Demo Shows
Notes On "DEMO SHOWS"
(From "Boyhood Skies" Series)
TRACK DATA
Composition tool: MuseScore 3, Studio One 6 Professional
Recording tool (DAW): Studio One 6 Professional
Number of tracks: 115
Sound source: Musescore3(Timbres Of Heaven),Presence XT, Impact XT, Sample One (All built-in sound sources of Studio One)
Composition and Recording period: Nov 17 2022 - Feb 5 2023
Concept: Time of music and a particular radio show
(TI writes:)
The song is a new take on a style or form of musical expression, as well as a tribute to the 1980s Japan Broadcasting Corporation radio programme 'Sound Street', which had a huge influence on us.
Many of the 'well listen buster' kids of the 1980s who loved music in the country, who were looking for interesting music themselves and who were making music themselves, probably listened to this programme.
It was truly 'The nastiest sound around!
In fact, even today, music lovers from that generation, and even those who work in the front line of the music industry, often talk about this programme.
As TM mentions in detail, the programme featured "interesting and unique works (of course there were many excellent works among them) rather than good or outstanding ones", and it was a show where people (many of whom were students and who wanted to be recognised by Ryuichi Sakamoto) were asked to play their own songs on the programme, and to be recognized by Ryuichi Sakamoto (who was a formal Many were students and had not received any formal advanced musical education, and few had a clear professional musician orientation), who just sent in their songs with 'beginning to feel the heat' as the driving force.
In fact, rather than 'songs with plenty of equipment and ('generally') a high degree of perfection', they were 'songs that I recorded the cries of my parrot at home, took scales from them, edited them on a cassette tape deck and made it sing', 'songs that I made what looked like a drum from a cookie tin I had at home and recorded it with a recorder that my friend played A song that I recorded with a friend's recorder, and an ambient piece that I played on a mono synthesizer in the bathroom", these were all attempts to express what they could in their own way and to the maximum extent possible.
Incidentally, Ryuichi Sakamoto also wrote a song called 'Ongaku' (Japanese word for music), which was probably inspired by their acts and songs.
Many of the people who sent in their songs were young people, but they did not want to be (rock) stars or musicians as a profession (those people applied for auditions for bands and singers, which were very popular at the time), I think they were motivated by 'I want Ryuichi Sakamoto to say it's funny', 'I want to make something that hasn't been done before' or 'I want to surprise people (make them laugh)'.
However, it is interesting to look back now and realise that, although some people in the former group were temporarily successful in the music business, many of them have since (after a few decades) left or had to leave music and creative activities, including business, while many people in the latter group, whether professional or not, have continued to make music and creative activities on an ongoing basis.
(TM writes:)
In this work the marimba repeats forever the central motif and others accompany in various ways; that pattern repeats. That shows the process of production; the main motif is exposed at first, developed with guitars next, further developed differently to make three or four more sections, and finally "packaged" into the structured piece with the four sections set out.
I've never heard any music structured this way. Yes, I've watched making-of music videos, but probably never "making-of music," as far as I can remember.
Generally, music tends to treat the "time" as a sort of canvas where to align the sections sequentially, while this experiments the layout along the time-axis process of music production, as if it were a photograph sequence of building construction.
So, that's what the title means, yet, not only that but also is there another signification, which is, Ryuichi Sakamoto's radio show held in the early 1980s. Sakamoto-san is one of our idol musicians, in common between TI and me, and the series called "Boyhood Skies" focuses on our feelings on his severe illness and the death of Yukihiro Takahashi, a close colleague and friend of his. (Quite soon after the release of the track, Sakamoto-san passed away too in March 2023.)
The radio show is called "Sound Street", and was broadcast once a week, which both of us (when not knowing each other) were looking forward to listening to every week. Sometimes, it held demo shows, which is something like a contest (with no winner) where the audience -- mostly teenagers presumably -- created some music or recordings and apply to it. To be selected by Sakamoto is a win, perhaps. The winners seemed to include those who would become popular artists later. So, he played the role of medium and educator.
As I write in the Notes on "Dear Lessons,"
"Just to me, his [Sakamoto-san's] greatness seems to lie in not only his music, but also, much more importantly, his role as a medium, educator or catalyst, which he may or may not recognise. As far as I know, there's no such artist who helped younger musicians develop themselves (nearly unintentionally) as him. I'd just like to say that's a huge achievement of his. I thought that through creating this track and that made me create another called 'Demo Shows.'"
Anyway, Sakamoto-san's illness and Takahashi-san's death reminded me of the times and those demo shows, which were nothing but fun. When I composed the previous work called "Dear Lessons," explaining the concept, and sent the MuseScore file (ie, MIDI data) to TI, he said it would have suited for the theme music of the radio show. Having heard that, I came up with ideas of "Demo Shows."
Why the sonnet form? Well, I recently experimented some music style, in which I used Shakespeare's Sonnets. But I have no idea if we can release it or not.
In the final packaged section, as the notation image shows, the tempo is 82 beats per minute, but it sounds like "the beat seems like 82 but at the same time like doubled (at 164)," doesn't it? Such ambiguity is my intention in the rhythm.
In this way, "Demo Shows" has almost double meanings: the "Sound Street" radio show that broadcast listeners' demos as well as the music style of showing the demo-like making-of.
