My goal in creating Hades House was to characterize Hades, the God of the Underworld, using a percussive piece. I wanted to challenge myself and show that Hades was a fair and often misunderstood God. To support this characterization, I use the myths of Persephone and Hades, the overthrowing of Cronus, and details from several other myths.

Hades House Sheet Music - Sheet Music

Hades House Recording - Recording

Hades House Analysis

The beginning of the piece gives a bit of background about Hades. I use a forte three part motif (measures 1, 2) to reflect how Hades and his 2 brothers defeated their “Insatiably cruel and hungry for power” father, Cronus (OCD, uvm). “Hades was allotted the world of the dead”, and so the next section of the piece includes a decrescendo, pulling the audience to the House of Hades (OCD).

As we enter the underworld, we start with a crescendo, taking the audience into a journey through the underworld. We first encounter an abrupt lick (measures 7, 9) reflecting the mythological creature Cerberus. Cerberus is the three-headed ‘terrible hound’ who guards the Gates of Hades (OCD). This lick represents how people influenced by Western Civilization may believe the God of the Underworld may be devilish, but this is not true as we will learn throughout the piece.

The piece continues to crescendo, until we get to the central repeating lick of the piece - we have found Hades (measures 10, 11). The dynamic here emphasizes the uncovering of Hades personality, which “never quite emerges as a distinct personality from the shadowy darkness of his realm” (Britannica). These triplets all have the same rhythmic base but have slight variations to them, emphasizing the “opposite but complementary aspects of [Hades’s] divinity” such as the Beautiful‐haired One, Of Good Repute, vs. implacable, and tearless (OCD). Many people associate the latter epithets with a negative connotation, but these are underlining Hades’s stern personality, not cruel or irreputable characteristics (Britannica). As managing the Underworld, Hades has to be cold-hearted as many people want to bring people back from the Underworld. This is the reason why he is trusted to be the ruler of the Underworld; when he brings people to the underworld he isn’t doing it out of emotion, but rather it is his job to keep the order of nature and maintain the cycle of life (the collector). These crisp triplets personify Hades in this way and are something I repeatedly write in the piece, similar to how classical music reverts to a certain pitch (theconversation). And now, we descend into the myth of Hades and Persephone (Measures 14-23).

Here, Hades is taking a rare trip away from the Underworld, where Hades falls for Persephone. After the repeating Hades lick (measure 20), Hades created an enchanting narcissus (beat 2, measure 21, catches listeners off guard), and as soon as Persephone picked it up, the Earth gave way (measure 22) and Hades took Persephone to the Underworld (Measure 24). Though this abduction may seem outrageous (and is extremely unfair to Persephone), the Homeric Hymn to Demeter indicates that Hades had asked his brother and Persphone’s father Zeus to marry Persphone, and was fair by Ancient Greek standards (UH).

Starting at measure 24, when Hades and Persephone are in the Underworld, Persephone’s mother Demeter is worried sick for her only daughter. When she learns about the abduction and how Zeus and the all-seeing sun god Helios withheld this information from her, Demeter becomes furious and decides to take a leave from her goddess of harvest and fertility duties (Greeka). This leads to the earth drying up and famine spreading throughout the earth, resulting in many mortals suffering. The pleas of the people made it to Zeus, and he came up with a solution - if Persephone wanted to stay with Demeter he will restore persephone, otherwise if Persepone wants to stay with Hades, then she will stay in the underworld. This compromise hints at the fact that Zeus is reluctant to fight Hades, showing Hades strength. Meanwhile in the Underworld, Persephone eats a pomegranate, the fruit of the Underworld, which binds her to the Underworld; when Zeus and Demeter asked Persephone where she wanted to stay, she wanted to stay in the Underworld, with Hades. Demeter thought there was some sort of trick, and she threatened to starve everyone on Earth again, so another compromise was made: Persephone will stay with her mother for half of the year, and with Hades the other half.

This turmoil is played out in measure 24-26, when a duplet rudiment (in drumming called a “book report”) is played with triplets, having a mind-boggling effect. This rhythmic polymeter reflects the complex and uncertain future of Persephone and Hades. Finally at the Compromise (measure 27), we see many polyrhythms . These are 3 over 4 polyrhythms with accent pattern layered on top - there is rhythmic dissonance that gets resolved every 6 beats (measure 29, “Underworld Rock!”). This reflects how the turmoil and dissonance involved with the myth of Persephone and Hades explain a natural circle of seasons - a natural harmony. In terms of characterization, Hades was not obligated to make compromises with Demeter in the Ancient Greek cultural context, but he did anyway, showing Hades as someone who “followed Greek customs and even compromised to satisfy his mother-in-law” (the collector). As we near the end of the piece, measure 37 to the end repeats many music elements earlier in the piece, reflecting how Hades remained loyal to Persephone, even when Hades’s brothers were “widely known for their affairs” (the collector).

