Scott Sadowsky - "La caña mala" (2025 version)

This piece, in 6/8, is a stylized cueca, a Chilean rhythm and dance that all schoolchildren in the country learn to hate after being made to perform it in gym class every August and September for 12 years. "Stylized", as used here, is a fancy way of saying that I break conventions left and right, and even leave the cueca rhythm behind at one point in favor of the Argentinean chacarera. The core of "La caña mala" is performed by a pipe organ (undoubtedly a first in cueca history), a charango, a flute and a violin, with a music box occasionally joining in. In addition, certain parts feature a soprano choir and/or pan drums, a marimba-like instrument also likely never before used in a cueca. The percussion is provided by a bombo. The piece has four sections ("movements" sounds too pretentious), and was very roughly conceived as the musical synopsis of a night of drinking: 1. Tipsy to drunk. 2. The room spinning around and around when all you want is to fall asleep. 3. The hangover. 4. The glorious evening after when your head is as it should be again. I reworked an earlier version of "La caña mala" into the cues of the stop motion animation scenes of an aborted independent Colombian film you can find elsewhere on this channel, in the playlist "Score of aborted independent Colombian film" (https://studio.bilibili.tv/playlist/367203). Image generated with Reve.art. Copyright (c) 2025 by Scott Sadowsky. All Rights Reserved. Inscripción Nº 2025-A-5243 (Chile).