Composition
(TI writes:)
The motif elements were written by TM and then put together like a puzzle, extended and added new parts.
The composition is as follows.
47 seconds from the beginning: this is where TM writes out some of the motifs. This is where it all starts. We created it by writing out 2Mixes straight from the MS.
From 47 s to 1 min 47 s: TI transplanted the data to S1. This is only the original sound of the S1.
1 min 48 sec - 2 min 56 sec: TI has started to process the S1 sound by equalising it, adding sound effects, etc.
2 min 56 sec - 4 min 8 sec: TI has added new phrases and is starting to experiment with the sound. This is where I start adding phrases, deconstructing TM motifs and starting to make variations.
4 min 8 sec - 4 min 36 sec: Motifs are in place and ready for final mixing
”Hey you, don't watch that, watch this!”
4 min 37 sec -: It's done, ”this is the heavy heavy monster sound!”
”Brainchild, brainchild, welcome to the school of thought!”
The order in which I created the above was also in line with the progression of the song, developing the initial motif as it went along.
Up to 2:56 minutes, the song is created using only the TM motif. The new phrases and tones that emerge from there were created by me.
The first sound is the same as it was without any effects, and from there effects are gradually applied to change the sound quality.
The part from 4 min 8 secs onwards is the introduction to the 'main part', and the part after that, from the shouts of 'Watch this!'
The song contains human voices, but I created the male shouts in the first half of the song, while TM wrote the sonnet part in the second half.
This 'lyrics' part is not just a component of the song, it contains our feelings.
I didn't think about it when I was making it, but when I listened to it again, I felt like it was an answer to his 'Ongaku' mentioned above.
In that sense, it may be a (very unusual) vocal number by FMT.
Mixing
(TI continues:)
The format of the mix is more complex than usual this time.
We have four separate sound sources and effects, including an MS-only section, an S1 original sound section, an S1 sound production section and a finished version section, and we have set output Buses for each mix.
In other words, it's like having four mixing desks in parallel and recording into one recorder. At first I thought I would mix each file separately and create a dedicated file for the final mix and edit it, but then the volume, sound pressure and texture of each part of the mix would not be consistent. I could have dared not to do so, but that would have reduced the quality of the music when you listen to it as music, so I dared to create it in such a complicated and tedious procedure.
The first half of the piece, as mentioned above, is a balancing of the 'sound as it was in the process of creation and as I used it when composing'. I dared to use some of the sounds that seemed out of balance without modifying them as much as possible. For example, the first synth sound (3:20) is a sound that has not been modified in any way, but such a sound is rarely used (or played as it is) in product music.
The most difficult part of this piece was the treatment of the bass and vocoder.
We went through a lot of trial and error with both of them.
The bass has so many parts in this piece, and the roles of the bass are so varied, such as rhythm, pitch and pressure, that I had to organise them in such a way that they could each be used to their full potential.
The rhythmic part is mainly the bass drum, which is carefully trimmed to emphasise the attack and ensure that the reverberations do not clash with the other bass notes.
For the bass, which gives a sense of pitch, we cut the heavy bass to make it sound more resonant.
The bass drum, which provides the sound pressure, is trimmed so as not to interfere with the attack, while the bandwidth of the bass drum is cut by the dynamic equaliser side-chain processing.
So the bass drum rhythm can be heard clearly while the bass sounds.
The Dynamic Equalizer was used extensively this time.
In the past, if there were overlapping bands, you would simply reduce one of the instruments in the overlapping band, but this would inevitably result in the sound sound sounding weak or altered.
This is where DEQ comes in: it triggers the (overlapping) bandwidth and cuts the other overlapping bandwidths only at the moment they are sounding.
In the past, the same thing was done with a compressor, but with a compressor, you don't cut it, you smash it, which changes the texture.
With the DEQ, you can make everything sound clear without changing the texture too much (of course, careful bandwidth check and proper settings are necessary).
This effector already existed about 20 years ago, but it was very expensive, but now it is included in Studio One together with the vocoder, making it easy to use.
As for the vocoder, I used to use free software that simulated the VP330, but since this update I've been using the functionality that comes standard with Studio One.
This was very easy to use, but I had great difficulty inputting and sounding speech software. The vocoder had difficulty responding or over-reacting to consonants in particular, and the volume varied greatly, so we had to apply a compressor, Gate and expander to suppress the over-input and raise the under-input to level out the voice input values, and then apply distortion to make the vocoder respond more firmly. Distortion is applied to generate overtones so that the vocoder reacts more firmly.
Visual
(TM writes:)
The landscape of Tokyo, Japan with Tokyo Tower at the centre, featuring the beautiful sky. Tokyo is the city where both of the two men who we pay tributes to in the album were born and raised. So was I. Japan Broadcasting Corporation, which TI refers to above, known as NHK in the country, is located about four kilometers away from the Tower.
Demo Shows (Sonnet)
Can’t touch any more
But all the works will be restored
Catalysis is the best of yours
Ending up as a big lore
Overcame insanity
All of your weapons are savvy
A lifetime mate has gone suddenly
You know yourself, when to be already
Lots of kids imitated your productions
Some of them found value in creation
You say you’ve made no invention
But taken them to the terrain of connections
People really hoped
To be recognised by you through demo shows
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