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I used to post here in ML years ago about my music and got some good responses here. Apologies if this kind of post is no longer welcome here. For both January and July this year I wrote and recorded a short piece of music every day, and had obviously collected quite a lot pieces. I compiled, edited, mixed and mastered it, and turned it into this record: Keyboarchestra Vol. 2: Martian Moon Music and 35 other short pieces. About 25 of the pieces were written on a Prophet 12 with 100% original sound design. One of the pieces has the word "presets" in the title, that is from some presets on the instrument. The remainder of the pieces (mostly anthems and moon music) were written back in January on a pretty silly, but fun, Roland Juno-Di. A lot of the music is written around a polyrhythmic concept where a static rhythm or phrase is framed in interesting and groovy ways by other parts, creating a fluid and evolving, though solidly rooted, sense of rhythm and pulse. On the album you will hear symmetrical rhythms (2+3+2+3+2, or 3+2+3+2+3, e.g.), overlapped rhythm cycles (7+7+7+6 = 9+9+9, or 4+4+4 = 3+3+3+3, e.g.), good old fashioned 4/4, and ambient arrhythmic textures. Equally informed by minimalist classical music, West African polyrhythms, jazz, catchy melodies, video game music, and whatever else I have floating around in my head any given day. I know that 36 tracks probably sounds crazy, but they average well under 2 minutes and they vary wildly. Approach it however you like: clicking around from track to track randomly, or listening in order. You will probably get a proper experience just putting your ears on a handful of random tracks. Thanks for listening. I'm still new to a lot of this but would happily answer any questions about the compositional elements or the technical ones.
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Sep 23, 2016 21:59
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Just starting to listen now, right up my alley in terms of what I've been checking out lately. How do you approach writing polyrhythmic music? Are you mainly using step sequencers, looping, or multitracking live performances?
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Oct 10, 2016 14:14
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Thanks for listening and for the great question... The vast majority of it is played with fingers. There are a handful of songs with a couple tracks from the arpeggiator on my Prophet 12. An example of this is the straight 8th notes that come in around :40 in Factor Tree, I recorded straight 8th notes from the arpeggiator and then played all the other parts along with it as a click, then faded it out for the first chunk of the song. Another example of this are the fast notes entering around :40 of Day 8 over 12. Almost all of it is just played with fingers and recorded to a click. Mind Soup has some rhythmic filter going on, I guess that is a type of sequencing. The only one I can think of that is very heavily sequenced is Some Kind of Breaking Open. It's basically a fast 5/8 rhythm. I like to try to feel fast 5's in 1, much like you would feel a measure of 3/4 at a fast tempo. This piece is exploring some different accent possibilities in a fast 5 through the use of the arpeggiator on the prophet 12. Once I have a couple basic parts down I just start throwing different layers on, harmonizing existing parts, maybe playing a solo on top of the groove or something until it sounds full. Then I let it rest and come back to it later and do a tiny bit of rearranging and mixing. Compositionally most of the songs start with a single rhythmic idea, for example Factor Tree has this slow rhythm in 9 that starts off the piece. The title here is pretty self explanatory, I'm playing with different ways to divide the 9 into smaller sections. If you take another 9 rhythm, divide it 2+2+3+2 and put accents on the first and 3rd chunks, and play it 4 times faster than the slow 9, it lines up after playing it 4 times. 9 whole notes have 72 8th notes in it, so how else can I divide 72 8th notes? How about 12 bars of 6/8? These are the kinds of ideas I explore, and if they sound cool or inspire a melody I go with it. If it doesn't sound cool or inspire a melody, I noodle around until something else pops into my head. I started going back and transcribing these to post some reduced sheet music and sound on instagram, here are my first couple examples: https://www.instagram.com/p/BLG5Q3xgxeB/?taken-by=itssteveblum https://www.instagram.com/p/BLKrUb3ADTS/?taken-by=itssteveblum That second example is a symmetrical rhythm in 17. 3+2+2+3+2+2+3. There are a handful of other piece based on symmetrical rhythms like this (3+2+3+2+3 is another one I use) or other kinds of uneven cycles in general. I guess in a way these are experiments in making a weird meter still feel groovy and funky and of, course, super smooth. One of my pet peeves is people playing odd meters with a heavy, clunky feel that overemphasizes the natural accents of the time signature, so many of them I just do a LOT of takes until it "feels good" whatever the heck that means. I hope that even though the meters may be mysterious and eluding to people who aren't tuned into this kind of thing, there's still a sense of groove and fun when you sit back and relax and take it in! Hope you enjoy! Let me know if this raises any other questions.
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Oct 10, 2016 19:56
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Yeah man, great stuff! Really really like it. I'm going to buy it shortly. Great playing, to be able to hit those kind of rhythms, and great layering. I'm used to writing in odd times, but only lately polyrhythms.
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Oct 13, 2016 02:24
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