Middle Of Insouciance
Notes On Middle Of Insouciance
TRACK DATA
Composition tool: MuseScore, Studio One 5 Professional
Recording tool (DAW): Studio One 5 Professional
Number of tracks: 53（Acoustic）,32（Electric）,4(Master)
Sound source: Presence XT, Impact XT,(All built-in sound sources of Studio One)
Composition and Recording period: Dec 26 2021 - Feb 13 2022
Concept & Composition:
Minimal in Alternative Persian Scale
(TM writes:)
Like “Equatorial Deliverance” for South, the album "The Anomalous Folk" includes five tracks to symbolise five geographic areas: North, South, East, West and Middle. Middle Of Insouciance is the track for Middle.
What was my first plan is to structure some minimal phrases with very short notes in the Persian (currently Iranian) scale, which I have never heard at all before. The Persian scale consists of:
C, Db, E, F, Gb, Ab, B.
But here we use an alternative scale as follows:
C, Db, E, F, Gb, A, Bb.
The difference is either A-flat or A and either B or B-flat. I adapted the alternative scale not only because it sounds a little differently, of course, but also in order to create "folk music of nowhere", which is the concept of the overall album “The Anomalous Folk.” But the organ uses F-sharp and the bass D-natural, for instance.
The most of FMT’s tracks take scales for the structures. The mainstream of today’s music uses major or minor scales without thinking anything, or some particular scales to characterise the phrase – in other words, to consume folk music superficially. FMT treats the scales as something structurally central.
But the sounds change a lot within this track, which I like very much, towards the direction increasingly irrelevant to Persia.
Late in the track, the minimal phrase is transposed by three half tones (which I call “tans-scale”, whereas the bass remains the same. There, double keys / double scales are inserted, so to say. As far as I’m concerned, there does not exist such a modulation (if I may call it so) anywhere in the world or history.
(TI writes:)
This track is based on an underlying score (MuseScore) written by TM, with rhythm guitar phrases and rhythmic riffs that respond to the kalimba-like tonal phrases written by TM.
The guitar-cutting phrases are composed in dyads and accented with velocity to avoid a chord feel. Although it sounds like a loop on this, it is not a loop and the notes themselves are patternless. However, only the velocity (accent) is patterned by the pattern editor, so I think it sounds like a loop of patterns.
I don't remember many cases of me adding phrases with strong rhythmic elements like this.
Studio One also has a function that allows me to sequence control all the parameters of various sound sources and plug-in software, including third-party software, and I have been actively using this function since I bought a new computer.
As a result, the expansion of expression methods through sequence control of various parameters such as various effectors and equalisers has become interesting, and I have been experimenting with it in a variety of ways. In a way, it is like creating a score in MuseScore and then creating the score (data) again.
Mixing
This track is a complex process, which has resulted in two-mixes.
One mix is mainly acoustic instruments, and the other is made up of two completely different versions of the song, created entirely with typical electronic sounds, which are finally cut and pasted together on a separate file for a different mix.
To Be Continued
And there's more to this track. We don't know what will happen.
Visual
The key visual we use on SoundCloud is from a photo of Abu Simbel, Egypt. (TM: It's Egyptian, not Persian, just to dilute particular geographic features.)
Comments