Aside from reflecting the myths of greek culture in this piece, throughout the piece I used flam , grids , polyrhythms , polymeters , and other complex rudiments/time modulations to mirror the “alien melodic sensibility” and complexities of Classical music (theconversation). But to appeal to the modern music taste, I kept a normal time signature so that the drumming is comprehensible.

Throughout the semester, I loved learning about the various myths and stories. I started brainstorming ideas for this final project in the earlier parts of the semester, and was specifically brainstorming interesting and challenging methods to culminate all the knowledge I have gained. I have been in drumline for several years in high school and middle school, and got the idea of illustrating a mythological figure using percussion - and that’s where the Hades House was born. I chose to highlight Hades not only because it would work perfectly with the militaristic style of rudimental drumming, but also because I also wanted to emphasize his often misunderstood nature.

Once I came up with the idea of the Hades House, I researched Hades’s characterization in Ancient Classical texts (e.g. The Oxford Classical Dictionary - OCD) and in several secondary sources. Once I had insight into Hades’s character, I starting planning Hades House, and specifically how I can support a God’s characterization through music. This was one of the challenges I faced - I initially thought music would be too abstract to convey any meaning behind a character. But I realized that once I pinpointed what I want my audience to understand from a certain section in the piece, I brainstormed rudiments and drumming patterns to accomplish that goal, implemented it into the piece, and repeated this process for the next sections. After writing the sheet music, to make my characterization of Hades more explicit I created a written analysis for Hades House. This way, I was also able to incorporate citations from my sources. I found many interesting modern-day recreations from the Classical era. One of which is Hadestown, which is an entire broadway musical that was based on the ‘Classical Underworld’. I also found a recreation of Ancient Greek music, an Orestes chorus, performed at Oxford (theconversation). For future development of Hades House, I would love to include music from Hadestown and the Orestes chorus recreation in an orchestral or electronic setting.

Resources:

Armand D’Angour Associate Professor in Classics. “Ancient Greek Music: Now We Finally Know
What It Sounded Like.” The Conversation, 8 Feb. 2023,
theconversation.com/ancient-greek-music-now-we-finally-know-what-it-sounded-like-99895.

Greer, Bayley. “Overview: History of Mount Olympus.” Uvm, 15 Nov. 2006,
www.uvm.edu/~jbailly/courses/tragedy/student%20second%20documents/bayley2.htm.

“Hades.” Encyclopædia Britannica, Encyclopædia Britannica, inc., 15 Nov. 2023,
www.britannica.com/topic/Hades-Greek-mythology.

"Hades." Oxford Reference. . . Date of access 4 Dec. 2023,
<https://www-oxfordreference-com.ezproxy.lib.utexas.edu/view/10.1093/oi/authority.2011101014
385376>

Henrichs, Albert. "Hades." The Oxford Classical Dictionary. : Oxford University Press, , 2012.
Oxford Reference. Date Accessed 4 Dec. 2023
<https://www-oxfordreference-com.ezproxy.lib.utexas.edu/view/10.1093/acref/9780199545568.0
01.0001/acref-9780199545568-e-2911>.

Homeric Hymn to Demeter, uh.edu/~cldue/texts/demeter.html. Accessed 3 Dec. 2023.

“Persephone, Queen of the Underworld.” Greeka, Greeka,
www.greeka.com/greece-myths/persephone/#:~:text=The%20story%20of%20Persephone%2C
%20the,the%20Nature’s%20death%20and%20rebirth. Accessed 3 Dec. 2023.

Russo, Gillian. “What to Know about Greek Mythology before Seeing ‘Hadestown.’” New York
Theatre Guide, New York Theatre Guide, 20 Apr. 2023,
www.newyorktheatreguide.com/theatre-news/news/what-to-know-about-greek-mythology-before
-seeing-hadestown.

“Why Is the God Hades Always the Bad Guy? 5 Reasons Why He Isn’t!” TheCollector, 27 Feb.
2021, www.thecollector.com/hades-greek-god/.