Responsibility towards structure

These days I continue to work on little pieces — drafts or sketches — that are possible seeds for serious tracks. They are mostly not longer than a minute, 16, maybe 20 bars, and contain a drumbeat, a bassline, or even solely a melodic line. I’m sitting on this kind of work for a good month already, so I have decided a week ago to try to work on longer pieces — still sketches or drafts — where I’d begin to work on structural ideas, calling them skeletons.

After a week of work I’m realising I’m still making short 1 minute sketches (which I’m posting the backstage section) without any serious attempt at bigger structure, and I’ve been thinking why is that so. One reason might be that I have about maksimum three hours in the morning to work on music-making (that’s pretty much self-imposed), but usually less. Another (and perhaps central) reason seems to be, however, certain reluctance to start working on a track’s structure.

Truth is, once you start working on a structure, musical work starts to be much more demanding. There’s so much more mental work involved once you start thinking through the timeline:  if this is here, then this must happen there or if here’s a breakdown there must be an announcement of it, perhaps through a build-up, or should it? And similar kind of thinking.

It seems suddenly creating music ceases to be only playing with sounds and beats but becomes some kind of story-making. And that has its own rules, which are as complex as they can get. When diving into the structural dimension of a time-based creation, what emerges is responsibility towards that dimension.

Cerebral Space

A short one-hour session this morning. I experimented with ring modulator on bass wobble, also with high-pass filter that at some point removes the “bottom end”. Plus some reverberation on that wobble. Poly-rhythms coming out as the wobble just continues to oscilate at 3/4 and after three patterns (12 bars) it comes back to its original place. On the beat-side, I like the space in-between the various elements (no constant high-hat ride, etc) and the glitchy parts seem quite nice. The spaciousness and the low-end focus gives it some kind of “cerebral” feel.

I’m still on the level of short sketches, no structure yet. It seems like I’m afraid to proceed or lack a real block of time within which I could dive into time-structure (development, breakdowns, etc). And, waiting for lyrics.

Vacation-time-spending just forcibly takes priority.

What do you think about these sketches? Comment below or reply.

download cerebral space [140806] renoise module

Circular Ode & Glitchy Breaks

Yesterday I worked on another version of “circular melodies” as I call them. These are inspired by endlessly rising canon or ‘Canon 5’ by Bach and the further thinking about it as ‘formalized’ by Douglas Hofstadter (this is well summarized here). It’s a boring proof of concept with a simple bassline, that you can listen for good 7 minutes down below. The track goes through 12 minor chords twice. It still got me thinking about the harmonic tensions that are somehow absent from such an endless circulating melody. It becomes more like an atmosphere then real harmonic movement. So I wrote short note:

linearity circularity
is there a peak?
is there a tension?
uniformity give me some contrast,
give us some error!
at least polarity and some chaos.

Then this morning I woke up and started thinking about a possible beginning to the performative version of the project: I heard it in my head – a long slow ambiental build-up, including space echo, delays, arpeggios far away, reverberated, white noise washes, deep pulsations, digital noise, smooth, beatless, rising, building to a climax… and sharp CUT! which then moves to an extremely dry odd-time noise&glitchy break-beat, without a slightlest sight of reverb.

I than quickly sketched the following ‘glitchy breakbeat’, which I consider a test how glitch+clicks could work together with more traditional sound drum programming:
Continue reading →

driver 1

Far from being a ‘real’ skeleton as planned, this is an audio part – one pattern (with a bit of simple intro), four bars long draft without structure really. Whipped together in two early morning hours.

Not sure about the main bass kickdrum (the squelching sound becomes a bit annoying after a while, perhaps I’ll roll my own later). The slowly wobling sound have other beat-synced intervals ready to be played with – so a lot of development still possible.

Vacation & work: skeletons

After a somewhat rough week of camping in Italy, we’re now settled in a heavenly house in Rovinj for a good 14 days. As opposed to camping week, I now have digital devices with me – including a laptop, headphones, a soundcard, even a microphone, camera and portable recorder. And as time[line] is pressing on, I tried to work out a plan how to create more material for our (Wanda & Nova deViator) upcoming album.

I’m not entirely sure if this is the right way, but here’s one approach: for next two weeks I’ll try to produce everyday some kind of musical sketch, which I call a ‘skeleton’. It’s not just a few bars of a possible tune, but a longer draft with slightly more developed structures. Basic elements should be there:

  • a beat,
  • a bassline,
  • a melody.

But also at least three parts in time-structure:

  • pattern A
  • a solo or bridge or breakdown/rest part
  • pattern B

Pattern A can later serve as some kind verse, and pattern B as some kind of refrain – but I’m really not inclined to follow basic songs rules – so this might happen or not necessarily.

Additional guidelines include:

  • odd time signatures
  • focus on polyrhythmic inter-play

I hope to post some audio snippets in next few days.

Polyrhythmachine

The process has now seriously begun. We (Wanda & Nova deViator) are working in the studio on a daily basis, desperately wishing for a residency possibility, when you move away from daily grind, from administrative tasks, managing the association, the label, cooking, kids, and so many other things. But, hey, it’s what we need to work with.

Autumn is quickly approaching, and deadlines are looming. While we’re releasing the album at the end of November, the album tracks need to be finished in mid-September for them to go into mixing and mastering by Igor “PlankTon” Vuk of the BeatMyth fame. Which leaves less than two months to write the album. Our goal is to produce 8-10 tracks that will go onto a double vinyl. I’m now pretty serious about crowdfunding campaign, which should start at the end of August. I’m quite nervous about it, I really want it to work out. In the meantime the tracks need to work too, and I’m such a perfectionist, and I always run out of time.

All-in-all summer will contain some sea-side, bit of traveling, but also a lot of work, out of which a lot is creative (thankfully). This is a journey into sound.

Making guide & Arp Arp Arp!

Yesterday I managed to whip together a kinda nice running melody and a bit of harmonization to it. This is another draft towards a pool of possible starting points for actual tracks.

 

… and, I created a list of, well, conceptual starting points for work on this project, some kind of guidelines:

 

polyrhythmachinemakingguide

 

 

And, as an added bonus, this is something I made a week ago, inspired by Echer, Bach’s canons (via Hofstadter) and Shepard tone. It’s more of a proof of concept, experimenting if it’s possible to create circular chord progressions that end up where they started without ever turning back. The track below goes through all 12 minor chords two times without ever sounding (too) strange.

Three drafts for Polyrhythmachine

As Wanda & Nova deViator we are preparing a new album (and performance) at the end of the year. So, the process has already started. I’ve been trying to create some additions to my library of sounds, especially bass, drumkits and some wobble handmade presets. Today came three very short drafts out of a longer Renoise session. These are meant to be sketches to be used later, when some concrete material for vocal work come out, and these drafts will be then expanded and worked upon further into something much more coherent and meaningful.

Emily Bick: drive to partition, modularise and automate music making

It’s unlikely that improvisation, or collaboration, or composition as we know them in all their spasmodic and messy glory are going anywhere soon. But the ceaseless drive to partition, modularise and automate music making – under the guise of profit and efficiency – destroys its basis in lived, shared experience that makes music fundamentally human.

— Emily Bick, in Collateral Damage, The Wire 366, August 2014

Art is a Form Which Creates Emotions and Experiences

… the minds of men and women are affected by the social impact of technical inventions […] the souls of people are moved by communication systems — unconsciously in the technical sense. […] Film, like any other art form, is not an expression of man “but a form which creates” emotions and creates experiences “out of the very nature of the instrument.”

— Ute Holl, Moving the Dancers’ Souls, from Maya Deren and the American Avant-Garde