Vista At Takeoff
Notes on "Vista At Takeoff"
In June to July 2019, The FURICO Music Team released a series of new tracks (Op. 21) : Two versions of “Vista At Takeoff” and one “Vista At Landing.”
"Vista At Takeoff" (Normal Version)
YouTube: https://youtu.be/MHL85jNZKeA
SoundCloud: https://soundcloud.com/user-596493783/vista-take-off
YouTube: https://youtu.be/oivkppY5EaI
(TM writes:)
THE POLYRYTHM MOTIF – MIXTURE OF DYADS & SCALE MUSIC
The original motif was series of dyads (two-notes chords) and arpeggio in polyrythmical combination.
One pattern of the dyads (as on the top line) lasts seven and half beats, while the arpeggio (the bottom two lines) four beats. In other words the dyad pattern repeats just before the third arpeggio routine, and eventually the dyads begin earlier and earlier. (Sometimes 3 beats are inserted, where the dyads don't get earlier and this polyrhythm is made even more complex.)
More importantly, this motif repeats modulations every eight bars*1. Here, the arpeggio is not changed (basically) despite modulations and only changed in the notes where the key signature directs sharps or flats. So, the key note is not changed. The changes are in the scales.
(*1 In the final tracks, more than eight.)
For instance, the arpeggio starts with B, D, F#, G, A, C#, E, and G, as the sharps are signed on F and C. This implies a scale consisting of B, C#, D, E, F#, G and A, which is B Aeolian.
After the arpeggio repeats eight times, the sharps increase by two, G and D. The implied scale is B, C#, D#, E, F#, G# and A, the Mixolydian scale. In summary B Aeolian is shifted to B Mixolydian (even though the presentation of the score stays the same).
In this way, the scales change many times, but the key remains identical throughout this track. That was my intention in this motif.
What I found interesting in this is that if you create one phrase pattern and change the signatures then you can make scale shifts.
And, in addition, no more-than-3-notes chords are used at all.
This track is, therefore, an extra development from FURICO-MT’s past works, “ScaleMusic”*2 as well as “Testing Combinations And Flows Of Dyads.”*3
(*2 SoundCloud is linked.)
(*3 The Notes, SoundCloud and YouTube are linked.)
THE CONCEPT OF “HIGH-SPEED AMBIENT”
The first concept was the high-speed Ambient. TM sent a message to TI:
“Why don’t we take this to some direction like Brian Eno?
The Ambient music was innovative in terms of the new positioning of music, but it’s not much so musically.
I guess dyads suit the Ambient. Atonality could work… I mean, it’s like “there seems tonality but that’s just an illusion.” Many works of the Ambient so far are like “there doesn’t seem tonality but actually there IS” aren’t they?
The other thing is that it’s not necessarily a fixed rule that the Ambient is slow and must not be hubbly. Too many similar ones make us quite boring!
I think this [motif] is somewhat like B-2 Unit*4 and that was somewhat like the Ambient.
(*4 Ryuichi Sakamoto’s album released in 1980)
A rainy Saturday [like today] strongly reminds me of having made some multi-track recording when I was 14 or 15, which often got started with repeating an arpeggio pattern for a long time with my Korg MonoPoly. I loved that.
This is one option.”
MAMBO – BUT POLYRHYTHMICAL AND ATONAL.
In the middle of this track, a section like the Mambo music appears. TM remembers, “funky rhythms are one of FURICO-MT’s most significant features, but it’s not a funk group. In the arpeggio sections we took several types of rhythms far different from the funk, but those are likely to belong to no genres. I wanted a non-funk rhythm and some existing rhythm that is not related to the Ambient. Mambo is great. I’ve never heard music near the Ambient with the Mambo rhythm (which is gone far from its authentic styles, of course). Very pleasurable.
In the section a complex polyrhythm has been adopted. Again, I’ve never heard a polyrhythm atonal Mambo. It comprises the series of dyads of the 7/8-beats pattern, as well as 3-beats-, 6-beats-, and 5-beats-pattern dyads.
