Homeosis Slideshow

1. Trumpet, Tenor Sax, Trombone, Baritone Sax
2. Flute, Bb Clarinet, Bass Clarinet, Flugel Horn

This gives the first group of instruments a bright tone, and the second group a mellower tone. Sometimes you can hear the two groups playing up that contrast, other times they all intertwine as a single large texture.

Playing this is really fun. There’s something about being surprised by the outcome as you’re improvising. Even just repeating a chord yields constantly shifting texture since the notes of the chord keep getting assigned to different instruments. For example, the first chord may have the trumpet on the top, the tenor and bari in the middle, and the trombone on the bottom. The next repetition may have the tenor on top, the trombone and bari in the middle and the trumpet on the bottom. I originally wanted to set it up so it was smart about ordering the voices consistently, but this was so cool that I decided to keep it. There are some glitches, like when you try to play low notes thinking the trombone will play them, but they get assigned out of the range of the trumpet (resulting in silence). But hey, I usually play too many notes so that’s maybe not a bad thing! It would be interesting to create a “unison” mode, where it makes sure all the instruments are playing, so if you play a single note it sends it to all 4 players (2 notes would get split between 2 players). Some kind of automatic pitch bend variation would be neat as well, giving each player its own slightly different personality. Same with the mod wheel: slightly delay the volume swells or scale them just a bit differently for each voice, etc.

The patch is pretty simple. The heart of it is the poly object, which keeps track of note ons and offs and assigns a voice number to each note, round robin fashion. I just directly mapped the voice number to the midi channel. Garritan maps the modulation wheel to the loudness of the playing of the instrument. I copy the incoming controller data to all 4 midi channels so all the instruments in the ensemble are affected equally with the mod wheel. Pd is set up to listen to the hardware usb midi port and output on the IAC bus, which Logic is listening to. I made sure to route the same hardware port to a monitor object in Logic’s environment to avoid duplicate events (otherwise Logic would see the same events Pd does, and the ones Pd is forwarding through). I was inspired to go ahead and try this Pd idea by this post on Thomas Dolby’s blog where he describes how he uses Max (the commercial cousin of Pd) in conjunction with Logic in his live performance.

I did go back and tweak the live improvised recorded data, mainly to take things out (did I mention I tend to play too many notes?) here and there to allow for more contrast and breathing room, and to clean up some of the recorded mod wheel data, and to give the 2 sections a slightly tidier ending. It needs more controller tweaking (pitch bend, vibrato) to make the performances a little more life-like, but this is mostly just a demo of the live playing patch.

Relax at the Poconos.

This week I finally received the Garritan Jazz & Big Band. I was lucky enough to get in on their “group buy” sale at the last minute. This library has some fun, unique features, designed to coax a little bit of life out of sampled instruments. For instance, my favorite feature is the playable brushed snare stir: if you hold down the key, the stir keeps looping statically, but if you apply aftertouch, a stir sound with more pressure gets mixed in. This is a great idea, and very playable, and sounds surprisingly realistic. Some other nice features: control over the breathiness of wind instruments, key clicks, variable vibrato rate, and even samples of the player taking breaths between notes.

This sketch started with a bit of playing around with the soprano sax sound. I just recorded an improvised phrase with no metronome click and was dabbling with some of the aforementioned controls to hear what the effects were. I muted this and forgot about it as I loaded up the brushed drum kit. That snare stir immediately evoked a mood: a small club, late at night, the evening winding down. It demanded a slow tempo (60 BPM… clock ticking speed).

After setting that atmosphere and finding the right reverb, I knew I needed an upright bass. It’s funny how early experiences lodge themselves into your habits. I remember hearing Lou Reed’s “Walk on the Wild Side” on my transistor radio as a kid (yes, I actually had a transistor radio) and always loved that bass line. Those glissandi in tenths were just so moody and distinctive, and groovy. When I first started playing around with synths at music stores as an adolescent, when I encountered a fretless bass sound, I’d immediately start playing those tenths. Well, it appears I still do, since that’s what’s going on in this bass line, except without the glissandi. Just simple diatonic steps in mixolydian mode. Incidentally, here’s a bit of serendipity: I just looked up who played that bass line on “Wild Side”: a session player named Herbie Flowers. I happened to name this track “Anenome,” after some beautiful flowers Ally gave me recently. Spooky.

