Searching For The Concept
Notes
TRACK DATA
Composition tool: MuseScore 3, Studio One 6.5 Professional
Recording tool (DAW): Studio One 6.5 Professional
Number of tracks: 67
Sound source: Presence XT, Impact XT, Sample One, Maitai (All built-in sound sources of Studio One)
Composition and recording period: Aug 04 2023 - Jan 17 2023, Mar 19 2024
(TM writes:)
Developments from FMT-esque classical style
This piece "Searching For The Concept" was composed while I was doing that literally. The tentative title during production was "It Would Surprise Me."
When you take a listen to it, you might find it very FMT-esque due to its atonality and unique, complex groove. That's definitely true, but at the same time, I made developments on FMT's past FMT-esque works.
Yes, it's atonal, but if you carefully listen to, let's say, the minimal arpeggio phrase that appears from the beginning, it first plays like: D-flat, B-flat, E-flat, B-flat, G-flat and D-flat; it's as simple as a 4-notes scale, isn't it? Then the next block follows like: G, E, B, E, and the four following notes play B-flat, C, G, E-flat... etc. It consists of, thus, simple blocks seeming like each follows a simple scale, whereas the sequence of the blocks sounds atonal. I would name it combinational atonality, perhaps, which is a little different from pure dodecaphony.
In terms of the "unique, complex groove", this is applied from Motorik Beat, famous in the krautrock, in which my development here is syncopations. By doing that, the groove becomes something like three-dimensional, so to speak, rather than "planar" vibes that Motorik Beat often has. We have applied the Beat (without syncopations) before -- in the track called "Fractal."
Furthermore, the tempo is 80 beats per minute here; I don't know that slow Motorik Beat. In fact, while Motorik kicks in eighth notes, this bass drum is written in 16ths. I've never heard tracks like that before.
In this way, it's ended up being what surprises me, and through making this track, I was searching for the next, intriguing concept. More than that, it took some months -- or, in other words, four tracks at least: "Alley Play", "Highly Sensitive" and "Percussion Sings." All of them sound to me very classical, as I wrote in the notes on Percussion Sings. The endeavour of our search may include FMT's other recent pieces like "The Century After Dada" and EmmaJack's "Whispers Of Tomorrow", as well as "Venus" and "Moon" from the Planet series.
At last, the search did fail; we found nothing from those, but still, I love this work as well as each one of them. Moreover, we've headed into a completely different sphere and are working on a new concept (at present when I'm writing this text), this FMT-esque classical style helped me neutralise myself between the previous series "Placid Wanderings" and the next one to be announced later.
(TI writes:)
[Composition/Arrangement]
TM wrote all the parts. Based on the score he sent me, I divided the parts with wide ranges into separate parts for each range, and applied the instruments that matched the range.
The bass in particular has a wide range, with two parts and practically three octaves, so I divided it into four parts (bands), adjusted the timbre of each, and applied the appropriate Comp/EQ processing.
[Sound creation and mixing]
The tones are basically the same as in MS, but as mentioned earlier, parts with too wide a range are broken down and replaced with instruments appropriate for that range.
As for the drums, in principle, the sounds used in MuseScore are used as they are, but for sounds that are too noisy or sound bad, similar sounds from the Studio One library are used. For the bass drum (BD), the sound is the same as MuseScore, but in order to align the bass and groove, the sounds in the bandwidth close to the lowest part of the bass are played at the same time and sent to the same bus channel, where a compressor is applied.
For the BD, the 16th note ticks, as TM calls them, are further gate-ed to bring out the groove (however, this groove is not produced by playing the 16th note as per the score).
The pizzicato is similarly processed in the same bus channel to align the groove and the sound pressure with the muted guitar.
The thinking and processing of these processes has something in common with "Alley Play", "Highly Sensitive", "Percussion Sings" and "The Century After Dada", and can be seen as "The endeavour of our search", as TM puts it .
And as TM has already informed us, our creation is heading into a different sphere. This includes the ideas of my old friend, a non-musician fashion designer/artist. This too is currently undergoing 'various explorations'.
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