Looking Up At The Clouds
Notes On "LOOKING UP AT THE CLOUDS"
(From "Boyhood Skies" Series)
The FURICO Music Team - Music Works · Looking Up At The Clouds
Piano Version
Released later in November 2023
TRACK DATA
Composition tool: MuseScore 3, Studio One 6 Professional
Recording tool (DAW): Studio One 6.5 Professional
Number of tracks: 71
Sound source: Presence XT, Impact XT, Sample One, Maitai (All built-in sound sources of Studio One
Composition and recording period: Mar 16 2023 - Mar 28 2023, Nov 3
(TM writes:)
My composition is usually instruments-first. I decide what instruments to use before composing phrases for them. But sometimes I've got no idea about it and then TI suggests it, which I like very much in most cases.
While the original version was a work in progress, an idea on a set of instruments to use came to my mind. I was sure that it would work, which is this piano version.
But, we struggled a little bit with timing problems especially with the brush drums, which TI sorted out at last.
(TI writes:)
TM wrote the score for this piece as well, and all I did at the time of composition was transpose the strings to match the range of the instruments, in order to avoid some of the interference between the piano and the strings in terms of register.
For the timbre, I used the instrumental sounds specified by TM in Musescore, but I also added different bands of instruments that interfere with each other in terms of timing and bandwidth, so that they are not covered by each other.
For example, the attack bands and sound quality of the bass drum, bass and cello pizzicato are similar, making it difficult to hear the contrast in Rhythm, so I reinforced each of them with different bandwidth overtones in the synth so that they can be heard clearly.
In response to TM's suggestion that the attack of the drums was slightly delayed (which was correct), only the attack component was added separately, and the timing of each sound was adjusted.
In the original, the synthesized JitterNoise was replaced by a live recording of an African folk instrument called a Rainstick, which was on display at a cultural center in Yatsugatake, where I was traveling.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rainstick
Original Version
Released earlier in March 2023
TRACK DATA
Composition tool: MuseScore 3, Studio One 6 Professional
Recording tool (DAW): Studio One 6 Professional
Number of tracks: 52
Sound source: Presence XT, Impact XT, Sample One (All built-in sound sources of Studio One)
Composition and Recording period: Jun 30 2023 - Mar 12 2023
TM: Focus on skies and small gaps among parts like clouds
(TM writes:)
The project "Boyhood Skies" is to make tributes to two of TI's and my boyhood idols, Yukihiro Takahashi, who died in January 2023, as well as Ryuichi Sakamoto, struggling with his late-stage cancer. (Just around the release of the track, he passed away in March 2023.)
"Looking Up At The Clouds" is especially to Takahashi-san, who I have thought is excellent at making pops songs on the beautifully- and groovily-arranged minimal components. All his works are not minimal, but I'm especially impressed with them.
One good example is his song called "Something In The Air" and I brought the title of "Looking Up At The Clouds" from its lyric, in which he sang "As I look up at the clouds" just before the chorus "something in the air, taking hold of me..." He was gone to some place where anxieties or aspirations make no sense even if he looks up at the clouds. It's sad but at the same time he is free from any suffering.
When I wrote another tribute to him called "Let Me Hear About You" in prior to "Looking Up..." I was thinking about titling the former as "Looking Up At The Clouds" as I liked the title, but that piece is rather about clear skies. I gave it up and decided to make another under the name. Thus, I had the title before composing it.
It seems to me that he often focuses on the sky in his works. I didn't know that. So do I quite often like "Look Of Clouds" but since something related to the sky comes to my mind so often, I usually prioritise other options. This time I have picked up that phrase from his lyric for this title and named the album (or project) after that, without a least bit of hesitation.
Since his death I have listened to his works including many that I didn't know. When I listened to the song called "Stella" (by Sketch Show, his collaboration with Haruomi Hosono) I was amazed and deeply moved. It inspired me a lot. But, yes, it's totally different.
Not only "Stella," but also I love "Brooklyn Bridge" by Anaïs Mitchell, "Ellis Island" by The Corrs and many other outstandingly atmospheric works, and I've recently posed a question repeatedly on how I can demonstrate that sort of special atmospheres in instrumental music. That's one of my endeavours I'm making through this piece as well as the other series of "Placid Wanderings" (to be released later).
