#41

Hmm, I was hoping @Richard_Townsend would stop by again and show us how this is done musically. As far as I can tell, @chalkwalk came closest to a strict musical interpretation – and pulled it off with aplomb. @RPLKTR’s interpretation was even more in keeping with the idea of continual change, but 2/3 parts being drums and samples reduces the degree of difficulty substantially.

I think if I were to approach this again I would do something Reich-like – a rhythmic pattern of notes with subtle changes, something like that Vanilla Ice interview where the extra “ding” makes it different – and then it could go on forever (there is a guy called Donnelly who composes like this – for trios even, sounding like Reich doing an Irish jig).

Otherwise, yeah… very difficult! Maybe those generative tools in Ableton would come in handy? I’ve yet to use them…

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#42

That’s true. Then again, the assignment explicitly spells out “field recordings”, which encouraged me not to think of the phrase and its components as a single instrument part. The instructions also say “a tone and a beat and a texture”. That’s what I went for, trying to make as complete a track as can be within this framework.

This was a great prompt, more prescriptive than usual but still very open to a multitude of approaches. I especially liked the extremely constrained spiraling one presented by @Paul_Reiners. I think I will try another take at this prompt as well: a strict single instrument piece where the three shifting components would be: tonal progression, rhythm, and key.

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#43

Totally – I bring it up because you followed the suggested structure more than anyone else (or maybe my hearing was damaged from all the pots and pans going off), and only to point out how extremely difficult it would be to do this 100% musically, in terms of a fugue or piano trio, jazz, gamelan, etc. It’s not just that I don’t really have the chops for this approach, it’s more that I can’t even imagine what it might sound like and struggle to find a starting point. Possibly my mindset was just not sufficiently experimental this week…

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#44

I focused in on the word ‘entirely’ in the above quote. If you check the time stamp when listening you will see that every 10 secs two sounds stop and one continues. The rules were only broken at the end so that I could add a fade out. My piece isn’t super musical but it does follow the rules.

Of course different notes with the same instrument is one approach and possibly the best for a melodic result. In the end I went with changes in sound and timbre.

I did try to find similar timbres for smoother changes since fades were not used. I enjoyed this Junto very much but as others have said I would try a different approach next time.

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