The Beginnings
Notes On "The Beginnings"
TRACK DATA
Composition tool: MuseScore, Studio One 5 Professional
Recording tool (DAW): Studio One 5 Professional
Number of tracks: 46
Sound source: Presence XT, Impact XT (All built-in sound sources of Studio One)
Composition and Recording period: Jun 19 2021 - Jul 3 2021
Notation video
The track called "The Beginnings" is packed along with "Here I Am" into the extended play "At The Break Of Dawn" in SoundCloud.
(TM writes:)
Concept: Starting Point with Cool Congas
After I took an important musical break* I composed "Here I Am" under the notion of digital folk music of zeroness. At that time I was so vigorous that my musical energy could not settle down with just one track. The "The Beginnings" track was another for that. So, vigorous sounds and unheard combination of groovy percussion and contemporary atonality are what I wanted here. Its tentative title was "Cool Congas" using three sets of congas that I first wrote of all in the track.
To me these two tracks sound very different from our tracks before them, but the methods I took here are not necessarily new to us including the extension method* as well as delayed syncopation.
*Please see the Notes On "Here I Am" for further details.
I might not have referred to delayed syncopation yet. The ordinary syncopation displaces the strong beat like Beat One of 4/4 to the earlier timing off Beat Four, whereas delayed syncopation literally delays the strong beat to some later timing, eg, from Beat One to off Beat One. This is what FMT prefer and frequently use.
Yet, the sounds are, again, very different for sure and more importantly, it has influenced on my later compositions, which are work in progress at the time when I am writing this text.
I also think it's been developed in part from "Neither West, East, North Nor South" and "Particles Behaving Like Waves". This track contains more of Europe's classic and the broad Asian folk music as well as less of funk, hip-hop, jazz, latin and pops. That has started here and been consistent so far, which is what I call "2021-esque", though it may not be only for 2021, and I hope the title to imply that. Anyway, this is just some examples of the 2021-esque aspects. I leave what the other effects are for the later notes, though.
*For more details of the 2020-esque, please refer to the Notes On “How I Like To Align My Things”.
(TI writes:)
Composition
As with "Here I am", TM seemed to have a rough idea of how this song would turn out, so I just added a few supplementary parts to the MuseScore score he had created.
Tone Creation and Mixing
Like "Here I am", this track was mixed with the aim of creating a "simple sound". For the tone, I basically used the same sound fonts that I used in the MuseScore composition stage.
Also, in terms of arrangement, parts that are written in polyphonic harmony in MuseScore are usually rewritten as multiple single melodic parts for orchestral instruments to match the characteristics (range) of the instrument, but in this case, I didn't do that and treated them as polyphonic parts.
However, this piece is rhythm-centered, and since I didn't use drum tones, I was concerned about the thinness and weakness of the sound using only MuseScore tones, so I tried to build up the sound differently from a normal mix by adding various reinforcements.
For example, for the congas that form the core of the rhythm, I used the conga sound fonts used in MuseScore, but sampled the sound and augmented it with a sound played an octave lower, and applied more distortion, and reverb.
I also layered the bass line with a piano tone played in the lower octave to give it more power. I also carefully adjusted the bandwidth of each part so that the reinforced sounds would not interfere with each other, and so that the sound would not be excessive.
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