Rockwell Cemetery - atonal and tonal music blend

This was a musical vision I had in my head during the winter months of 2017 and brought it to completion after weeks of difficulty battling the winter blues and the iron grip of coldness that strangles us mid westerners for six months of the year. I absolutely despise it. The music reflects just how I felt, as my mind loses less ground with each passing year due to previous concussions.
The music does have a tone row of atonal music, which I use occasionally, but for the most part it is focused on dissonance, mixed with some consonance, occasionally. I worked with this composition for an unusually long time (about two months) until I felt it was ready. I had to cut it from 8 minutes to about 6. I also got to the point where the dissonance seemed like consonance and my ears had no problem with it. I hear the opening dissonant chords as I would hear the opening chords of "My Love" by Paul McCartney or something. Anyway, this project I spent too much time on and was so close to just scrapping it due to the fear of the morbid and dark subject matter, even though I found the process of doing the video/photography/music completely liberating. I found the old cemetery to be fascinating and filled with some of the oldest stones I had ever seen. I enjoyed putting my ideas together along with the music I was writing. I must create to live, I always need to create something. The experience was a huge dose of reality as I strolled through the Rockwell Cemetery, which is only a couple miles from my home. Rockwell was one of the 1st settlements in La Salle County. It was founded about 1835. A few years later, during the Cholera outbreak of 1938, most of the inhabitants died. The population was about 200 folks before the outbreak of sickness. By 1840 only six houses remained. The Cemetery was placed about a half mile or so north of the houses that aligned Rockwell road, overlooking the I&M canal which would not be finished until ten years later in 1848. Not even the railroad was there. Nothing, except hope that the I&M canal would terminate at that point someday, but it ended up being about a mile to the west. Tragedy struck young Rockwell in it's early years "Life is short, art is long, opportunity is transient." I think Hippocrates said that. Once again, thanks for listening to my varied, creative, expressions. The end of the video turns to color and the blue sky, green grass, budding trees, and spring start to emerge. Life begins anew. I hope you find the video interesting.
One of my favorite sections in this composition is when the video shows me spinning backwards. The music set to that section is atonal, but hints with tonality because of it's use of thirds and fourths yet in a descending fashion with the open D note (fourth string as a pedal tone, providing some more tonality, if you will, but still restless, longing for resolution of some sort, and then finally I tease you with a breath of consonance by pausing on a pleasing interval, only to quickly break away and descend further back to dissonance. But at the end, I give the ear what it yearns for and give you the pleasing consonance for a few moments, as the video turns to color. A ray of hope and brightness emerges. I hope you find it strange. Thanks for listening.

[TheraminTrees]

Superb work Ray! Gorgeous, absorbing eerie atmosphere — both musically and visually. Sweet ending too. I know atonal work isn't everyone's cup of tea, but as a huge fan of it, I'm so glad you've put out work in this area — it's great to see it done by someone like you who has the technical ability and the emotional sensibility to bring it off. Fantastic stuff.

[sanyasyniushkevych]

Again and again I'm completely fascinated with the power of Internet. I've never been to Illinois and in US in general but by just listening to this, watching the photographs and reading the description I seem to have been there with you telling me this cemetery's sad story. Fantastic.

[pennysmovingart]

Ray you really did a great job! It is amazing how old the grave stones are up there. I like to go to cemeteries and study the different names and also the type of tombstone that was used. I am not crazy about the atonal music, but this all really went well together! Very erie at times, and the spinning, then the ending was like Wow! Thanks for all the hard work you have put into this and glad you were able to get out there to do it, and to do another project after the winter blues. Again! Great Job! I Liked it!

[ido]

It actually turned out great. I most love modern compositions that use both atonal and tonal technique, like Benjamin Britten does, and I think you do it great.