3 - Drums & Percussion

Drums & Percussion

This week's composition is a Drums & Percussion based piece.
The guides for this piece were as follows

• include at least one performance element
• no drumloops
• use tempo changes
• use only drums & percussion
• use either/both:
• at least one time signature change
• polyrhythmics
• focus on contrasts to form structure (light and shade)

Research into Percussion Music

Percussion music is mostly know through tribal music, especially in Africa.

"In Gambia drums are very important in peoples daily life. We use drums in many different ways, we have drums, which are used for sending massages to the people in town or some time to send massage to the next village, and there are drums for ceremonies like weddings or naming ceremonies and there are also drums for healing people who are sick" (African Drumming, 2014)

Percussion music became used in compositions in the early 20th century and eventually made it's way into use in popular songs by artists such as the Beatles and Sepultura.

Performance Element

To incorporate a performance element I opted to perform all of the drums on an electric midi-drumkit and Akai sample pads.

Akai MPK25

Electric Drumkit used

The electronic sounds of the piece were inputted via the Akai and the tom percussion was inputted via the electric midi-drumkit.

Samples & Software

For the digital sounds I used NI's Battery. The samples were taken from the factory bank and some were laid over each other.

Battery Patch

The more organic tom sounds were created using Wavesfactory's Drum Circle. This plugin plays samples of multiple drummers recorded at the same time and so adds slight delays in the timing of hits.

Drum Circle Plugin

Towards the end of the track as the tom sound gets larger and larger I used more instances of Drum Circle.

Mix Overview

Structure

4/4 - The fist section of this piece is in straight 4/4 timing and has the digital drums throughout with the toms building up throughout.

multirhythmical - The central section of the track is multi-rhythmical. It consists of multiple top parts played over each other in different timings, which eventually form together to create a rolling rhythm in 4/4.

3/4- The final section of the piece is based on a 3/4 time signature.

Compositional Narrative

The concept behind this piece is a battle between digital and organic sounds. The digital sounds at the start have a repetitive rhythm that has very little variation. The organic toms are introduced and add variety to the piece until the digital sounds are removed and the organic sounds take over to become a far more rhythmical and driving piece.

Silicon Forest

References

African Drumming. 2014. African Drums. [ONLINE] Available at: http://www.african-drumming.com/african_drums.htm. [Accessed 29 May 2014].

2 - Serialism

Serialism

This week's composition is a serialism based piece.
The guides for this piece were as follows

• create a piece of music using atonal row & it’s derivatives (inversion, retrograde & retrograde-inversion) 
• use klangfarbenmelodie (tone-colour melodies)
• no drums, untuned percussion or drum loops
• can use atmospherics and samples

Research into Serialism

"Serialism began primarily with Arnold Schoenberg's twelve-tone technique, though his contemporaries were also working to establish serialism as one example of post-tonal thinking (Whittall 2008, 1). Twelve-tone technique orders the 12 notes of the chromatic scale, forming a row or series and providing a unifying basis for a composition's melody, harmony, structural progressions, and variations" (Princeton, 2014)
Serialism is based on a set structure and is restricted thusly:

"Generally, a note used once is not to be used again until all of the 11 others have been used. A prime row is set up, containing each of the 12 notes in turn, in an order chosen by the composer.

• A row may undergo 4 different permutations, as follows:
• prime: the "original" ordering of tones and intervals
• retrograde: with its intervallic structure reversed;
• inversion: with its intervallic structure inverted (up instead of down and vice versa);
• retrograde-inversion: with its intervallic structure simultaneously reversed and inverted.

In addition, any of these 4 permutations may be transposed in pitch to any of the 12 tonal regions; thus there are altogether 48 different rows based on the original." (Tonalsoft, 2014)

Creation of Tonerow & derivatives

I began by creating a randomised 12 tone tone row. I then proceeded to create it's derivatives.

Prime

Inversion

Retrograde

Retrograde Inversion

With all the tone rows created and inputted into Logic Pro I proceeded to create a part using each tone row.

Parts

I began by creating the low end instrument which I would use a string section for and kept it's pitch at the owed end of the spectrum to give a low and overbearing feel to. For this I used Logic's strings plugin and the inversion tone row.

String Plugin

The second instrument to be added was a series of church bells that would be sparsely placed to add to the atmospherics of the piece. for this I used another of Logic's plugins called Digital Basic and the retrograde inversion of the tone row.

Bell Plugin

For the lead melody I opted to use two different instruments to differentiate between sections. The first choice of parts was the whistle sounds. I opted for this as the piece had begun to feel somewhat like Mark Snow's X-Files theme and I wanted to play on this more. The plugin for this was NI's Massive and the tone row used was the Retrograde.

Lead Plugin

For the final part I didn't want to stray too far away from the whistled so I opted for a high pitched "ooh" effect. This was also done using Massive and used the Prime tone row. This created a nice contrast to the whistling melody as the parts were the reverse of each other.

"ooohs" plugin

Ambience

I felt that the piece was lacking an overall glue to unite the pieces together so I opted to add some atmospherics. I chose an eerie patch within NI's Massive that had an evolving feel to it. I had found a twee within the patch that created a ghostly moan within the atmospherics and decided to automate it to appear in the quieter sections of the track.

