production) and workers or the producing class (those who sell their labor to survive). The middle class is more of ideological illusion that a material reality, the “further reading” link below does a great job explaining the myth of the middle class. Although a classless society has not yet been successfully organized by humanity, at this point in history, humans have developed the productive forces globally to support and maintain such a society. As a human race, we now have the ability produce more than enough to feed, shelter, medicate and educate the entire world, but since the forces of production are controlled privately for profit, human needs are not being met.
Further reading on the “middle class” – The ABC’s of Class.
The Composition:
I was influenced by Bach’s use of spread triads from the cello suites and incorporated them along with metric groupings going over the bar line. I wrote the harmonic progression first using only Major and Minor chords which can be ordered nearly randomly and still sound nice without being functional in a diatonic sense. This last track includes Jason Harnell on drums, Joel Peloquin on guitar, Leonard Thompson on keys, David J. Carpenter on acoustic bass guitar and Matt Otto on tenor sax.
