12 - The Abstract Truth

In this final piece we were given free reign to create a piece entirely of our own style.

Piece Background

I have recently been looking into the soundscape of the world around us and reading theories into how the world itself is a musical piece.

This thought process led me to the idea of creating pieces in a genre i've dubbed "offset realism"

Piece Composition

This piece was created using only samples of real world noises and all are unedited (aside from a little EQ in places). The idea behind offset realism is to use only unedited real world sounds to create a soundscape that is for the most part quite normal, but contains an element that should not be there. This element can be used to add tension, confusion, uneasiness or serenity. In this piece i chose uneasiness.

I used mainly samples of a war zone with gunshots, tanks, air raid sirens, explosions etc. But I offset this with the sounds of children playing with toys. The theme is that the children playing with toys represents leaders of nations treating war as a game and seem to fail to understand exactly how horrifying the whole thing is.

Child's Play

11 - Generative

Generative - Brian Eno

This composition is based on Brian Eno's Generative Music. The guidelines were:

• Create a "systems" piece based on either or both of the two generative procedures we have looked at:
• Using a "time lag accumulator" to create a texture of layered repeats.
• Use irregular loops to produce organically-developing soundscapes.

Research

This piece is based on Eno's Music for Airports. The creation of the original Eno piece is detailed below.

"The composition uses tape loops of different lengths to be repetitive and relaxing while still introducing new ideas and musical thoughts to move the piece forward. Eno also uses fades and clumping to introduce the different instrumental tracks in new ways once we've initially heard them. Talking about a section of tape with two pianos, Eno told Downbeat in 1979 that, "To make a piece of music out of it, I cut that part out, made a stereo loop on the 24-track, then I discovered I liked it best at half speed, so the instruments sounded very soft, and the whole movement was very slow." It's interesting to think that while it all sounds so smooth and placid, there's really a lot of technical manipulation going on to make the piece sound so serene. " (Gizmodo, 2014)

Choice of Method

I chose to use method two. My main reason for choosing it was that the rest of the class appeared to be going with option 1 and, as this whole style of music is inherently generic, I wasted to take whatever steps I could for it to be different.

Choice of sound

I wanted to create a very simple and smooth sounding piece to try and emulate Eno's works. This led me to use a very pure effect within NI's Massive with a slow attack and release. 

Massive synth patch

Not wanting to overdo things on the texture front I decided to use the same patch for 3 of the parts, Bass, middle and high. I also wanted to experiment with low end detail so that i could add interesting things to the piece without them standing out too much. The bass end of the piece uses notes as low a D-4 - a note that is inaudible on many sound systems, especially those without a subwoofer..

In working so in-depth with the low end of the pice i had realised that I had neglected the high end. To rectify this i added a loop of very quiet chimes that were staggered throughout the piece.

Method

To replicate Eno's generative loops I made sure that al the arts I had created were of differing lengths. I then brought them in progressively and had them loop throughout and end at different points.

Overview of edit window 

Special Snowflake

The title of this piece comes from a derogatory term meaning "different, just like everybody else". It is used as a description of the track and my feeling that it has no meaning as a composition except that it is not the same as another composition. I feel it portrays nothing and says nothing. The only value it has is that it wasn't written by anybody else.

References

Gizmodo. 2014. Brian Eno — Ambient 1: Music for Airports. [ONLINE] Available at: http://gizmodo.com/brian-eno-ambient-1-music-for-airports-1448857679. [Accessed 29 May 2014].

10 - Minimalism 2

Minimalism - Philip Glass

Based on the subtle pieces of Philip Glass and the slow (if any) evolution of the sound. The guidelines were as follows:

• Use at least two rhythmic streams
• Fixed
• Used additive composition to produce polyrhythmic effects the fixed.
• Try and work out a coherent harmonic scheme

Research

This composition is based around Glass's earlier works such as Einstein on the Beach & Music in 12 parts. 

"The new musical style that Glass was evolving was eventually dubbed “minimalism.” Glass himself never liked the term and preferred to speak of himself as a composer of “music with repetitive structures.” Much of his early work was based on the extended reiteration of brief, elegant melodic fragments that wove in and out of an aural tapestry. Or, to put it another way, it immersed a listener in a sort of sonic weather that twists, turns, surrounds, develops" (Philip Glass, 2014)

Many of Glass's early works consisted of a very long and slow progression that the listener would have to intently listen out for, 

Choice of sound

I chose to begin my composition by using a limit of two sounds.

The first sound was a simple drone with a heavy amount of tremolo on it. I didn't want the sound to evolve too much so chose one that simply sustained. This would act as the "fixed" sound.

