Music has been a hugely important part of my life since I was a child. Which is kinda odd when you think about it, as it’s just some sounds?
where it started
My first memory of the power of music is of sitting in a school assembly. They went through a phase of playing a record before giving a speech about how to be a good pupil or something.
This time they put on Space Oddity by David Bowie. I’m not some massive bowie fan now, but I remember how it hit me - the emotion of it. It felt like such a powerful force, I was looking round thinking - is no one else feeling this?
Maybe they were. It felt like a wall of sound hitting me in the chest, a surge of feeling.
what it means to me
since then, or maybe before, I have always loved that depth of feeling I get from music.
That’s what it means to me, it’s why it means so much to me.
In later life this was disrupted by being busy with work, or stressed, or suchlike - I would go for long amounts of time without listening to music.
This is partly because I don’t have that straightforward thing of a CD player to turn to - and I instead have a weapon of mass distraction in my hands - the so-called smart phone.
progress
but my relationship with music has improved. Partly because of live coding and what that has done for me in terms of releasing creative energy.
I find it hard to discover music that I like, but have some great moments, like when I discovered DVRST.
so what is music?
like i said, it’s about emotion for me. I’m not sure where that comes from exactly - certain chords, textures, dynamic structure, a groove, magic
when I started live coding - well more accurately once I had made Syntə and started properly focusing on using it - I began seeking ways to make emotion. This is still an ongoing process. I think, trying to be as objective as possible, I have succeeded to an extent. I want to do more though. but that’s good - having possibilities to explore.
how I made music
I already knew how to play a guitar and hammer out a riff or stuff on a keyboard. But I was kinda starting from a blank canvas, from first principles. I knew I needed some kind of harmonically related frequencies that would change over time. Some texture and depth too. I was sure how any of it would directly relate to emotion, and I was using a very different process from playing notes, I was writing patterns or shapes that would generate the frequencies. But I quite liked the ‘feeling around in the dark’ approach - it left some mystery on the table, opened up more possibilities for happy accidents, or conversely allowed me to think in a mathematical space where the mapping was different - I could move laterally more easily.
the first time
I remember clearly the first time I made some emotion with sound in this way. I was messing around with values in this ‘interference pattern’ kind of thing, using my trackpad to scroll though different numbers and it just leapt out at me.
The code, which I’ve probably mentioned before, was:
in 4hz step 5.01 8bit 12 base 2 mul 440hz sino mix
It’s still one of the most concise and powerful bits of code I’ve made.
It hit me like a brick, tears came to my eyes. It was such a great moment. There were things going on in my personal life that fed into this, to do with loss, which probably heightened the emotion.
You can hear the track recorded here
another
another powerful emotional moment was when I performed alongside todepond at what must have been the first or second AlgoRhythms event? That track was later recorded as escape_velocity. There is also a video of it somewhere, but I’m not sure where. It might be unlisted. It was another time when there were dramatic events in my life involving loss. Hmm, interesting.
Does anyone fancy becoming my gf then splitting up so I can make some music looool.
listening
I was listening to an old fave last night on my way home, and I felt that same surge of energy and vitality. The track is a remix of one about a sunset. The person who made it sometimes reads this blog so I’ll refrain from any fanboi-ing hehe.
recording
I’ve long found that when I listen to recordings they kind of ‘wear out’ over time - my brain learns exactly what is going to happen and so the impact diminishes. I’ve tried to build resilience to this in my own tracks with subtle shifts and changes.
There is some music like Girl by Jamie XX that I’ve purposely not listened to too much over years to avoid this effect.
I’ve noticed since my days of making electronic music with samplers and synths that performing tracks avoids this entirely - because I’m never quite sure what will happen next - because I’m constructing the track each time. In this way there is no one canonical version. Which is as it should be?
It’s why I resisted recording for so long even though now I virtually beg others to lol. I’m bad like that.
But I’m really glad I did start recording because it added another dimension, the chance to reflect on and enjoy my coded music.
So I guess it’s about the interplay between the two.
What do you think?