As explained in many pages in this website, my composition is to write directly the notation like above, I mean, to write MIDI data -- without using any instrument -- so that I can be free from physical or technical constraints and tendencies. This is almost the same for TI.
This track consists of only 6 parts mainly, that is A, B, C, D, Bass and Drums. A, for instance, is made up of three parts: acoustic and electric pianos and what MuseScore calls the bowed glass. But the A parts don't play at all in the first pages as above, and I refer to B instead. B comprises three parts as well: two electric guitars and a sine wave. If you look at the notation of the parts, you might find that those are almost the same except for some notes missing on B2 Guitar 2. Many small gaps occur throughout the track this way.
Also, you might find such small letters each note as mf and p. In case you don't know them, they are put to sound dynamic, ie, strong and weak. I'm using the dynamic signs very often recently. Those are basically the same for the parts of the same group, but gradually gaps will increase later.
I composed this way, which I loved, but we struggled to realise my image in recording (meaning, strictly speaking the sound creation and mixing), or to acquire the nuances. It was extremely difficult.
At last TI found the solution, which was totally different from my own original vision but went far beyond that. That's, in short, to weigh the acoustic bass and drums, so to speak, and to generate a sort of vast space and sound very wooden and airy, enabling us to bring off the concept and expression of my sentiment.
In effect you may find that the hi-hats sometimes don't sound precisely or do deviate somewhat. That is caused by some delay of the pedal high-hat sample, which I like indeed because it sounds more human. I love that ambiguity, which FMT often design in many other works as well.
TI also created and added the noise I asked him for as a sort of mark to show our respect to Sketch Show as well as the Electronica. I like it a lot. And another aim was to express my feeling for someone who had passed away like "Where are you? Around those clouds? I wish there could be some frequencies at which transceivers can connect with you..." I often feel that way.
It seems that I have high sensitivity to music; a good example is that I often weep tears from strong emotion when listening to, say, impressing instrumental music. I've experienced such situations many times where nobody else around me does that at concerts or something. "Looking Up..." is one of such works for me.
(TI writes:)
Composition
TM sent me a nearly complete MuseScore score for this track, so I did not add any notes at the MuseScore stage, but only added phrases that I thought were necessary as the song materialized during the mixing process in Studio One. What I added as phrases were the noise and glitch parts. I programmed the filter cutoffs, resonance movements, and gate times inside the synthesizer to make them sound phrase-like.
Mixing
He seemed to have a clear image of the finished product in his mind, but in the actual creation process, some of his requests were difficult to fulfill acoustically, so it was difficult to think of alternatives.
For example, he asked for "less intonation," but his MuseScore score had a fine mix of piano and forte.
Naturally, a phrase that alternates between piano and forte has intonation, and in order to take advantage of the nuances of MuseScore and not lose the nuances of piano and forte, the difference in loudness and sound between piano and forte had to be clarified. And of course, if we clarify the difference between the piano and forte, "the intonation will be affected".
It was difficult to find a way to resolve this contradiction.
In addition, even though there is a piano (quieter) note specified, there is a forte note immediately following it, so if the volume of the forte part is suppressed to reduce the intonation, the intonation will be reduced.
Specifically, the lowest note is 38 percent of the maximum volume, and the highest note is 63 percent. Of course, each tone is different, but there is a difference in volume of approximately twice as much.
This makes the intonation quite extreme when played normally. Moreover, the score created by TM always has a wide range of tones in each part (tone).
Therefore, when mixed normally, loud or high pitched notes inevitably sound "bright" or "flaring". To adjust for this, the process of suppressing loud and high pitches inevitably makes it difficult to hear quieter and lower pitched sounds (mixed in the same track).
To solve this problem, the tracks are broken down again by range and intensity, and reorganized into tracks with their own characteristics.
As a result, the number of tracks in Studio One has increased (52 tracks) compared to the number of parts in the original MuseScore (15 parts). The number of Bus channels (8ch) to organize it also increased.
In addition, certain overtones that sounded loud were suppressed when the volume exceeded a certain level*, the attack was slightly reduced on loud notes, and the attack was slightly emphasized on quieter notes.
To be honest, when he first gave me the score, I had some discomfort with what he described as a "sad track" (rather than an inorganic track?). But as we were creating the music, there were times when I thought, "I see... that's what he meant! I could see that as I was creating the song. Experiencing this kind of process is one of the interesting and fun aspects of creating a track.
(TM writes:)
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