"Fixed" drone in Massive

I the spirit of Philip Glass I wanted to experiment with an odd time signature. I had chosen to use 11/8 as it is rarely heard and would take a long time for the listener to get used to, if at all. I used this time signature to create the line to be used in the second rhythmic stream. I created a simple 11-note tone row and had that loop throughout the entire piece.

Overview of Piece in Logic

Multi Tap Delay

To add an element of progression to the piece I decided to simply reuse the 11/8 section. Instead of simple duplicating it and modifying it I opted to use a multi-tap delay system that would add a whole new rhythm to the piece.

Delay unit within Logic

To make the progression slow and barely noticeable i automated the wet fader of the delay unit to increase slowly throughout the 6 minutes of the piece. This can be seen in the blue line below. The orange line represents the dry fader within the delay unit. Towards the end of the piece i begin to fade out the original part of the piece leaving only the delayed version audible.

Automation of wet & dry levels of delay

Tension in 11/8

References

Philip Glass. 2014. Philip Glass: Biography. [ONLINE] Available at: http://www.philipglass.com/bio.php. [Accessed 29 May 2014].

9 - Minimalism 1

Minimalism - Steve Reich

This weeks composition was based on the works of Steve Reich. The guidelines were as follows:

• Create a modal pattern using quavers in 12/8.
• Build up texture and harmony using canonic "phase shifting".
• Use substitution: rests for beats and vice versa.
• Try and experiment with dynamics to accentuate rhythmic interplay.
• Homophonic instrumental texture.
• Produce a 'B' section using another mode.
• No bass line or downbeat.
• Try and keep it under 5 minutes long.

Research

Steve Reich's Piano Phase piece uses two pianos that play at very slightly different tempos. The result is that, as time progresses, the parts drift out of time with each other and a phasing effect occurs, which ends up boosting the levels of certain notes whilst dropping the level of other. It also has the effect of adding notes between notes (due to the time lag) and allows the piece to progress and change over time even though it is the same pattern being repeated.

Choice of sound

Within NI's Logic I chose simple and harsh sounds. As a portrayal of my contempt towards minimalism I had decided to make this composition as uncomfortable for the listener as possible. I chose a trumpet for the "A" section and a violin stab as the "B" section.

"A" Section plugin

"B" Section Plugin

To further add to the uncomfortable feel of the composition I opted to have the first section in C-Major and the second section in C#-Minor. When these parts overlay the piece becomes extremely tense.

"A" Section tonerow

"B" Section tonerow

Phase Shifting

The method of replicating Steve Reich's phase shifting technique was rather simple within Pro-Tools. The Time Compression/Expansion audio suite plugin allowed for this to be performed easily. The looped clip was stretched at a ratio of 1.009:1. This was repeated multiple times to create multiple tracks that were stretched progressively. 

ProTools Time Compression/Expansion plugin in use

Other elements

Since I had 6 version of each part I decided to pan them progressively from left to right. This gave the effect of the piece sweeping across the stereo image as the piece moves along. This panning also begins to create a chaotic bouncing effect as the piece move more and more out of phase, adding to the discomfort of the listener.

Panning of "A" Section

One point I had released was that by the time the "B" section had fully settled in the piece was not as uncomfortable as it was at the beginning. To counteract this I decided to bring in a rather horrifying noise akin to an explosion filled with feedback. To do this I used samples of an explosion mixed with a most ear-piercing noise that I had discovered within Massive.

"Ear Piercing Noise" from Massive

I fed the noise from this into a feedback loop with a pitch shifter built into it and an excessive reverb.I actually liked the noise that the tail of this reverb made so much that I decided to let it fade out for a whole 90 seconds. I found this to be the most interesting part of the piece in regards to it's sonic qualities as you almost start to hear aural hallucinations as you listen to it fade out.

Phase Invariance In The Dilithium Matrix

The term "phase" often makes me think of the phasers in Star Trek. A running theme within Star Trek is that if there's an issue with the ship it's usually with the dilithium matrix. This is how i came up with the name.

8 - Text-Sound Composition

Text-Sound Composition

This week's composition is based on my personal favourite of the Avant Garde artists - Karlheinz Stockhausen.

The guidelines were:

• Chose a text
• record it
• produce a piece using only the recorded text as the sonic material
• no samples
• text must be intelligible
• The nature of the piece must reflect the meaning in the text

Gesang der Jünglinge as an influence.

The piece is based around the concepts of Stockhausen's Gesang Der Junglinge. 

