Nested Quartets
Notes On "Nested Quartets", Op 24
SoundCloud
YouTube (with notation video)
(How they are mastered is slightly different.)
(TM) For FURICO-MT it is important not to be lean to either chordal music or counterpoint. We almost always think about the balance, but this time we go for counterpoint.
(TI) It might be my individual orientation that I cannot be satisfied with “only” traditional, cutting-edge, or sophisticated academic elements or “only” music created with experimental, impulsive, underground elements.
When I create academic and sophisticated music, I want to include some sort of down-to-earth elements, and when I create experimental music in the underground, I add sophisticated and academic elements.
I always think about the balance when I write tracks.
This track started as a string quartet, but there were times when I wanted to put some elements that were careless, rough, but cool and could not be ignored.
(TM) Throughout this track, the concept is “quartets.” Various quartets appear in there. The basic form is “monophonic for each part.” Some quartets include one part that comprises four notes in the same sound. That is what we mean by “Nested Quartets.”
“Counterpoint by quartets” means completely different from today’s music structure: a melody, chords, bass and rhythm. Actually, there is no melody, no chords and no bass (with some exceptions).
Section by section, different sets of a quartet appear as follows.
Introduction: Piano & Sinewave Quartet
(“A sine wave or sinusoid is a mathematical curve that describes a smooth periodic oscillation. A sine wave is a continuous wave. It is named after the function sine, of which it is the graph. It occurs often in pure and applied mathematics, as well as physics, engineering, signal processing and many other fields.” (Wikipedia) )
(TI) This section originally did not exist.
The next section was made later to include a completely different element in contrast of breakbeats and artificial Doo-Wop.
In this section, I wanted to emphasize the sine wave because I wanted to give a quiet and unpredictable impression.
I don't care about the tonality, I put various Sinewaves such as short sounds, long sounds, high sounds, low sounds on the staff and put the piano sound as a percussive accent.
Sinewaves get bigger or smaller, but this is not an increase or decrease in volume, it is time-sequential and EQ is applied to the overtone band, so it sounds like the sound has increased or decreased .
Motif Presentation 1: Choir & String Quartet with Breakbeats
(TI) This section was the first motif presented by TM and was the section that started production. At first, I was going to create a song that followed the traditional string quartet format.
However, after listening to it during production, TM said, “It is a Funny & Serious Way (which is the basic concept of FURICO), but there is no Funky element”. (TM: At that time I just meant that there was no NEED to put it in :) )
How do you put FUNKY elements into a string quartet?
So, as a Funky element, when playing Break-Beats with fun, very strange and attractive music appeared.
Just looping Break-Beats is too simple and not suitable for FURICO.
Therefore, I separated the Break-Beats apart, and combined them on 4 tracks with different tempos and pitches.
The combination point is that each track is programmed with a different time signature and a tempo that is a multiple of 19, and then each of the four tracks is shifted relative to the tempo and rhythm of the melody and harmony.
This has been further refined by TM.
I used to create similar music a long time ago (about 30 years ago) when “Drum and bass” came out (Goldie, PHOTEK, LTJBukem, ...).
However, with the equipment I had at that time (the built-in sequencer of Ensoniq's ASR-10), it was not possible to create complex rhythms.
(TM) We composed this by each of us adding new sections at the end, meaning the structure was accidentally built. But later I recognised that it’s based on the sonata form and breaks it. Although this section is the first motif presentation, we almost concealed the original motif by emphasising such secondary parts as strings and percussions.
Oddly enough, this is extremely slow (at 38 BPM) 3/4 meters. At first the breakbeats were not included and I didn’t think we needed percussions (or anything funky :) ). But when TI created the funky breakbeats into the motif, I felt it was a huge development. I made some arrangements on them for the patternlessness.
Even more oddly, the last six bars of this section have the doubled tempo (76 BPM) with the breakbeats remained the same. Although there occur many tempo shifts later in the track, all the tempos are basically multiples of 19 in order to sound without discontinuance. I consider this experimental.
We also intended to make it unpredictable throughout this track; quartets quickly change.
Motif Presentation 2: Piano Quartet with Strings
(TM) The motif was made clear here.
(The bottom two lines have clefs.)
It’s 3/4 meters with the tempo back at 38 BPM. One meter breaks down to six notes with the exception of quintuplets. It’s basically a chromatic scale and the keys* move chromatically in each meter. Later, the motif will be gradually changed to some more simplified scales.
