In The Mirror (Versions)
Notes On "In The Mirror"
"Prosewise In The Mirror"
TRACK DATA
"Auditorily In The Mirror"
"Lyrically In The Mirror"
"Theatrically In The Mirror"
Concept: One strangest thing...
(TM writes:)
If all you felt from one of these tracks is “beautiful”, you are unlikely to have recognised it. I would suggest you take another listen after reading some, if not all, of what is written below. I bet there is a lot more fun you can have. There is a trick in here.
Are you ready to read my spoiler? If not, stop reading the text that follows below:
Okay, in this work you are totally tricked with symmetry. In short, just after one phrase is played it's then reversely played. It's designed in a way to remain beautiful when played opposite. Every phrase is designed that way. The whole track, which consists of a bunch of symmetrical phrases, is also symmetrical, meaning just after the first half is played the second half is the reverse play of the first half, or vice versa. When one symmetrical phrase in the first half is played reversely in the second, it's almost completely identical because it's symmetrical. If you take a photo of some horizontal flip like your left and right hands, and if you turn it over horizontally, the photo is nearly the same. That's how it goes. If you listen to the reverse playback to (whichever version of) this work, that will be nearly the same as the original track. That's what I mean by symmetry.
The first half ends at Bar 91, after which the first half is turned back in the reversed direction. In other words, the first half and second are symmetrical, or exactly the same except for the reversal. The turning point comes at the end of Bar 91 or at the beginning of Bar 92. (The first bar is blank, though, as is customary in FMT.) There are sections from A to L, and the second half goes backwards from L-reversed to A-reversed.
At the turning point there is no sound in the original version called “Auditorily In The Mirror”, while in the ”Theatrically In The Mirror” version TI mostly arranged there is an astonishing glass-breaking noise.
Not only is the whole track, but also one section is designed to be symmetrical. For example, the first bass and chord have a 4-bar pattern, but the next 4 bars are completely reversal. The same applies to the phrase highlighted in the image, where red and blue are symmetrical.
That is to say it has double symmetries.
In addition, actually, it has triple symmetries in the first version (ie, "Auditorily In The Mirror). In its first half, the strings sound at your left whereas their reverse is played at your right. That is why the strings sometimes sound weirdly or “exaggeratedly” – i.e. with a little bit too much accentuation, which are my favourite points in the track. They would never happen to real strings ensemble.
But it should be difficult to recognise the difference between the left and right clearly, simply because if you make the same sound on the left and right, it sounds at the centre. Also, depending on the phrase, it sounds like shaking finely from side to side, but the volume of the sound is different on the left and right moment by moment.
I wrote, nonetheless, only one non-symmetrical part, which is the sine wave like the beep (or the string pizzicato in another version).
The sine wave is contemporariness, which is outside the mirror world along with you, the listener. The mirror world is a symbol of modernity. It sounds regularly, irrelevant to the tempo, which is also a mathematically written part.
For the modernity it uses impressions I obtained from the transition period from Romantic to Modern. I've written that in other notes many times, but I can feel that I have been heavily influenced by Sergei Prokofiev and Pyotr Tchaikovski. (I left a note in the notation saying "Like Pyotr Tchaikovski" in Section D and another "Like Sergei Prokofiev" in Section E, actually.)
As I wrote about Prokofiev in the notes on our track "Artless", we used his phrase from Romeo & Juliet reversely in there. At that time I came up with the idea of a track symmetrically structured. If we realised it, I thought, it would be a music version of Maurits Escher, wouldn't it?
The tentative title was "Maurits In The Mirror." I intended to create music like his paintings (or prints), whereas not intending to make a sound track for those.
Actually, presumably in the 1960s Mick Jagger asked Escher to design the jacket of The Rolling Stones' new album. And Escher responded that he wouldn't, adding a comment that "please tell Mr. Jagger I am not Maurits to him."* That is why I removed Maurits quite silently from the title.
The recently released music video of Tears For Fears' "Break The Man", by the way, shows an Escher-esque world, which is absolutely fantastic. That hasn't influenced on this, I suppose, though.
Or, I should say this work (as well as "Parallel" in the same series) may be conceptually relevant to Ferdinand Hodler's Parallelism.
Composition: It was laborious mathematical tasks.
Expressing symmetry in the notation is quite a laborious task, rather a mathematical task.
It starts with the 6-notes scale of E-F-A-B-C#-D-E (without implicatiion of tonalities), which will be trans-scaled later. Even though its first note is E, I didn't design it as something that can be obviously recognised so. For instance, the first bass note is C-sharp.
After two points with the sine wave, the bass and chords appear, which last until the end as well as symbolise the concept of the minimal on basso continuo. I can't name the chords but roughly speaking, they sound like A on C#, A sus4 on D, E sus4, F aug, A sus4 add9, E sus4, FM7, A sus4 (with the 5ths frequently omitted).
While suspended 4th chords being typically used just before resolution with the dominant chord in the Christianity Church music, they play the main role here. This progression includes only a few chords with the 3rd, which implies is atonal.
