Mood Of Five
Notes On "Mood Of Five"
TRACK DATA
Composition tool: MuseScore, Studio One 5 Professional
Recording tool (DAW): Studio One 5 Professional
Number of tracks:101
Sound source: Presence XT, Impact XT, Mai-Tai, Mojito (All built-in sound sources of Studio One), TAL-NOIZEMAKER Voice sampled from Emma Jack's 'Climbing'
Composition and Recording period: Jan 18 2021 - Feb 22 2021
(TI writes:)
Although the MuseScore properties list the start date of this song as January 18, 2021, it was actually created about half a year ago, and then abandoned.
This year, TM said that he hadn't listened to MuseScore in a while, and it was pretty good, so he created the structure and finished the track.
The inspiration for the composition came from TM's suggestion to create a piece using the 5-tone scale, and we both started by randomly accumulating motifs.
For me, the 5-tone scale is like primordial music before I learned Western classical music. I don't have a clear memory of it, but I feel like it was always present in my life as I was growing up.
So I could think of as many phrases as I wanted, and I could write as many as I wanted. I think I probably wrote many of the phrases in this song.
The reason I say "I think" is that I can't remember exactly which phrases I wrote, now that I've finished it. Usually, when I look at the notes in MuseScore, I can remember my intentions and feelings when I wrote it, and I can also recognize the phrases and harmonies that TM and I create because they have their own characteristics, but in this case, the phrase itself is so universal that I can't tell if it's "my (only) original phrase that I wrote.
This is because I feel that each of the phrases I wrote in this track has always existed. But there is no specific song that comes to mind.
I can think of any number of phrases, and I can write any number of phrases, but there is no connection between the phrases and the tone.
In music, timbre and phrase are one and the same, and even if the phrase pops into my head, it should probably sound like some kind of timbre, not to mention the actual music that is playing, but I can't think of the timbre clearly. In other words, it doesn't matter to me what the phrase sounds like.
So while there are melody lines, bass lines, and other phrases and tones that sound like obbligato in this piece, I didn't create each of them for that purpose, they just happened to be given that role because of their range and mix balance.
When I was composing on MuseScore, I wrote all the parts with the default MS piano sound, but it really doesn't matter what instrument or tone it sounds like.
It's like humming.
However, when I listened to the roughly composed version on MuseScore, I thought, "Psychedelic, like the late Beatles.
(TM writes:)
FMT have not used five-notes scales as the main in a whole track before, even though we very often exploit various scales. This track is one of two pieces that we wanted to try in five-notes scales. (The other one has yet to be released as of February 2021.)
“Mood Of Five” uses three scales: Gamelan, You-Sempou and (Ascending) In-Sempou. When it sounds like the section changes, actually the scale shifts.
At a glance it’s something like just electro-folk music, but we made various trials. First of all, this track mostly consists of monophonic parts and very limited chords. The most of the chordal parts use dyads, ie, two-notes chords, which is FMT’s usual way. Similarly, it has the features of the minimal music but isn’t made sound like minimal.
Thirdly, I have never heard music comprising multiple scales, especially of different geographic areas, which are in this case Indonesia and Japan. At the timing of composition I frequently listened to Haruomi Hosono’s amazing album called “Paraiso.” It was released in the late 1970s but after nearly half a century this was the first time for me to have a listen. Somewhere between tropical and oriental, rather than a mix of two. That is what it has affected in this track. This also uses various (sampled) instruments including tabla, Hindustani percussion.
There are, by the way, many oriental and tropical gardens in Europe and elsewhere, which look very peculiar to me (and perhaps many Asians). Typically, the plants are very south-east Asian and the artefacts are more (north-) east Asian, within which a torii is Japanese and the bridge design is more Chinese, etc. That is peculiar but very attractive; somewhat Asian but not Asian at all -- something different. Mood Of Five has been positioned around that hopefully.
Back to our musical trials, there is also no chord progression at all, and the key hardly moves. Late in the track (from Bar 102) a synthpop-esque bass appears without connection with the chords and even scales. In other words a particular scale can be musically interpreted in various ways. To me it’s hugely pleasurable.
So, it sounds a little bit like oriental, tropical, ambient, relaxation, minimal or folk music, but in fact it’s none of these – instead, somewhere among these.
[Tone creation and mixing]
As mentioned above, I initially started with the image of "psychedelic" and "late Beatles".
