Beet Streeeeeeetch

Listening to Beet Stretch was an interesting experience. My first impression was “wow, the first movement is 5 hours long”. I chose to listen to the first movement, because I thought the beginning was just a logical place to start. When I first began listening to it, it felt like listening to a pit orchestra tuning, but for five minutes. Hearing the music resonate, it almost sounded like the instruments were out of tune at a few instances, as you heard that pulsing sound that they tend to make when out of tune. I don’t know if that’s really how it is, or if it’s due to the creation of sound artifacts when you stretch the audio file. Either way, it was almost trance-like. Then when it kicked in a bit, it was really soothing. I’ve been a musician since I was 8, alto saxophone being my first instrument. If there’s anything I’ve learned from playing saxophone, it’s that it’s really difficult to control your dynamics, especially in small increments. That’s one thing that I thought was really incredible about Beet Stretch. A simple crescendo in normal time is really incredible in Beet Stretch, because it just keeps growing into a fortissimo little by little, something that I couldn’t possibly ever hope to achieve with my saxophone. (The air control that requires is absolutely astounding, and possibly impossible for anybody except Kenny G)

I also think it was super epic. The way it builds on itself made me think it’d be awesome in a climactic scene of a movie. When the tone shifts to being a bit darker, it’d be perfect for... well, I imagined the scene in Lord of the Rings when Saruman is creating the Uruk-Hai, but you could say just a really sinister scene. While listening, I must admit that there were points where I just wanted it to speed up. I tend to like melodic music, not ambient music. And at times, I was definitely frustrated with Beet Stretch because I wanted some more moving lines, but obviously that’s not exactly the point of Beet Stretch. So in that way, though, it’s interesting, because most music of today is relatively upbeat, and this purposely makes us anxious to hear something faster, and leaves us frustrated. However, maybe if I were tired when I listened to it, I would’ve loved it, because it probably would’ve been relaxing.