I recorded some trombone but I thought it sounded off and was about to throw it away. Ally insisted on hearing it before I trashed it and said she liked it. I played her the first sax solo as well (on its own). She asked if she could hear it over the rest of the music, even though it was in a different key, recorded at a much faster tempo, etc. To my surprise it not only worked, but now the trombone, which I thought was silly, made sense, in an odd sort of way. Slowing down the sax melody gave it a radically different character, and showed me a nice aspect of this sound library. Usually the sustained portion of sampled instruments is lifeless and pretty grating after a while. It can tend to subconsciously lead you to play mainly staccato passages. This sax sound, while it won’t fool a sax player, is pretty expressive, even for longer sustained notes. I went back in and improved the control over the vibrato, pitch bends, and amplitude (volume) shaping over phrases. I even added those breath sounds where appropriate.

After filling things in with some cymbal, kick, and piano, this sketch has a bit of a dramatic shape to it. It’s rough around the edges but I’m just happy to have done some more music after a long hiatus.

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.

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.

Before I saw this clip I had imagined the film was going to be part biopic about Alfred Browning Parker, the architect who designed Holly’s parent’s home, and part survey of modern architecture. I had in mind a heady modern score with angular phrases that matched the clean lines of modern architecture. Judging from the clip, the film is quite different from that. It’s more airy and quirky, with more of a focus on the personalities of the people who inhabit the spaces. The music Holly chose as a guide track was suitably fun and peppy. The challenge for me as a composer is deciding how closely I should follow that example. I’m certainly not going to top Dave Brubeck as a jazz composer, so I need to figure out what I can offer the film (aside from not having to deal with licensing issues!). What custom music can do is become part of the story — to subtly connect things, to accentuate emotion, to provide counterpoint, to drive things forward, etc. While a music editor can achieve some of these things with canned music, a composer has an advantage in doing so in a more cohesive way.

Emboldened by this pep talk to myself, I got to work. The first hurdle was technical. The last time I’d done a film score, I had the film on a VHS tape with SMPTE time code on the audio track, and had the computer sync to it. Now that technology has progressed, my composition software (Logic) can actually play the movie on the computer screen and sync the music with it. Much less hassle, at least in theory. In truth, my PowerBook has a little trouble keeping up with those multiple tasks. After some experimentation I was able to get it to work, but it’s straining. The new MacBook Pro is looking mighty tempting… Anyway, now I know how to use this feature of Logic.

The music itself took a while to come to me. I knew I wanted to stick with jazz and the general mood that was there, but beyond that I was drawing a blank for much of the week. The first concrete thought (is there such a thing?) I had was the sound of marimba. It’s always been one of my favorite instruments and I thought it would bring a beautiful, mellow character to the sound. I loaded up the marimba sound from GPO and started doodling as I watched the beginning of the clip. Frankly I wasn’t really that happy with what I’d come up with but I saved it and went to bed. The next day after trying to do something new for a while, I went back to that doodle and added some piano over it. “Hmm, it’s not as bad as I thought,” I thought. After adding some brushed drums and a simple bass line it was actually turning into something. At least I thought the mood matched pretty well.

Mr. Parker introduces himself at around 0:40 and there’s a nice title sequence that turns into a plaque with his name on it. This seemed to require a shift in mood. The tempo changes here and the marimba takes center stage for a while. As Ally said, it seems to be in reverence for this man’s work. It has a more serious character than what Holly had chosen, so I’m not sure it’s appropriate, but at this stage it’s all just brainstorming. When I come back to this, I may start over and try a completely different direction. One idea I had was to bring in some of that modern classical sensibility, something like the lighter moments of Stravinsky’s Ebony Concerto.

Note: The dialog is muted because I had to remove the original example music. When I receive the clip without the music, I’ll repost.

After studying these references I started following along Dr. Rubin’s intro and did my best to follow the rules and write my own fugue. Incidentally, these interactive online resources are so great because you can hear each excerpt as you encounter it in the text, rather than either taking a text book to a piano and banging it out, or glossing over it in the hopes of coming back to it later.

Here’s the score to what I’ve got so far. I’ve gotten as far as the exposition and the first episode (the last bar). Yes, it’s only 7 bars long. It’s an extremely dense kind of music and it’s easy to take a wrong turn and paint yourself into a corner, where the voices collide, etc. Despite the rules (or because of them) it’s quite fun to work on, and really gives me a greater appreciation for the masters.

This week I chose to work on sound design for most of the week and then throw them the results together at the end into some kind of piece of music. All of the sounds in this track, including the drums, were created from scratch with various synth plug-ins in Logic Pro (no samples were used). The plug-ins I used were: Ultrabeat, ES2, FM1, and Sculpture along with very minimal effects.

