Vangelis - Musical Style and Compositional Process

Musical Style and Compositional Process

As a musician, Vangelis relies heavily on synthesizers and other electronic approaches to music. Synthtopia, an electronic music review website, stated that Vangelis' music could be referred to as "symphonic electronica" because of his use of synthesizers in an orchestral fashion. The aforementioned review site went on to describe his music as melodic: "drawing on the melodies of folk music, especially the Greek music of his homeland." Vangelis' music and compositions have also been described as "...a distinctive sound with simple, repetitive yet memorable tunes against evocative rhythms and chord progressions." He often used vibrato on his synthesizers, which was carried out in a distinctive way on his Yamaha CS80 polyphonic synthesizer; varying the pressure exerted on the key to produce the expressive vibrato sound.

In an interview with Soundtrack, a music and film website, Vangelis talked about his compositional processes. For films, Vangelis stated that he would begin composing a score for a feature as soon as he sees a rough cut of the footage. In addition to working with synthesizers and other electronically based instruments, Vangelis also works with and is a conductor to orchestras. For example, in the Oliver Stone film Alexander, Vangelis conducted an orchestra that consisted of various classical instruments including sitars, percussion, finger cymbals, harps, and duduks.

Vangelis uses a technique of recording all tracks simultaneously on tape, using a Zyklus MIDI Performance System. The album Direct is named after the successor to the Zyklus which was being specially manufactured for him by the Zyklus MPS designers, Bill Marshall, Pete Kellock, and Mike Crisp.

He explains his customary method of approach. As soon as the musical idea is there, as many keyboards as possible are connected to the control-desk, which in turn are directly connected to the applicable tracks of the multi-trackmachine. The idea now is to play as many keyboards as possible at the same time. That way as broad a basis as possible develops which only needs fine-tuning. After that it's a question of adding things or leaving out things. —