Ambience Automation

To add even more to this eerie feel I also added a sample of a ghostly voice saying "I am death" that appeared just before the second lead melody was brought in.

Klangfarbenmelodie

To bring in elements of klangfarbenmelodie I used a transition between the lead melody, the bells and the string section. With the overbearing feel of the string section the use of klangfarbenmelodie is often very understated and has to be listened for intently.

Edit Overview

Compositional Narrative

I will admit that I did not enjoy creating this piece. I felt extremely uncomfortable with the restrictions placed upon composition by the nature of serialism. The piece ended up being an expression of my distain towards it. I found myself trying to make sections of the piece as ugly as possible as a way of defacing it, akin to scribbling out a drawing and submitting that as the final piece. Combined with the dark feel that this piece already had - the defacing only seemed to increase the uncomfortableness that this piece portrays. 

A Cold Day In 48169

I gave the piece this name as I felt it would be a cold day in hell before I composed using serialism again - 48169 is the zip-code of Hell, Michigan.

References

Princeton. 2014. Serialism. [ONLINE] Available at:https://www.princeton.edu/~achaney/tmve/wiki100k/docs/Serialism.html. [Accessed 29 May 2014].

Tonalsoft. 2014. 12-tone method / serialism - procedure for music composition. [ONLINE] Available at: http://www.tonalsoft.com/enc/s/serial.aspx. [Accessed 29 May 2014].

1 - Drones With Modes

The first week's experiment is to create a track using Drones and Modes. The restrictions/guidelines we were given are as follows:

1. Use at least 2 of the basic 7 modes
2. Create a drone. The drone must be interesting, organic and evolving.
3. No drums, percussion, drum loops etc.

Research into Drones & Modes

In guitar terms modes are often called "positions". The position would start on the next note of the scale on the lowest string. In this context the mode is the position but with the starting note being moved to the root note and change the scale into a different "mode".

"The term “modal jazz” refers to improvisational music that is organized in a scalar (“horizontal”) way rather than in a chordal (“vertical”) manner. By de-emphasizing the role of chords, a modal approach forces the improviser to create interest by other means: melody, rhythm, timbre, and emotion" (Jazz Standards, 2014).

"Drone, French bourdon, in music, a sustained tone, usually rather low in pitch, providing a sonorous foundation for a melody or melodies sounding at a higher pitch level. The term also describes an instrumental string or pipe sustaining such a tone—e.g., the drone strings of a hurdy-gurdy or the three drone pipes of some bagpipes. A drone may be continuous or intermittent, and an interval, usually the fifth, may replace the single-pitch drone" (Encyclopedia Britannica, 2014).

Drone

I began by selecting a drone. I browsed through the NI Massive library until I found a drone that I could work with and that evolved enough. I finally settled on "Question Of Time"

I tweaked a lot of the settings to give the effect more low end knowing that I would fill up the high end with the modal section. I was able to control a few of the settings within this with my midi controller (An Akai MPK25) and recorded a run of around 3 minutes with constant adjustments. I had noticed that by affecting the LFO of one of the filters I was able to extract a sound similar to a helicopter and by adjusting the filter itself I was able to make the helicopter type sound far more interesting.

Composition Narrative

The narrative of the piece depicted the choice of modes as they would aid in the storytelling. The Piece is called "Annuario Pontificio"; named after the annual listing of all departments within the catholic church and chronicles the major members of the church throughout it's existence. The piece depicts the history of the Catholic church throughout history and it's involvement in child abuse. The piece begins with organs to portray the historic catholic church. A sample of a young child crying is used to show the revelation of the ingrained child abuse within the church and is followed by a harp that attempts to cover the sound of the child and portrays the church's attempts to cover-up the abuse. The helicopter sound becomes more prominent in this section to depict the church's method of moving members involved in scandals to other areas of the church. The final section of the track sees the harp change modes to signal the arrival of a new pope who seems to bring in a new era for the church as the child crying ceases. The ending of the track contains another small sample of crying to portray that after the listener is done being distracted, the child still remains.

Modes

With the narrative that the piece needs to tell the choice of modes became quite crucial. For the 3 sections I needed to carefully select modes to reflect the story.

For the first section I chose the Phrygian mode. This mode has a stately character and gave the feel of the classical church and it's grandeur.
The second section needed to show a depressing point of the story. for this I chose the Aeolian mode as a way of showing a darkness but also showing the modern age in the timeline.
For the third section I stuck with the Ionian mode. This mode is the major scale and gives a happy quality but also (quite subtly) was known to be linked with lust and was looked down upon by the "traditional" church.

The Piece -

References

Encyclopedia Britannica. 2014. drone (music) -- Encyclopedia Britannica. [ONLINE] Available at:http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/171795/drone. [Accessed 29 May 2014].

Jazz Standards . 2014. Modal Jazz . [ONLINE] Available at:http://www.jazzstandards.com/theory/modal-jazz.htm. [Accessed 29 May 2014].