If you regard the first note of the scale as A rather than E, it's A-B-C#-D-E-F-A, which you can call a major scale with the 6th minor and without the 7th. Yet, the dominant chord of A major never emerges and in addition the bass on A comes out just twice late in the progression.
Thus, I aimed to bring out ambiguous atmosphere like "Is it Western or Oriental?" but at the same time strong and clear existence. Important is the first chord, especially, that comprises C#2, C#3, A3 and C#4. It's something like I'm saying "this piece goes for C# definitely!" Oops, I spent five paragraphs here just to describe the first four bars!
Sorry, there is a more important point I should make. In the next four bars, the chords progress reversely: A sus4, FM7, E sus4, A sus4 add9, F aug, E sus4, A sus4 on D and A on C#. Does the symmetrical structure make sense?
From Section D, the set of chords are altered to (again, roughly) Ab sus4 6, Ab with Db, AbM7 add4 and Ab sus4 11. (b means flat.) Then, it goes backwards, meaning a 2-bars symmetry. But I didn't take the chord names into account, but just did the scale.
The sine wave was, however, written almost outside the scale intentionally --, ie. F-sharp. The first scale on E doesn't contain F-sharp. It is trans-scaled down by a semitone, and F-sharp encounters the scale on the D-flat scale for the first time, which appears after trans-scaled 3 times. F-sharp is the tone that is not contained for the longest time. The trans-scale doesn't equal to modulation because of the absence of tonalities. We apply trans-scales very, very frequently in FMT's works.
In Section K, trans-scales are made symmetrical as well. It's the first time for us. The section begins with the B scale and two bars later it goes down to B-flat for two bars. Then, it goes back from B-flat for two bars and thereafter back up to B.
I designed some relevance to FMT's track called "Ascending Stairs"; in Sections A and J the chords are made central in the music -- in the same way as that piece.
In total, I suppose it took just a few days for the composition.
I wrote relatively a small number of parts here. If this is played live, I guess 8 players will be required for strings, a little bit like Chamber Music. But then there is a problem remained with how to play the reversed sounds. Realistically, 8 strings players have to play along with playback of a recorded reversal sound, which I imagine is quite difficult. In this sense, this is "very digital" music, in other words, digitally-enabled music.
When I finished the composition, "wow, it was completely innovative, revolutionary, and historical!!", I thought and was exited. I love this piece so much that I took hundreds of listens even before the release. But funnily, in reality I should be feeling what such artists as Paul Gauguin might have been feeling for almost all their lives.
Although we plan to upload the notation video, those who don't understand the notation must be reluctant to watch it. But once you simply take a look at it as one diagram, I'm sure you can have much more fun. It's pasted at the bottom of this page in the "Notation Art" section.
3 Versions: How they have been created
(TI writes:)
When TM first gave me the score and concept of this piece, I was overwhelmed and moved by the concept and the wonderfulness of the music.
Naturally, however, the only information in MuseScore was the notes and the timbre of the MuseScore sound source, so I had to think about how I could develop the concept and make the most of it, and went through a number of trial and error processes.
First of all, the music is complete, so I couldn't think of anything to add as notes or phrases.
Nevertheless, just playing the MuseScore in a normal way would have sounded flat tonally and acoustically, so the first step, as usual, was to break down each part of the MuseScore drawn by TM and then apply the best individual classical instrumental timbres.
However, it is not possible to reproduce authentic Classical instruments with Studio One's sound sources. Therefore, we decided to create a more gimmicky and extremely artificial version, while still keeping the original timbres and their placement itself.
(TM has already mentioned a few details about the concept and production of this version, which will be explained when that version (which will probably be the last to be released) is released.)
When I played that first take to TM, he was amused, but stated that the concept was fading in the first place, and that the musical intent expressed in MuseScore was fading as a result of acoustic manipulation.
So we decided to make a version as close as possible to MuseScore as it was, so we reworked it by applying it to classical instruments in Studio One, but although the sound became clearer, we couldn't find anything better.
(A version based on this take is planned for the next release. The take has an acoustic gimmick that most people probably won't notice: a 'mirror, left-right contrast' image. I'll explain more about that on the next release.)
In the end, I came to the conclusion that it was important for this piece to sound the way it was composed and designed, and that it would be enough to start with, so I created a version that would become 'Auditorily In The Mirror'.
Version 1: Auditorily In The Mirror
TRACK DATA
Composition tool: MuseScore 3, Studio One 5 Professional
Recording tool (DAW): Studio One 5 Professional
Number of tracks: 9(1st),4(2md)
Sound source: MuseScore 3
Composition and Recording period: May 24 2022 - July 27 2022
Version 2: Lyrically In The Mirror
TRACK DATA
Composition tool: MuseScore 3, Studio One 5 Professional
Recording tool (DAW): Studio One 5 Professional
Number of tracks: 41(1st),4(2md)
Sound source: MuseScore 3
Composition and Recording period: May 24 2022 - Jun 25 2022
(TI writes:)
Unlike "Auditorily In The Mirror", which was sounded only with the sound font used in MuseScore, this version is sounded with a Studio One sampler instrument, which I believe gives it a better timbre and sound quality.
