Cube 2: Les Tentatives (Attempts)
TRACK DATA
Composition tool: MuseScore 3, Studio One 6.5 Professional
Recording tool (DAW): Studio One 6.5 Professional
Number of tracks: 45, 3 and 5, for total mix, Coda 1 and Coda 2, respectively
Sound source: Presence XT, Impact XT, Sample One, Maitai (All built-in sound sources of Studio One)
Composition and recording period: Feb 04 2024 - Apr 1 2024
Main tonality: Atonal
Main scale: None
Main time signature: 6-8, 4-4
Main tempo: 74-76 BPM
Analytical approaches from Picasso and Braque
(TM writes:)
This piece, "Cube 2: Les Tentatives (Attempts)", is the second work of the project called "Le Cube Dans Mon Rêve (The Cube In My Dream)."
This is what I restructured from Cube 1, seeing an early Cubism work by Pablo Ruiz Picasso. This is a restructure, rather than remix or re-arrangement. Basically, it "mashes" the motifs of Cube 1 to clusters or sequences of dyads. I composed a "Music Cubistic" piece by regarding dyads as geometric shapes in the Cubistic paintings.
Cubes 1 and 2 were supposed to be a suite, which was TI's idea, and we were not going to make the rest of Cubes (from 3 to whatever it may be).
As Picasso worked very closely with Georges Braque, it can be said that the mashing method has come from Braque as well. Or, it might have come from other Analytical Cubism works by such artists as Fernand Léger. They worked mostly for figurative arts, rather than abstract, and therefore I reconstructed "figurative" phrases like in Cube 1, which is based on Paul Cézanne' methods, just like Picasso, Braque and so on were influenced by those.
The mashed phrases are later transformed to different progressions. I also borrowed Picasso's notion of simultaneous multiple-angled views or inspirations from African sculptures somehow here: For example, in one section the progression goes from A to B next, while in another it progresses reversely or some progression was omitted in another. In essence, the phrase extends at times and contracts at others, which will be further developed in Cube 4.
In the section we call Coda, most of listeners won't be aware of what's happening; the motifs of Cube 1 are mashed to the dyads that emerge in Cube 2, and Coda divides the dyad phrases into three parts and plays those at different tempos.
In the first half of Coda, the tempos are 60, 75 and 100 beats per minute (BPM), meaning that one beat takes 1, 1.25 and 1 and 2/3 seconds, respectively; therefore, they meet each other again after playing 5, 4, 3 beats, respectively, in 5 seconds. As the tempo before Coda is around 75 BPM, 75 BPM is heard like their centre; 60 BPM sounds like quintuplets whereas 100 BPM triplets.
Then, in the second half of Coda, the tempos are speeded up to 61, 76, 101 BPM, respectively. They never meet again precisely until more than 2 hours. So, the three parts gradually and slightly give up being neatly aligned. Such a mathematical design is shown here. One of the three parts remains at the ending, which just resulted from my accidental mis-calculation. Yet, it's fun to make it remain in part intentionally and also to make it a sort of implication from me that something strange is happening here in Coda.
Having made it, I find that what we call Cubistic music is very suitable for digital music. That's why I preferred to continue it further.
The visual is based on CT's "Le Temps Et Le Regard (Time and Gaze)"; she comments on that below.
(TI writes:)
This version is a cubist reworking of Cube 1, which is a further decomposition and reorganisation of the score written by TM.
The tones also follow Cube 1, but are transformed and modulated by EQ and effects, like a painting in which the objects and their colours are deconstructed as Cubes and rearranged.
The sound that sounds like a choir is not a choir sample, but rather a piano reverb component modulated with Bitcrusher and short delays.
However, this is not a new phrase that I added or added to, it is just 'the instrument sound that exists there' 'expressed in such a sound', and is not abstract, but concrete.
Only the effect components are Surrounded, while the acoustic instrumental instrumental are narrowly localised and placed.
In addition, the instrumental expansions are changed between the first half and the second halfThe track is very complex, with three scenes, each with a different tempo for each individual part, and this involved a very complex process of mixing down and integrating tracks separately, each sounding at its own tempo. The tempo of each part was calculated by hand by TM.
(CT writes:)
I feel from this music:
Fearlessness. Passion. Decomposition. Attempts. Disintegration. Experimentation.
Unstoppable curiosity and looking everywhere.
Run and find them in the haze.
Run and float, confused and breathless, until you see unknown beauty.
Discovery.
The visual image: Distorted ‘Hand with ring’
I chose this image to express an attempt to be fearless in the chaos.
Symbol of challenge.
Dazing at one and many things with curiosity from many different stages, angles and directions to explore new possibilities and beauty.
Comments