"In Gesang, Stockhausen has used eleven of the verses sung by the youths, presented in a far from straightforward setting. Much is swallowed up in the roar of Stockhausen’s electronic fire, but the opening words of each verse, “Preiset den Herrn” (“Praise ye the Lord”), can be heard recurring throughout the composition as a kind of refrain and, on a less audible level, as an element that unifies sections" (Smalley, J. 2000)

"Because comprehension of Gesang’s text, at least at certain times, is important for the meaning of the piece to be grasped, Stockhausen attempts to control this aspect as well. To this end, he developed a qualitative scale of comprehensibility, ranging from 1 (incomprehensible) to 7 ( the most comprehensible). Although these values are also subjected to permutations (the first minute of Gesang’s music cycles through all seven degrees), there is at least one time in the piece where the words are presented clearly in their original order" (Smalley, J. 2000)

Choice of text

I had spent a while trying out a few different pieces of text to use as the source. I had toyed with excerpts from William Shakespeare's "Macbeth", Edgar Allen Poe's "The Black Cat" and Bret Easton Eliis' "American Psycho". These all had a dark feel to them but I was struggling with interpreting their texts into suitable sounds. I eventually opted to use an excerpt from the "Bill Nye / Ken Ham" debate from February 2014. The part i chose was where Bill Nye describes the discovery of the echoes of the Big Bang.

Warping choice piece of text

I decided to leave the beginning of the text as it was. I eventually only modified two words out of the entire excerpt. The words in question were "hiss" and "bang".

The word "hiss" was put into Cecilia and stretch to evolve into white noise that would filter over time to add a long progression to the piece.

The word "Bang" was put into Soundgrain to add a looping, rumbling and undulating noise. I originally tried to recreate something along the lines of the "Croupier: Messieurs, Dames, rien ne va plus!" section from Karlheinz Stockhausen's Hymnen Region IV but Soundgrain did not prove powerful enough to be able to create the amount of layers required (and time constraints prevented me from being able to work on that single sound for the same length of time the Stockhausen was able to).

The final sound at the end of the piece is a variation of the Soundgrain modifications to the world "Bang".

Snapshot of "hiss" within Cecilia

Snapshot of "bang" within Soundgrain

The rest of the recorded text was overlaid on top of the newly added sounds. Certain words and phrases would trigger other sounds to start, such as "there was this echo" triggering the undulating noise.

Big Bang

The piece is named "Big Bang" for reasons that should be obviously apparent when listening to the piece.

References

Smalley, J, 2000. Gesang der Jünglinge: History and Analysis. USA: Columbia University.

7 - Pseudo Random

Pseudo Random Composition

This week's composition was back on track with influences from other composers. This week's artist in question was John Cage

Ways John Cage Used Randomness

When discussing whether John Cage was a composer, it can be said that "Cage has, as often as not, been treated as something else. It has been stated on various occasions by various authorities that Cage was more a philosopher than a composer, that his ideas were more interesting than his music" (James Pritchett, 2014).

"Cage began to use chance operations in the course of his composition, and it is here that things go awry. His adoption of chance techniques is almost always seen as a rejection: a jettisoning of everything traditionally musical. External forces of irrationality (such as Zen Buddhism) are invoked as the cause of this break. Under such influences, it is believed, Cage decided to substitute the throw of dice for his own tastes, so that he could ultimately remove any trace of his personality from the composed work. By 1952, Cage had written 4′ 33”, the silent piece" (James Pritchett, 2014) and by this time every element of John Cage within his music had been removed.

How This differs from Cage's methods.

In contrast to John Cage's methods, this composition would simply be using the random element in the procurement of sound objects for the piece. The composition itself would be allowing for artistic compositional elements.

Random element

The chosen random element for this piece was not knowing exactly what the sound sources would be. I opted to use the contents of a bin. Whilst i could see a few objects at the top of the bin I had no idea of it's full contents. Assumption led me to believe that it would contain cane, bottle, plastic containers, scraps of paper and perhaps a bag or two. In the recording process I was greeted by the most obscure of surprises.

Bin chosen for sound source

To record the sounds i placed 7 microphones along a flight of stairs, hoping to be able to use some stereo effects and also to be able to get close-mic sounds of most of the objects. I would also allow for the sounds of things falling towards microphones as well as falling away from them. What cannot be seen in the picture below are the 3 microphones at the bottom of the stairs.

Microphone setup

As I was emptying the bin I saw things come out as I had expected - cans, paper, cups, bags... but then a major surpass element. A house-brick. For some strange reason there was a brick at the bottom of the bin. I am not going to attempt to explain why the brick was present, but it certainly made an interesting addition to the sound bank.

Post recording mess (note how close the brick is to the microphone on the left)

Sorting through the trash

I didn't want to just play the whole clips back in different orders so I began the search through each clip for the most interesting sound objects. Many of the early parts of the clips provided solo objects falling which had different tonalities depending on which microphone they were recorded on.

aside from just using the full clips and stretching, warping, shifting, reversing etc. Also looking for small clips of notable sound objects. Finding the brick sound with nice ring to it. Making that a recurring theme.

