Recently Nathan posted a series of photo manipulations called Homeosis. Something about the contrast between ominousness and whimsey hit me in the creative nerve. It struck me that there was music implied in these compositions. They seemed to be a glimpse into, or evidence of, another history. This is a first rough sketch of this soundtrack. It’s a lot more plodding and heavy than I planned, but it starts to suggest the sound scape I’m going for. Click the link at the end of this post to open the slide show in another window. Click the slow button in the lower left and try viewing it while you listen to the music (the slide show will loop around a couple of times).
Archive for the 'Podcast' Category
I improvised this piece on my keyboard, in two passes. What gives it its interesting texture is a little Pd patch I created, which sits between the keyboard and Logic. It takes chords and sends each pitch automatically to the individual instruments. Successive notes are sent in round robin fashion, alternating between the 4 instruments. So even when I played a single line melody on the keyboard, the result was a tapestry of different instruments alternating the notes of the tune. Continue reading ‘Podcast #9: The Poconos’
It’s 2 AM. Long past last call. The evening is winding down. Everyone’s a little tired, a little buzzed, a little pensive, but happy to be warm and not entirely alone. The band goes to one last song.
Continuing with the generic titles, I bring you “Beat Oriented.” When people ask me what kind of music I write, I usually end up drawing a line between “serious” music and “beat oriented.” This sketch falls right in the middle of the latter category.
I didn’t know it would end up this way when I started, but in a way it’s a retro track, bringing back ye olde sounde of 1997 - 98. There’s definitely a lot of Propellerheads in there along with Chemical Brothers. With the tempo cracked cranked up to 152 bpm, it’s a little bit drum & bass as well. Hopefully there’s a little bit of me lurking about.
The main percussion track is an acoustic drum kit which I just played a standard 4/4 beat at 120 bpm. A little boring, so I thought I’d see what happened if I sped it up. Sort of nice, but very busy since the snare rang pretty long. I played with the amplitude envelope of the sampler plug-in (Logic’s EXS24) until it had the right punch (effectively cutting the sound short before it had a chance to play the whole sample). That was fun, playing with that setting while the track played, so I recorded an automation track while doing that. That gave it a nice organic constantly changing texture, so I added some more automation of other parameters, including the attack time (which makes it sound almost reversed), and the filter cutoff and resonance. Since these parameters affected the kick and hi-hat as well, the whole drum track changes quite a bit as it progresses. I also added a bit crusher, and automate the bypass on it so that in select places the drums go very lo-fi. Cliché? Yes. But fun nonetheless. It’s just a sketch, so why not go with it?
I knew right away that I wanted that cheesy ’70s cop show bass line, so I recorded a clavinet simulation with an auto-wah and some distortion. Crunchy distorted organ was the next logical sound. This procedure continued as I layered sounds and took things away, etc.
The electric guitar at the end is a canned loop, which is there as a placeholder to remind me to record something later. Actually, this whole track is a placeholder to remind me to record something later.
Have fun.
A few months ago Ally asked me to collaborate with her to create some music for meditation. I’ve never done anything like that, at least not with that intention, so I approached this with a little trepidation. I’ve never been fond of most new age music I’ve heard, so I felt a need to push away from that direction. What’s funny is my first draft had this synth sound I’d developed which was the epitome of the new age sound. Ally nixed it immediately, thankfully. Interesting how sometimes we fall into the very thing we’re trying to avoid.
As things progressed I started finding the right instruments. I found a beautiful harp sound in the GPO, which is a harpist playing harmonics. I suspect what I have done may not be possible to play on a real harp, because of the technical limitations of playing harmonics on a harp. But the delicate sound is just right for what I’m after. I’ll have to ask a harpist sometime about it.
I still had another synth sound fading in and out in the background, which also got nixed. Ally said she preferred to keep it to natural sounds, and she’s right. It just feels right in that realm. She also really reacted well to the breaths I put between some of the phrases, so I reworked it some more and gave it even more space. I think it could probably use even more.
It’s very simple, harmonically — it’s all white keys. I think getting too complex won’t lend itself to the intended purpose of the music. Hopefully I’ll be able to accomplish what Ally asked me to do, which was to take the listener on a sonic journey while providing a backdrop for meditation and relaxation.
