Jupiter
Notes On "Jupiter"
TRACK DATA
Composition tool: MuseScore, Studio One 5 Professional
Recording tool (DAW): Studio One 5 Professional
Number of tracks: 54
Sound source: Presence XT, Impact XT, Mai-Tai, Mojito (All built-in sound sources of Studio One), TAL-NOIZEMAKER
Composition and Recording period: Oct 11 2020 - Mar 20 2021
The track "Jupiter" belongs to the "Planet Series", which consists of five (as at the time being just released) tracks as follows:
- Mercury (Notes)
- Vista At Landing (Notes)
- Uranus (Notes)
- Pluto (Notes)
So far, it has taken four years or so to make the above four tracks, meaning it will take extra five years to complete the solar system. 😅
(TI writes:)
Looking at the properties of MuseScore, I can see that it was created about 6 months ago. After composing it in MuseScore, I ported it to Studio One and created it to a certain extent, but while I was working on other tracks, I kind of stopped. It was around March 2021 when I started working on it again, so it took a long time from the start to the completion. Well, it's a space-themed track, so I don't think it's a problem if it takes a bit longer to create.
(TM writes:)
I have created and will create the tracks for the Planet Series in that FMT tend to make abstract, complex music and I think we should have some concrete, straightforward (to some extent) pieces. In addition, FMT is free from musical genres, into which the music is divided only in the Earth.
Each planet of the solar system has diverse characteristics, many of which have been discovered in the recent years, especially after Gustav Holst’s famous works (though we have hardly been influenced from them anyway). In short, Mercury is quick. Uranus is very strange. Pluto is so cold.
This time, Jupiter is extremely huge – the largest planet within the system and is said to be about to become a fixed star, meaning having huge gravity and energy. It’s not very easy for human beings to approach inside of it due to its fierce radioactivity, even though it has no “ground” as it’s made of only gases.
The track “Jupiter” is just the second one that I intended to title it and include in the Series in prior to composition, only next to “Mercury.” What are left? Venus, Mars, Saturn, Neptune… all interesting!
On composition, I love the harmonies that first appear. For instance, the very first one consists of F#, Ab, F and C. To me it’s like telling everything. Such notions as the key, tonality and tension mean nothing, as if it only worked within the Earth and not at all outside. The meanings of the harmonies are nothing. The idea of “meaning” is an illusion that only applies in the Earth. It’s like vast atmosphere inside of Jupiter.
This piece uses a lot of polyrhythms. Any rhythm is more or less unnatural -- I mean, rhythms that the music in general uses rarely exist in the world of nature but they do in more complex and random ways. Polyrhythms are somewhat nearer to the natural rhythms, I think. Rhythms are very human and thus very artificial, of course. That is fine. I love artificial rhythms as well, but I just want to be capable to free myself from making them if I want to.
How we created the beat is odd enough. "Odd enough" even to us. In FMT multiple drum kits are usually used and they are complexly intertwined. The main kit(s) and subordinate one(s) are all predetermined. But here in this Planet-series track we made each kit have its own characteristics and made that obvious by exchanging the main and subordinate roles in one, two or a few more beats. On composition I thought that would be interesting and unheard.
Since I was very young, I have hated closed circumstances. If my friends were going along with something particular, I became more eager to go for something different to balance it. I now understand every group of people has such tendency especially in Japan, where I grew up, but anyway I just feel like avoiding such closedness, which I possibly should call homogeneity instead, and offering more balanced, more neutral points of view.
As far as I am concerned, the world of music is very closed. It often occurs that even if I like some band their fans are so closed. The music in general seems to have given up being artistic. I just wish I could balance such circumstances.
(TI writes:)
[Composition]
TM wrote the motif that inspired the composition. The motif he created was a complex block chord-like part and rhythm. On top of that, I added various melodies and harmonies.
The phrases I wrote this time were rather dramatic and easy to understand melodies and harmonies. The reason for this is not clear to me, but perhaps I wanted to contrast the combination of motifs that TM had created, which were particularly non-tonal.
However, there are a few irregularities to avoid a clichéd combination of sounds. And this time, the tempo of each part is slightly shifted and superimposed. It's not about timing, it's about shifting the tempo itself, by stretching and shrinking the wav file.
This song, in my mind, is the unfolding of a Japanese picture scroll.
It's not like turning a page, it's more like scrolling and unfolding.
This is because I have always been uncomfortable with the 'A-B-A' style of development that is associated with western music, and even pop music. Perhaps it's the resistance to the idea of 'repeat', and 'getting back on track'.
Similarly, I don't like the idea of a year accumulating in a calendar. I've always felt uncomfortable with expressions like "one year ago today".
Time doesn't repeat itself, it always goes in one direction, but music, which is a temporal art (especially Western music), uses a lot of "return to" and "repeat".
Of course, there is the notion that the earth rotates and is punctuated by its orbits, and that seasons repeat themselves, but the universe probably doesn't.
However, the basis of the music I create is Western music. I write music on the basis of stave notation, in a regular tempo, divided into bars. But the structure of the music is not western, which I think is what makes it interesting.
[Mixing]
This track seems to be very complex, and I checked the track count again, and it's 54 tracks, which is a small number for our songs.
But the guitar and string parts were arranged separately in MuseScore and mixed together in Studio One, so as usual there are a lot of sounds in the mix.
Personally, I don't feel comfortable with polyphonic parts unless they are supposed to be polyphonic, such as the piano and guitar, and then I have to break them down into single melodies and re-arrange them.
This is because I can't stand to have strings and horns all sounding the same at the same time and in the same tone.
As mentioned above, in this case each string and horn part is mixed so that the tempo and timing of each monophonic part is slightly different.
In terms of the arrangement and mix, I intentionally cut out the bass part to create a sense of space, and the rhythm part basically emphasises the mid and high frequencies.
In the rhythm part, I emphasized only the mid-high range. The first half of the album is very much like the drum'n'bass of Goldie and 4Hero, but without the heavy bass. There is a little bit of dub bass in the second half, just like them.
The drums, which have two parts, are positioned in a very different way. The rhythms are light and the low frequencies are cut, which makes the unbalanced localization of the rhythms even more pleasing to the ear.
I also used an analogue delay on the whole master track to blur the image in places, and cut and pasted different EQ settings after combining the two mixes.
[About Jupiter]
So far I have not mentioned anything about Jupiter, the theme of the track. This is because until I wrote this note, I had mistaken the fifth planet (Jupiter) for Venus.
There are often misconceptions and assumptions like this in space-related myths and works of art.
In the first place, when I think of Jupiter, I think of Roland's classic Jupiter 4 and 8, or rather, that's all I can think of.
So I thought I'd try using some Jupiter 4 or 8 samples, but I don't have any Jupiter 4 samples, and for the 8 I had some Studio One samples, but nowhere to use them.
I like both of them, but I don't think Jupiter's sound is suitable for FMT.
However, I've already started to use it a lot on the live album, because I'm trying to create a different concept of sound.
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