The title is a silly pun on the band whose sound this track reminded me of, Boards of Canada.

Verbal Pre-Sketch

Quiet staccato rhythm in the woodwind section — at first higher registers to give it a quick feel. Major seconds (clustering, with accents emphasizing wider intervals). The different instruments’ timbres are used to create accents and eventually shapes. Almost like formants shifting (eg. the nasal qualities of the oboe against the breathy and clear flutes). Brass weaves into the texture. Lower notes come in, also staccato (avoiding the oompah sound).

Basses (arco) slowly come in from near-silence and form a slow ostinato pattern, crescendoing.

Engergetic drum kit?

Horns add to the bass timbre.

I actually veered off course a bit. The idea of using timbres as formants to create shapes hasn’t materialized yet. I also brought in a shimmering harp figure that I hadn’t thought of when I did the pre-sketch, which leads back into the staccato stuff. When it comes in the second time, it’s pared down to fewer instruments, and I started varying it, adding grace notes here and there, etc.

So far there’s no system for generating the notes or harmony except my ear. I’ve been hung up on creating some kind of musical language or logic for a long time. The method I’m using now actually brings me back to my “roots” as a composer. I sit at the keyboard and my computer and improvise lines, layering tracks. Then I tweak in the piano roll display (the Matrix Editor in Logic), moving notes, quantizing, etc. Usually I thin things out of what I play. I have a general idea of how dense things should be, and how dissonant and just keep layering until it sounds about right and then add more to the end. It’s sort of a sculptural process. I sometimes think the computer is a crutch and I shouldn’t have to hear things as I go (real composers just need pencil and paper, right?), but this is the most natural way for me right now. The main drawback is that you can start to limit yourself to whatever sounds you have available (for example, the sounds I’m using don’t include Bartok pizzicato strings, which is when the string players pluck with such force that the string slaps against the neck). I either have to buy more sounds, or just be content to imagine them and hope for a real performance some day.

The score is quite rough. There are dynamic markings on the first few pages, but there’s a lot missing. I’m still learning how to use the built-in score editor of Logic Pro. It’s certainly not going to replace Finale, but the results are pretty good for what it is.

I’m not sure where this piece wants to go next, but I think I like the sound of it so far. It’s got a sort of modern vibe in the rhythmic parts, and flows in and out of a more cinematic sound. I’ll have to chart out a longer term plan when I come back to it. Then again, this ad hoc method is working pretty well.

This week’s sketch is tentatively titled Chamber Guitar for no good reason other than all the sounds will be produced by the various stringed instruments laying around the house (I thought there’d be a play on the word chamber too, but so far it just makes it sound fancier than it is). I’m playing with a method I’ve used with some success in the past, which is to simply sit down and imagine the piece before I start playing, and just write a verbal description of what’s in my head. Here’s my description for this piece:

Chamber Guitar Verbal Description

Lush, ethereal wash in background with slow but directed harmonic motion. Low, dull thud begins defining pulse (like a kick drum). Metallic scraping sounds, with some reversed flitter over the top, moving across the stereo field. A chorus of hammer-ons, in twos and threes, at first randomly distributed in space and time lock into a hocketing pattern, eventually defining a theme. These recede into harmonics, played by various guitars, which give way to a massive, sustained sound, with a slow attack and some distortion (mixed with reversed recording?), playing a melismatic, sometimes pitch-bending, melody based on the theme earlier expressed by the hammer-ons.

A bass line forms below. A texture of percussion fades in to join the thuds, with interesting eq (suggest snippets of these at the beginning). The massive sustained sound thins out and the hammer-ons return, this time building into hocketing chords. The percussive texture thins and the scraping metallic stuff comes back in. Focus again on the ethereal wash and the thud, which have been transformed by the previous interjections. Encore of the big sound and all the percussion to finale.

Notes:

1. Hammer-ons may be also combined with single staccato plucks.
2. Start the piece rising. Middle is combined rising and falling. End is falling only… maybe.
3. They may chain together to form melodic fragments (but no single track has the whole fragment).
4. They may overlap to form momentary chords, which are related to the ethereal chordal texture.
5. They slip in and out of being easily recognizable as guitars.
6. Bass line is pitched down guitars.
7. The ethereal wash is slowly, gradually evolving throughout the entire piece, but always recognizable.

This week I’ve sketched out some of the first paragraph. It’s a lot more jazz fusion / prog rock that I was going for, but there you have it. I imagined more of a glitchy electronica texture with the big electric guitar sound more like a guitar solo in a Radiohead song whose title escapes me at the moment. Well, on to next week…