Specifically, "Tomorrow Never Knows" from the Beatles' "Revolver." That sound is very original even now. I thought it was very interesting that such an avant-garde album was released all over the world, and that so many people are still listening to it.
(I wonder if there are any music industry companies now that are willing to release this kind of sound all over the world.)
So I decided to use the sitar for the first phrase.
It wasn't because I wanted to create an image of India or Asia in particular. It's just that I had the sound of the sitar in my mind as the sound of the late Beatles.
I also wanted to create an electric sound that is not so much connected to the tone and phrase.
That's how I came up with the concept of "Techno+Psychedelic" and "Technodelic" for this track.
When I roughly applied the tone to each track, I felt the atmosphere of Yellow Magic Orchestra's later albums ("Technodelic", "Naugthy Boys"). These albums were created with the late Beatles in mind. This is where I discovered, "I see, that's what you meant." That's how we came up with the version titled "Prototype".
However, TM said, "This is good, but the bass part is too dense," and "I want more space," so he suggested replacing it with a tabla or dulcimer-like sound.
So I replaced some of the phrases with these sounds.
This gave it a more psychedelic feel. But then, I felt uncomfortable with the clear sound image of Digital.
So I tried using Studio One's Console Shaper function, which I had rarely used before, and it gave me a nice analog shaking and distorted sound with some quirks.
This feature reproduces the behavior of an analog mix console, but because of this, it is very difficult to use because it doesn't behave the way you expect, so it simulates unintended sound images, noise, and overdrive. This version fits in very well.
For example, there is a whole lot of delay and reverb behind the sound, which was not the intention in the first place. This is probably due to crosstalk between the delays and reverbs that were applied to individual tracks.
Also, the drums sound like they are more compressed.
You can hear this by comparing it to the Prototype, which has the exact same mix balance with only a few differences in tone.
The Prototype uses a TR808 sample kit for the rhythm, and the bass section is made up of only synth sounds, giving it an electric finish.
The human voice in the latter half of the track is a modified version of the chorus in the middle of Emma Jack's "Climibing." I wanted to use the real thing, but then I remembered that I had Emma's vocal track! I remembered that I had Emma's vocal track, and when I applied it, it fit perfectly, so I combined it with the synth pad sounds.
(TM writes:)
I love the sound of tabla. I substituted the TR808 part into tabla in order to dilute the colour of synthpop. The concept is five-notes scales and they are naturally connected with old folk music especially around Asia. We already had the sitar but that was not enough, I felt.
Having said that, I love the synthpop version, "Prototype" as well, but it should be left as a prototype because of a little bit retro-artistic characteristics. Considering what the TR808 sound could imply, I would say Prototype is nearly our hobby while the tabla version might be more artistically balanced. (Needless to say, I have no intention at all to say TR808 is not artistic. It is, and I love it but tabla suited my artistic objective better this particular time.)
To me the phrases (or sounds) TI composed (or made) and my ones are very apparent and the former reflect his style very well. Metaphorically speaking, he often paints something clear in vivid colours* whilst I tend to prefer a blur. Making a piece only with either one of them is a sort of simplistic. The mix of the two features (at a certain balance) generates something very vital, which I think is FMT's unique colours.
(TI writes:)
*I have an idea about this.
However, writing such phrases and harmonies may not be due to preference or my imagination, but rather to the fact that even if I have a vague phrase flowing in my head, I may not be able to get it out when writing it down as notes.
I've been playing pitch instruments (keyboard instruments) for many years, and when creating music, I've always expressed myself through scales.
In other words, I don't think I have a way to express ambiguous pitches or harmonies. I like music that doesn't fit into a vague sense of pitch or the concept of the 12-tone scale, but when I express it in my own way, it's because I always think of it in terms of scales.
For example, I can't copy the keyboards of Japan (the band David Sylvian was in). I think I can reproduce them without any problem in terms of playing technique, but I can't imagine how to play their music because it lacks a sense of pitch even though they use pitch instruments and deviates from the way functional harmony should be.
Furthermore, even when I listen to existing music and sounds (including ambient sounds), I hear them as if they were sung in do-re-mi, or roughly 12-tone scale. This is not something that I was born with, but something that I have been trained to do since childhood.
Therefore, even if a sound has an ambiguous sense of pitch, or if it has many random overtones that cannot be expressed by the 12-tone scale, I think that I will be able to replace it with a 12-tone scale and functional or near-functional harmony.