However, that is not the essential difference, the main difference between this and other versions of the song is that in the middle of the song, not only the notes are reversed, but also the phases.
In the first half of the song, the sound is in 'inverted phase', which makes the localisation unstable, or if you listen to it on stereo speakers, it sounds as if it is sounding outside the speakers, and on headphones, it sounds as if the sound is unnaturally spread out.
Incidentally, this version cannot be produced on 'analogue records', which are played by rubbing the grooves of the sound. This is because in the inverse phase, it would be impossible to dig grooves.
If you took the master file of this song to an analogue record cutting studio, you would be told by the engineer that it is impossible to cut.
(TM writes:)
Again, this "Lyrically" version sounds very clearly, very much like a small chamber orchestra. In terms of how it sounds, I love it, possibly most in the three versions.
Version 3: Theatrically In The Mirror
TRACK DATA
Composition tool: MuseScore 3, Studio One 5 Professional
Recording tool (DAW): Studio One 5 Professional
Number of tracks: 41(1st-3rd),4(Final Mix)
Sound source: MuseScore 3, Presence XT, Sample One (All built-in sound sources of Studio One)
Composition and Recording period: May 24 2022 - Jun 15 2022
(TI writes:)
This take entitled Theatrically In The Mirror is a take that completely reflects my taste and preferences.
In other words, it is the result of my indulgence in creating a fictional world, like the protagonist of Joris-Karl Huysmans' À rebours.
Therefore, this version pursues a more 'fictional world' than the usual FMT.
For example, "imagining the sound of a world that does not exist (in a mirror), music, acoustically expressing mirror images and time reversals, Joris-Karl Huysmans' À rebours in literature, Japanese authors who were influenced by him and his works, such as Tatsuhiko Shibusawa, Kafu Nagai, Kyoka Izumi, Mushitaro Oguri, The atmosphere is one that goes back and forth between fiction and reality, like Edogawa Rampo and Yokomizo Seishi".
In terms of composition, the first half (up to the centre of the object in MuseScore's score) is 'the sound of the inverted world in the mirror, and by reaching the centre of symmetry, the mirror breaks and the sound returns from the inverted world to the sound of the "proper world".
However, the mirror that existed at the boundary between the mirror and reality breaks, and the world in the mirror leaks out little by little, ending up in a mixture of the upside-down world and the sane world, ending in chaos.
In the production, the second half of the film was created to the same specifications as the first half, and then mixed together little by little.
We also included hissing noises in the second half. It is a metaphor that the world in the mirror in the first half of the film is a crazy but noise-free world, while reality is more full of noise.
But that they are all fictions in the human mind and in the computer memory.
I was reminded of this fiction when I was creating these Mirror series, that it is not very interesting to pursue realism and authenticity in creation. Specifically, even if you try to create a simulation of an upside-down world as much as possible, it will not be very interesting as a piece of music or a work of art.
On the contrary, if you use human imagination to create a mirror inside the creation, it is interesting to see the distorted nature of human imagination and cognition come to the surface.
For example, realistically inverted waveforms and imaginatively created inverted sounds are completely different, and the latter is often more interesting. For example, while it is interesting and meaningful to actually visit and experience the universe, it is more interesting and enjoyable to visit and experience a universe created by human imagination, such as in films, novels and cartoons.
Mixing
In this piece, the sound up to the turning point (the centre of the object in the score) is "the sound of reverse playback*", and from there it is "the original sound", and the localisation is also reversed there.
When actually reversed, sounds such as strings that do not have a noticeable attack and have a long release do not sound like this (audibly, they are almost the same as if they were played normally).
Reverse reverb is also applied to the parts that sound like reverse playback (actually playing the reverb backwards does not result in this sound).
The production procedure was to take the same file as the previously released 'Lyrically In The Mirror', and then 'normal sound (this is the same take as Lyrically In The Mirror, but Lyrically~ is in reverse phase, whereas Lyrically~ is in normal phase and sounds similar, but The sound is similar but different), a sound that is imagined to be played back in reverse, and a sound that is actually played back in reverse, and these are put together in a file for mixing.
The structure of the mix is that the first half has the atmosphere of a tape or analogue record being played backwards (it's just an atmosphere). The second half is based on the 'normal performance atmosphere' sound, with various effects and the reverse playback sound of the first half layered on top.
In the centre of the object is the sound of a mirror shattering, indicating that the mirror is cracked and reality and the inverted world are intermingled.
Also, the reverse playback (atmosphere) sound of the first half is covered with the actual reverse playback of the first release 'Auditorily In The Mirror' to give the impression of a distant sound , with the attack (the release part to begin with) being shifted.
After returning to the original sound, the same type of room reverb is applied.
The reverse playback part is gated so that the reverb is cut off.
Therefore, this version is a phase mess (I haven't seen a track with a phase meter moving so violently in a long time).
So sounds that are audible in other versions are in some places inaudible or reduced.
For a moment, at the turnaround point, it goes into positive phase (the cleanest positive phase is the sound of glass shattering in the centre of the object), but then it gets messed up again with a mixture of reverse and positive phases.
Notation Art
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