Raw files from recording

The techniques applied to the chosen clips included vary-fi, reverse, pitch shift and time stretch.

Vari-fi allows gradual speed changes in clips

Pitch shift example

The modified clips were scattered around the workspace in a way that they increased with density as the piece progressed, whilst constantly referring back to the motif of the brick sound with a scattering of a few samples of it in the middle before the most intense part of the piece. I ended it with a reversed sound of a bottle falling punctuated with the motif.

Overview of collection of clips

The output channel of the mix was send through a very deep and thick reverb to add a dark and spicy mood to the overall piece.

Output Reverb

Naming Influence

The pice is named "Tracey's Eminence". This is a play on artist "Tracey Emin" and what I feel she might do if she were to compose a sonic art piece.

References

James Pritchett. 2014.Introduction to 'The music of John Cage' -- James Pritchett. [ONLINE] Available at: http://rosewhitemusic.com/piano/writings/introduction-music-john-cage/. [Accessed 29 May 2014].

6 - Futurist/Abstract Art Composition

Futurist/Abstract Art Composition

This week's composition was a similar curveball to last week's.We were each given an envelope with a piece of art inside. This was to be our graphical score.

Interpretation Of Piece

The piece I was given was Abstract Speed & Sound by Giacomo Balla.

Source: http://www.guggenheim.org

My first point of call was to interpret the image into a score. The first decision made was to avoid other interpretations of the piece before I produced my composition. This was done in an effort to avoid outside influence on the piece and make it a work that was solely between myself and the image.

I split the image up into 4 sections based on the 3 curved lines running from the top to the bottom of the picture. I had opted to use each of the 4 colours as individual sounds and use the intensity and size of the colours to represent dynamics and pitch.

Finally I chose to turn the picture onto it's side (left becoming bottom) and sketched out maps of the progression of colours throughout each part.

Movement 1 Score

Movement 2 Score

Movement 3 Score

Movement 4 Score

In regards to the length of the pieces I chose to make each movement the length of around 3 minutes to conform to the normal compositional guidelines for the module, but made the 4th movement shorter to reflect it's smaller size on the picture.

Choice Of Sounds

I had interpreted the colours of the image to represent 4 things.

Green - land/earth

white - moving air/clouds

blue - sky

red - sound

I wanted to use sounds that I felt either represented what they symbolised or reflected their use in the image.

• For the Green i chose a low smooth sound to reflect the rumble of the earth and the smoothness of the hills in the image.
• With white i used a glockenspiel type sound with delay to give it an airy feel.
• For the Blue I opted to use natural ambience to give the whole piece a background setting whilst also reflecting the nature of the colour's use in the picture.
• The red was very much the lead colour in the painting so i chose to use a string sound to represent it. 
• I also decided to link the melodies that the red and white play as they both appear layered onto the image as opposed to the green and blue which represented more of a background to the image.

The sounds for Green, White and Red were created using NI's Massive. The creation of the sounds was done by a method of preset-tweaking rather than scratch building. I scanned through the presets until I found something close to what I wanted and then modified it to suit my needs.

"Green" settings

"Red" Settings

"White" Settings

Playing By Sight

I used the charts i had drawn as guides to when to play each part and it's dynamics and pitch. I simply overlaid each part in a single take to allow the score to dictate how the parts interacted with each other as opposed to practice and refinement.

The resulting Movements are thus:

Movement 1

Movement 2

Movement 3

Movement 4

Post compositional research

Didn't want to research beforehand as i wanted to interpret the picture in my own way without influence from others. How did my interpretation equivocate with the artist's intent?

The artist's intent on this piece was for the red to depict the speed of an automobile passing and the white would represent the sound it makes

"It has been proposed that Abstract Speed + Sound (1913–14) was the central section of a narrative triptych suggesting the alteration of landscape by the passage of a car through the atmosphere.¹ The related Abstract Speed (Velocità + paesaggio, 1913) and Abstract Speed—The Car Has Passed (1913) would have been the flanking panels. Indications of sky and a single landscape are present in the three paintings; the interpretation of fragmented evocations of the car's speed varies from panel to panel. The Peggy Guggenheim work is distinguished by crisscross motifs, representing sound, and a multiplication of the number of lines and planes"  (Guggenheim Museum. 2014).

References

Guggenheim Museum. 2014. Collection Online | Giacomo Balla. Abstract Speed + Sound (Velocità astratta + rumore). 1913–14 - Guggenheim Museum. [ONLINE] Available at:http://www.guggenheim.org/new-york/collections/collection-online/artwork/300. [Accessed 29 May 2014].