For example, the broken harmonies in FMT are done with the idea that "if you break the functional harmony like this based on the 12-note scale, it will sound like this" (I can't intentionally create a vague sound).
So the phrases I create do not sound vague, but rather like "something clear in vivid colours".
(TM writes:)
It's interesting for us to exchange ideas here... just one more point. Such differences between our styles are also reflected in tone creation. TI tends to write a phrase first and create the tone later*, while I almost always assume a particular tone, very often having a lot of overtones, and then write the phrase. A later change in the tone frequently surprises me, which I enjoy very much.
Unlike TI, moreover, my pitch has been relative rather than absolute since I hated that sort of training at my age of seven or eight, but it's getting more than relative recently.
Also, for this one year or so, I sometimes have literally "written" a phrase, meaning graphically designed it on the notation without imagining how it will sound. Later I revise it, of course, but this manner quite often enables me to write good (or exciting) ones. In the notes here in this website I sometimes use the expression like "design the phrase", thereby literally meaning such a way.
That's another interesting point, which we should have discussed in the Composition section.😅
(TI writes:)
*This point is also true. There are two clear reasons for this.
The first is the technical aspect. Since the sound creation, including mixing, is done in Studio One, it is sufficient to be able to check each phrase in MuseScore. So for phrases with a lot of sustained notes, I use strings with stable pitches, and for phrases with a lot of short notes, a piano with a clear rise is sufficient.
The other reason is the one I mentioned earlier. If the sound is in my head, there is no connection between the phrase and the tone. I don't know why this is. It is strange that the phrase is sounding when the tone is not identified, but it is.
Speaking of which, in a recent direct message exchange with Western Boketto, he asked, "At what point can music be called music?”
In my opinion, music is already music when it sounds in your head, but in reality, there is no sound (in the sense of air vibration), and the phrases and tones are not connected. If that's the case, is it still music before it becomes music? But for me, it is music*.
*When I am out and about and don't have a machine to play music, I play music in my head and enjoy it. Albums that I have played over and over again can be played completely in my head. Once, I played Yellow Magic Orchestra's Live album "Public Pressure" completely in my head on the bullet train, and I could play it in exactly the same time as the record.
To put it another way, it's like "an egg before it becomes an egg. A poultry shop in my neighborhood sells them. It is a squishy yellow jelly-like object that has not yet produced an egg shell and white. In Japan, yakitori shops also sell it grilled on a skewer. But it does taste like an egg.
It may not make sense to you, but I think that's probably what it is.
Another not so direct reason is that I am not very particular about the type of keyboard instruments, equipment, or even the tone of the music, even when I am playing live with a band. I play with the preset sounds of the instruments available at the place where I play (studio, etc.). I believe that it's okay to have different tones from time to time, and that these differences can make for interesting performances.
This is due to the influence of Yellow Magic Orchestra's early live performances. At the time, the equipment and settings were very different between recording and live performances, and I think there was a problem of not being able to reproduce the sound of the records. I realized that I didn't have to play exactly the same way as the record or the score.
In the case of Western classical music, which is what you had been doing, you basically have to play according to the score, and of course you can't just change the phrases every time.
In less notated music (such as rock music), improvisation is more important than reproduction, but I realized that I could play freely even in such structured music, and since then I have not been so particular about the unique tone.
[Final rework]
(TI writes:)
Now the work was complete, and it was just a matter of releasing it.
At that stage, TM suggested, "Isn't the lead part a little loud? I'd like to make the tabla more prominent.
Normally this would be a simple fix, just a matter of raising or lowering the fader on the console, but in this case it was very difficult.
Because one of the functions of the Console Shaper is that its behavior is not stable, so simply raising or lowering the volume would not achieve the desired balance.
Also, the tabla sound is just a sample of a loop that was chopped up and applied to the original TR808 sample track, so the sound quality is very coarse, and if you simply increase the volume, the distortion and noise will be noticeable and unbearable to listen to.
Also, the synth and sitar sounds in the melody part are layered using multiple tracks, so if you make them louder or smaller, the nuances will change. In addition to that, the behavior of Console Shaper is unpredictable, so I had to repeat the mix many times to find the best point.
As a result of trial and error, for sounds that I wanted to stand out (such as tabla), I did not make them louder, but made other sounds quieter to make them stand out.
In the end, if you want to make a particular sound louder or more prominent, I think it's important to reduce the volume around it rather than tweaking that sound.
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