Newfangled Hotel Ambience 1: Evening In The Rain
Notes On "Newfangled Hotel Ambience 1: Evening In The Rain"
TRACK DATA
Composition tool: MuseScore, Studio One 5 Professional
Recording tool (DAW): Studio One 5 Professional
Number of tracks: 24
Sound source: Presence XT, Impact XT,(All built-in sound sources of Studio One)
Composition and Recording period: May 18 2021 - Aug 8 2021
Can an atonal contemporary piece be played in hotels?
(TM writes:)
The very first thing I was thinking is to make something with quite comfortable atmosphere, after I composed serious tracks like "Here I Am" and "The Beginnings", as if I was relaxed on a sofa in some hotel lounge. That was just like that. No more than that. I did not imagine we were going to develop this into the hotel ambience series.
Although it seems very simple, for FMT it's quite challenging. FMT rarely use the traditional tonalities, chords, bass, meters, section structures and rhythms; we pursue more of multiple modes, dyads, polyrhythms, strange ways of transpositions and so forth instead. To make comfortable atmosphere on these principles looked highly demanding for me. (These features will not be so rigid as "principles", though.) That meant, on the other hand, it might generate something new and interesting enough.
Just before this track, we were working on orchestral works ("Concerto No 1" and "Symphony No 1") and I get excited when composing something for acoustic instruments, especially for the recent years. I love how they sound.
Far fewer parts (than usual FMT) are played in this piece: two pianos (electric and acoustic), saxophones, bass, drums and percussion. It assumes that seven members perform live in large modern space with the high ceiling. Even though I know well that many people would perceive the music strange, as a person having listened to so many, diverse music works I wish hotel music could be more diverse and have more artistic values.
Throughout the track, most of the chords one piano plays seem four-notes chords, but they are actually combinations of two dyads. Although the lowest pitch of the four is generally treated as the key or bass, the wood bass frequently plays differently.
The meters are designed as a little ambiguous. It begins with 6/4, goes to 6/8, and moves among 4/4, 5/4 and 3/4, whereas the rhythmic parts seem to be playing 4/4 mostly.
Can an atonal contemporary piece be played in hotels? As I mentioned repeatedly in the other notes, contemporary music tends to be dreadful as if it threatens like "if you don't say it's artistic, I won't acknowledge you!" Quite ridiculous. To make comfortable atmosphere with the music styles completely different from the mainstream is my objective here (including the other tracks in the Series).
If it was rainy in the evening when you were staying in your favourite hotel, you might not be willing to have a night out. But at the same time indoor stay could also be much fun, at least to me. It's about moments like that.
I imagined a real studio session with TM...
(TI writes:)
When I started working on this track, I don't think it was decided that Hotel Ambience would be a series. I was just creating it as a stand-alone piece, somewhat imagining the background music of the Hotel.
Composition
The track was almost ready when TM sent me the MuseScore file, and I just added two sax parts to it. For this part, I imagined a real studio session with TM, and thought about the phrases I would actually play. In that sense, my part is more like a solo performance than a composition or arrangement.
Sound Creation and Mixing
When I was working on this track, I had a vague idea that I needed to create an atmosphere that sounded like a live performance, and I thought I needed to create a sound that mainly used reverb, which I don't usually use much.
But to be honest, although I've already completed about seven songs for this series, I still don't have a clear idea of what I want to do.
My idea of tone creation was to use mainly live instrumental tones for the live performance. However, even if I imagined a live performance, it would not be possible to have such a large group of people in a hotel background music band, so I assumed that a keyboard player would play the string part instead, and that I would use Sorina's violin and cello (both of which sound nothing alike), a chorus, and an old-fashioned delay. One of the pianos is an electric piano, based on the realistic assumption that it would be impossible to use several acoustic pianos.
For the sound image, I tried to create a somewhat blurred atmosphere rather than a sound image in which each part can be heard clearly. However, as is the case with recording live performances, recording a live performance as it is generally results in a sound that is difficult to hear, so the EQ was adjusted very finely (e.g., the piano was cut below 100 Hz so that the bass would not clash with the low frequency range of the piano, and the 5kh and 10kh were pinpointed to emphasize the high frequency range). The reverb, on the other hand, is too clear.
For the reverb, I applied distortion* to the reverb component because it was too clear. Recently, I have been adding distortion to the reverb component, not to distort it, but to lightly emphasize the overtones. I think it's a great way to get a good sound by cutting the low end and adding a little distortion to the high end.
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