The Persistence of Memory

In 1931, Salvador Dali finished a painting titled "The Persistence of Memory" which featured a dream like landscape of clocks hanging from trees. What strikes me about this painting and why I have always liked it is that we often see time as something rigid and mechanical from the pendulum clock owing it's regularity to the laws of motion and gravity to the atomic clock, the nearly perfect updated version owing it's regularity to laws of quantum mechanics.

So to our music has changed with the advent of computers. Madonna introduced the dance crowd to the computer controlled artificial orchestra of drum machines and perfectly syncopated bass lines.

It was not so different in the Baroque period with the Basso Continuo or even the rhythmic motion of Beethoven.

I however prefer a less rigid notion if time. It seems that the tail wages the dog with computers. We live life at times on a mechanized grid of clocks and rigid lines. Gothic architecture is replaced by functional cartesian boxes complete with all but grid lines like a Star Trek holodeck.

And so, as a prelude to "Fire Giver", my latest album, I am looking to make the musical version of the Persistence of Memory to remove the grid lines and suggest a more fluid sense if musical motion. I welcome any ideas from readers.

Second Thoughts

In many ways the title for this blog has several meanings. The 1st is that I am revising "Second Thoughts" for my "Fire Giver" album. This composition represents the thoughts of Victor Frankenstein after he creates his monster. The beating heart and heavy breath represent his horror after creating the monster which he flees from. This is the second meaning of the title.

The 3rd meaning is a bit of my own life seeping in here. I do work in a hospital often with the critically ill. I am not a doctor or nurse but I do see families torment themselves over ventilators when at times they only prolong the inevitable. Don't worry, I am no angel of mercy and I strongly oppose Euthanasia. I just see the limits of medical care.

Frankenstein (the book not the movie) is really an inquiry into the limits of science. It is not anti science but is a recognition that science has limits.

I am sure that many families after suffering for days sometimes with a loved on on a vent wonder if they have done the right thing thus the 3rd meaning, "Second Thoughts". Often love is in letting go.

The Shape of Things Musical

The number of factors effecting the tone of a musical instrument is considerable. Of course, the knowledge of instrument making has grown over hundreds of years. However, what if we think in more fundamental terms. What objects can we find in our homes that can be used as instruments and more importantly what makes them musical?

I would argue that shape and material have the greatest impact of how "musical" an object might be.

For the moment however I ask you only to consider the following shapes:

Rods
Cylinders
Bars
Plates

It is interesting that these shapes are used in physical modeling synths such as Ableton Live's Corpus and Applied Acoustic Systems "Chromaphone". There also seem to be mathematical models for these shapes.

In my exploration of the acoustic properties of objects so far, I have found that objects that have these shapes have a strong series of harmonics which I would suggest makes them musical.

Just an aside. Most things made of glass seem to be musical. It's not a shape and I have no idea why. It's just an observation.

This is just a quick comment on what I hope to be a series of them as part of my "found instruments" project. I very much welcome comments and ideas fir the project. Let me know what you think.

Gothic As a Genre

Anyone who knows me well knows that I am Catholic as well as an electronic music composer. My recent project and future album "Fire Giver" is a musical exploration of Mary Shelley's "Frankenstein - The New Promethius". As I prepared to render this gothic literature in musical form I not only read it but wrote some notes and did some research.

The book was written in the middle of a literary movement in England called the "Romantic" movement that in many ways was a counterculture to the industrial revolution. Frankenstein is really a philosophical argument that just because it can be done does not mean it should.

Unfortunately Hollywood turned the novel into a horror and science fiction movie complete with Tesla Coil. Frankenstein does not delight in his creation in the novel but runs from it. The creature literally is the walking dead, an abomination who pursues his creator by destroying all he loves and ultimately, weary of life itself, Victor Frankenstein dies of the pain of his earthly life denying his creature closure as he dies before the creature bursts into his room. The creature fades into the mist and ice of the North Pole denied his final act of vengeance.

So, this is what I wanted to bring to life. Many of the Gothic novels do not romanticize evil as the modern day twilight movies do but show it for what it is. Frankenstein does not have a happy ending. It does have a moral message that as a Catholic I find echoes the Church's own regarding science, technology and progress. The Church is certainly not anti technology or science but rather, believes that such activity can be good or evil. The assumption that all change is good is really what the romantics questioned as do I and as does the Catholic Church.

So, I realize that none of this has much to do with gothic music but I wanted to explain why I am using a gothic and romantic novel as the basis for my music.