TWO VERSIONS – DIFFERENT DIRECTIONS FROM AMBIENT
As the track got developed incrementally, we gave many ideas to it, which caused more and more excitement. That was great. But at the same time, the Ambient is, to me, music that require you of little energy to listen (or hear), rather than excitement.
Thus, one version “Takeoff” is what has been developed out of the Ambient, while the other “Landing” is what we think new within the Ambient.
But both will not be exactly the Ambient. That does not really matter.
WHAT MATTERS IS… NEW TYPE OF BEAUTY
But both versions in common have been made to show beauty. It’s very, very challenging to enable atonal music to have it. That is what we have tried this time, and we believe we have succeeded. In conclusion, dyads have huge possibilities to make atonal music “beautiful.”
I think the music history shows us the diverse views of what the “beauty” is, such as “neat alignment to conform the God,” “abstract and absolute existence” and “illusionary shadows that visualise our mind.” I don’t know yet how the beauty should be defined in the tracks, but I suppose it’s in there and quite new.
In the process of making these versions, so much I struggled. I was feeling like “Something is missing, but I can’t find what.” Quite often we learn from and bring some essence of completely different music and supplement it as a consistent concept throughout the whole track. I contemplated many possibilities but I gained nothing. I reached a conclusion at last that that was because the existing music should not suit this new type.
That’s very natural, though. There is no such thing as “the beautiful, atonal, high-speed polyrhythmical Ambient with dyads and scale music as well as mambo.”
If you have not listened to even one of them yet, you must be hardly able to imagine what it’s like only with this concept… :)
(TI writes:)
PROCESS AND AIM OF PRODUCTION
When receiving the above Musescore file entitled “Dyads and arpeggio exercise” from TM and playing it back, I recalled the 80's leading-edge music (such as Throbbing Gristle), as well as contemporary music such as H. M. Górecki.
In any case, I was thinking of creating "atonal" and "cool New Wave" music. This means "not just experimental, but also music that “drives ourselves," ie, music that we want to listen to when creating music above all.
Following the rules of his arpeggio and Dyads above, I added long-tone strings, guitars, and a bass(-role) part.
In the middle, TM suddenly slows down the tempo. I first played it and laughed out. Is it a Pérez Prado Orchestra? (I like them, though.)
And I added the part of Dyads, being conscious of the "mood music". An example could be the arpeggio section before the ending, in which I built up an objective downward movement as the counterparts of the arpeggio, in other words, descending arpeggio.
I wondered if I needed a rhythm part and how to position it, I discussed with TM as well. I aimed for a "wild and aggressive sound" but he had a different image. Being also interested in it, I ended up trying to create another song using the same motif at the same time (which is still being created at the time of this writing).
Having made several songs about Dyads and Scale, including this song, I was convinced that the concept of "dissonance" is no longer meaningful in today's music.
It can be attractive music even if it includes any combination of sounds being considered as dissonance in the conventional Western music with current music and equipment. This is also true for using noise.
MIXING AND ACOUSTICS
I wanted to pose questions on the rules of music as well as acoustics. I thought that there might be something other than the conventional rules.
Nowadays, sound equipment and playback tools have also evolved, and we have begun to cover the range that cannot be played conventionally, and now Electric Dance Music treats wider bands.
Acoustically, I experimented techniques like those used in EDM (such as bass sounds in lower bands than traditional bass parts).
Specifically, there was an attempt to fully use the audible range. In this song, 5 hz (out of the audible range) to 20000 hz is released. Therefore, I think that there are other ways of hearing and how to feel when listening with a wide audible system. This song is downsized in data because it is up to the web, but the sound output directly from the DAW has a different way of sounding.
The mix was rougher at the beginning, with emphasis on rhythm and noise. Accepting TM's opinion, I tried a sound image but I did not know where to focus.
The sound processing of the middle part is completely playful. The original version before sound processing is streamable on YouTube. This is something you can hear "musically" well. The original harmony and arrangement is like this:
The other version, "Vista At Landing"
YouTube: https://youtu.be/GCU-Csz4q68
SoundCloud: https://soundcloud.com/user-596493783/vista-take-off