(* We composed not to clarify the keys, though.)
This section seems like a quintet at a glance, but Line 4 is what TI arranged chords automatically added by the Studio One software. It can be said it’s nested under Line 5.
(TI) Another approach is artificial Doo-Wop.
This is an automatic harmony generation function called Chorder installed in Studio One, which is further rewritten by handwriting (this cannot be created with the functionality of Studio One alone).
Nested as a counter part for one part of the quartet that plays in the main (this is the origin of the track name).
I wanted to shuffle more, but because the basic tempo is extremely slow compared to BPM38, there is almost no difference even if shuffled, so I dare to leave it in a square Groove and mix it like an artificial Doo-Wop. did.
Sinewave Counterpoint
(TI) Here, I thought of trying to sprinkle simple electronic sounds.
This is also written with strings sound in Musescore, but replaced with electronic sound.
This is also basically a simple electronic sound of sinewave, but the effect of the sound (filter, modulator, EQ, etc.) changes the sound atmosphere.
At first, I intended to play the electronic sound section of this song with sinewave, but with SineWave alone, I can see that each frequency overlaps and can not be heard as a harmony, and conversely, each part of sinewave is an effect, EQ I tried to make each stand out.
Sinewave is the starting point of sound creation in a traditional analog synthesizer, and even if the sinewave simply increases or decreases a specific frequency with EQ, it becomes a different sound (pitch), and it can be heard with different volume and tone.
Also, depending on the pitch, it can be used as a lead sound or low-frequency reinforcement, so it can be used as a main or hidden taste.
In addition, sinewave is simple, but if it is the same sound for any synth or sound source, it is not. I like sinewave, the sound source that comes with MuseScore.
Motif Development 1: Piano & String Quartet
(TM) Here, at 38 BPM again, the motif is modified to somewhere between (or combination of) the diatonic or whole tone scale and chromatic scale, though it does not have any clear scales, keys or chords. It’s the same as the previously presented motif that it’s designed so that enigmatic encounters happen here and there. But now that the scale is quite different, key shifts are larger.
Intermediate: Sinewave & String Quartet
(TM) We put a section of chordal composition here. At the time I just happened to listen to one pop song with its chords moved like C#, Em, C# and E7. This pattern is sometimes used generally; I just inserted such a chordal section in this quartet context.
The tempo is 76 BPM, ie, 19 x 4.
Motif Development 2: Sinewave & Piano Quartet with Drums
(TM) The motif is further modified to, this time, nearly the Okinawan scale. It’s designed to clarify relatively more the keys and scales. Whereas in the sonata form the motif is clarified at the first presentation and modified later, this structure is the opposite.
The tempo is 38 BPM, consistent with the other motif sections.
As for the drums, I was inspired by the breakbeats in Motif Presentation 1, basically created by TI and I composed the drums in this section with the same structure as the breakbeats. The drums have two parts, both of which play basically the same patterns. But one is delayed in one meter (beat). It’s like a delay effect, but the delayed part is treated not as echo. It’s like the canon form. In other words, it’s a counterpoint approach in percussions.
Counterpoint: Synth Quartet
(TI) This is a phrase and harmony created by my son.
It was a very attractive phrase and harmony, so I rewrote it for a quartet. However, the original song was five voices combined with the melody, so it was absolutely unsatisfactory, and finally I created another quartet using the original five-voice harmony created by my son.
I like industrial noise, strings and electronic sounds (sinewave and various modulations).
Pizzicart & Piano Quartet with Broken Breakbeats
(TM) It sounds like a “conclusion” section of this through-composed track. As I wanted some “strange” feels, I re-arranged the breakbeats. What if breakbeats are broken? Just a wordplay :)
(TI) This part is like automatic writing. I don't remember why I created this phrase. However, it was a favorite phrase, and the connection between the front and back was surprisingly good, so I left it as it was.
If you come to this point, the length of the song will be as it is, and there is no need to create a new development. And left as it was.
(And TM then created an ending / CODA).
Coda (Curtain Call)
(TM) When we composed until the Pizzicart & Piano section, we thought it was enough (though we were to keep composing forever…). I wanted to wrap it up and at the same time I just wanted some funny element. It’s the “Curtain Call” section that I finally added.
All the phrases appearing in this section have already showed up somewhere else. In other words, I cut and pasted them on the notation. I liked it to be like the actors or dancers returned to the stage.