I am personally not a fan of twilight and I think if those who like it read the gothic novel "Dracula" or studied some of the historical basis of Vladimir the Impaler they would find the truly gothic version much less sweet to their taste. Leave it to Hollywood to get it wrong again.

So if I refer to my work as gothic, it is because I want to remain faithful to Mary Shelley and the romantic movement.

The Cure to Gear Addiction

I am always amazed at the seemingly never ending parade of the latest, greatest piece of gear, synth or controller on the market. I admit to being a gearaholic myself but perhaps in the end, the best cure is music itself.

One of the best definitions of music that I have heard especially electronic music is by Edgar Varese who defined music as organized sound. In an odd way, some of the worst advertisements for products I have seen are satisfied customers who much like a child, want to show you their new toy and so make any assortment of sounds with it. The problem here is that these videos lack the second part of the Varese' definition, "organized".

As a gearaholic, I must admit to being guilty of that same childlike delight over a new "sound maker" although I do identify a SoundCloud recording as "demo" which implies it is more sound than organization.

My recordings that I consider musical works involve far more planning as yes, organization. At times they do come from experimentation and that pure childlike delight over sound in the tradition of John Cage but at times they involve a far more developed concept or one might say, the "organized" side of electronic music.

So, I now come to the reason I wrote this. I was watching videos if various gearaholics demoing the Ehkdahl Moisturizer, a spring reverb with open springs and built in filter that can be played. A few caught my eye or ear in a negative sense. One was a guy banging on the thing with sticks and randomly (not organized) twiddling with filter knobs. Apparently he thought this was interesting. I would rather listen to disco than this cacophony of random unorganized sounds.

The next was a guy with this simple sample and hold circuit which he thought made melodies (he emphasized how impressed he was by this) run though the moisturizer while he twiddled with knobs and banged on the springs. Same negative effect for me.

The only video that I thought was interesting was from Richard Devine that showed some novel avenues to a more musical and yes, organized use of this product.

So now I come to the cure. In the future, before jumping on every gear bandwagon, I want to ask myself a question. Can I use a product in a musical and organized way or am I just buying another expensive toy to bang on with a rattle.

This is not necessarily a criticism of the moisturizer because I do think it has real musical applications but rather to suggest that demos need to weigh in more heavily on the organized part of music as "organized sound" and ask the question "How can this product be used musically" rather than how can I make sounds with it. The difference I suggest is the difference between sound and music.

It's Just a Matter of Time

I think one of the greatest blind ally's in electronic music is that the most important consideration in composing music is the waveform. The reason I believe this is not the case is expressed in one simple word that embraces all music and that is "time". Music, unlike the visual arts happens in time. So to of our experience of timbre.

Take the example of the filter sweep. No one ever remarks, wow, I love that setting you used for the filter cutoff. No, rather, music is modulation, change. By sweeping a filter we experience a waveform in a different way not as static but dynamic.

Consider a sculpture. To really experience it you have to walk around it. Language is a series of constantly changing timbres.

What got me thinking about this is Izotope's new Iris synth. When I used it in a static way by selecting frequencies the results were somewhat disappointing but once I started to think in terms on sweeps like movements of a brush stroke, I started getting interesting results.

This I believe proves my point. Working only in the frequency domain is boring but once visuals express flow and change the whole musical landscape changes. I rather like to see timbre as dynamic. It's the difference between a 2D painting and a 3D sculpture. And in the end, it's just a matter of time.

Izotope Iris Review

Ok, I have been using Iris for a few weeks now so I thought I might write a review about it. I suppose the greatest complement to a synth is to use it in a composition. So far, I have only fiddled around with it so the jury is out on that. I can say that I have used Alchemy more than once in a composition.

Off the bat, Iris should remain at the introductory price. Alchemy can pretty much do what it does and does 10 times more. That being said, Iris is a specialty synth but that said, once again it should be priced as such.

In support of Iris, the interface is simple so it lends itself to experimentation. I know that I often find complex interfaces an obstacle to creativity at times.

However, a few simple tools would help. 1st, I would like to see a graphic environment more like Adobe illustrator. This way, regions could be much more easily identified and edited.

I would also like to see a blur brush. A gradient tool to lighten or darken would also be nice to create cross fades.

I would also like to be able to accurately identify what frequencies and times correspond to selections (perhaps a small indicator next to the selection).

Iris is fun and does open one up to creativity but it's almost like version 0.5 to me. It could be a much stronger synth without loosing simplicity then it might be worth the price.