Cube 1: Le Déclencheur (Trigger)
TRACK DATA
Composition tool: MuseScore 3, Studio One 6.5 Professional
Recording tool (DAW): Studio One 6.5 Professional
Number of tracks: 29
Sound source: Presence XT, Impact XT, Sample One, Maitai (All built-in sound sources of Studio One)
Composition and recording period: Sep 16 2023 - Apr 3 2024
Opus Number: 107
Main tonality: Atonal
Main scale: Unknown
Main time signature: 4-4
Main tempo: 72-75 BPM
Unique expressions like Paul Cézanne
(TM writes:)
This work, "Cube 1: Le Déclencheur (Trigger)", is the first work of the project called "Le Cube Dans Mon Rêve (The Cube In My Dream)."
I intended to make it "Impressionistic", in other words, something that breaks the classical or Romantic norms to some extent to create original, modern beauty (with some vibes of mental illness) together with development from this as a suite (Cube 2); that was TI's suggestion.
Thus, Cubes 1 and 2 were supposed to be a suite and we were not going to make the rest of Cubes (from 3 to whatever it may be).
For an analogy to paintings, I'd say Cube 1 is like Paul Cézanne, who influenced Cubists a lot. The innovativeness of his perspective and texture expression are reflected in the weird scale and tonality of the sounds as well as the motif flow.
I wrote "Impressionistic" in the fine art context, rather than musical Impressionism. The name of Impressionism in music doesn't make much sense to me, but later in another work we'll make developments from musical Impressionism (in Cube 6).
The sequence of motifs is somewhat unclear in terms of where it ends; it seems to be repeating, but it’s difficult to discern exactly what is being repeated… It feels very Paul Cézanne-esque in a sense, or hard to say how the positions of things are in the "perspective."
The central motif, which I call "Cézanne Motif", starts with E-flat (and later E) and has both the major and minor 3rds, ie, G and G-flat. It looks as if the time signature were 6-8, but actually it's written in 4-4 so that the progression is more unpredictable and planar than "normal" music, in which I have a premise that "normal" music is equivalent to realistic paintings.
Similarly, there is a section later in this track, which begins with something that seems very likely to go that way but doesn't go that way. "That way" is a particular pattern that many people "normally" recognise and subconsciously expect to come next, based on their experiences of listening to music. The collapse of linear perspectives in Cézanne's works is reflected there, like viewers foresee shapes of things subconsciously based on their experiences, but he never drew that way.
Just recently, by the way, I've read a book on Cognitive Science discussing on this point (famous as Berkeley's Puzzle). It's "Perception, Causation, & Objectivity" (edited by J Roessler, and written by H Lerman & N Eilan, published by Oxford University Press, 2011). Funnily and fascinatingly enough at least to me, Cézanne's work called "Still Life with Apples and Pears" is put on its cover. I bought the copy out of various options because of his work, after I instantly guessed why it was shown there. Moreover, after starting to read it, I came to know that all those three people above (editor and authors) were researchers in the university where I'd graduated. I've never met a book like it; a small surprise.
This is what Artificial Intelligence (AI) wrote to explain Cézanne for us:
Cézanne, the French painter, sought to go beyond the impressionist paintings that captured the fleeting glimmer of a moment on canvas. He aimed to create paintings with robust volume and enduring strength, unbound by the conventions of traditional art. His work has had a significant influence on 20th-century art, including movements like Cubism. Often referred to as the “father of modern painting,” Cézanne’s exploration of form and color continues to resonate with artists and art enthusiasts alike.
To me, FMT is just a little bit like him... in the sense that he seemingly believed that traditional perspective and texture expressions were not suitable for him and pursued a different and unique approach of his own, from which I designed the motifs, other phrases and harmonies in this work.
Nevertheless, one of his works is not necessarily suitable for the visual of this piece. As shown at the top of this page, the visual is a part of CT's "Le Temps Et Le Regard (Time and Gaze)"; she comments on that below.
(TI writes:)
This track is the motif of Cube 2, and as a rule, the tone and balance of the music is faithful to TM’s score.
I added some of the tones to the melody, such as the bells of the synths and the detuned phrases along the melody in the treble part, but basically I used the tones that I wrote out individually from MuseScore as they are. I replaced the sounds (marimba) and the drums with similar sounds from Studio One, which I thought were clearly bad in MuseScore (too much noise, bad balance).
For the drums, the sound image is adjusted to be particularly tight.
The release of the bass drum was also made tighter by doubling the gate by limiting it on the track and bus track and then applying more pressure (it took a long time to adjust the threshold and release time).
The trick is to gradually shorten and adjust it in several steps, rather than going through it all in one go.
It was CT's idea to use a lot of synth bell sounds in this series. She imagined a dreamy atmosphere throughout the series and advised me to use these sounds more effectively, which I had been experimenting with.
(CT writes:)
I feel from this music:
Where it all begins and comes back to.
Mixed feelings of hopeful glamour and anxiety as we move forward in each of the directions we are about to embark on.
Solem and Lightness. Adorable mysteriousness. Primitive beauty of joy.
Between sanity and madness. Serenity with the energy of destruction.
The visual image, ‘Hand with ring’
I chose this image for expressing the celebration of the beginning of it all.
Symbol of beginnings.
This small drawing, 'Hand with ring’ is one of the fragments of a drawing that I tore 23 years ago. Showing this drawing was the trigger for me to join the torn pieces together and show them as one drawing, and a new piece of artwork, ‘Le temps et le regard’ was born.
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