Wave Goodbye To Gotham

My last blog was focused on discovering beauty from within chaos and blind fortune. This time I've gone in completely the opposite direction with a piece of music that has been somewhat laboriously ground out. Thoroughly composed. This takes me back to how I would write acousmatic music when I was studying at the University of Leeds. One year to compose 30 minutes of material. Every slight detail of the sound fussed and fumbled over. Grand, over-arching concepts that were almost impossible to realise. It's my default setting.

This means the involvement of SuperCollider this time was limited solely to that of an audio processor. I'd tinker, create a sound I liked in SC and then record it. I used Audacity for arranging all the recorded material. Audacity is a convenient DAW for the amateur muso as it's free, although it's severe limitations (such as no pan automation) may make me switch to an alternative for future projects.

For my experiments with SuperCollider I'm interested in taking up one compositional technique and exploring it as fully as possible. I've already discussed my reasons for purposefully limiting one's tools. This time my focus was on using a technique called Waveset transformation. Keeping things brief the Waveset concept was developed by British Composer Trevor Wishart in 1994 and was used to create his seminal works of electronic music such as Tongues Of Fire. The technique involves dividing sound material into a number of short waveforms which are then transformed and re-constituted to create new sounds. At its most basic this technique creates recognisable effects like pitch-shifting and time-stretching. However, play around with it a bit more and a whole range of more sonically interesting sounds become available. I hope I've captured some of this in my music. All the technical know-how came from Alberto de Campo's Waveset code and his fascinating article on Microsound in the SuperCollider book. I can not recommend this text highly enough. I won't go into more detail here but for those interested I highly recommend both the SC book and also Trevor Wishart maintains a very detailed website on his practices.

Now that I'd chosen a technique, the next step was to limit myself to narrow range of sound sources. For this I chose to use samples from a CD I had bought (somewhat against my will) from the self-titled "Times Square Hustler", Sindakid.

Why the combination of blandly boastful New York rap and the computer music techniques of an eccentric British composer? An amusing juxtaposition I guess. Also if you can try and seek out Trevor Wishart's piece Vox VI you'll understand another reason why this combination makes me smile. I'll just say that it contains a rap with the lyrics "It's the New Complexity finger-snap"...

With technique and source material I aimed to sketch out some music that told an autobiographical tale of my first experience travelling solo in New York city in 2013. As I previously alluded to, on my first visit to Times Square, filled with wonder and naivety, I was offered a CD by a passer-by. I graciously accepted. However, this was no jobbing musician just trying to get themselves a modicum of exposure. No this guy wanted money. Fair enough. At this point though I realised I was surrounded by a much larger group than I'd realised. Once one of them had tasted blood, others quickly moved in. Forcing their own CDs onto me or asking me for their own payback even though they'd produced nothing. I could have just walked away but somehow couldn't. I eventually got away after arguing for several minutes over whether I was supposed to split a 10 dollar bill with one of the hangers-on. Needless to say I was on my guard for the rest of the week I was there.

I wanted to make music that somehow captured my feelings about this event. It begins with a fairly innocuous and humorous opening (the sound of a cash register till opening clearly illustrating what's on everyone's mind) but the realisation that things are not initially what they seem quickly sets in. After this, jarring contrasts between overwhelming sound and absolute silence convey one particular concern that I'd actually paid $30 for a blank CD. After a while things begin to calm down, I get over being swindled and can move on, but the event keeps replaying itself. Tiny goblins snigger with demonic joy when the rapper says a naughty word. The sounds become more parodic, I realise I can use music to mock my tormentor and give myself power over what had happened. Suddenly the asinine machismo becomes about as threatening as a benign seagull wheeling overhead. It all ends though on a poignant note. The original Sindakid record contains a strange, boastful yet pensive confession, summing up the corruptive influence of the de facto Metropolis. I included this verbatim.

All the bad things, all the good things that I said I wouldn't do I did 'em in New York. [..] When I was living in the Bahamas I said I'd never do this, I'd never do that. I came over here the first job I had was selling crack. 

Maybe I shouldn't be the one making fun...




...or maybe he is just a douchebag.

Cage Ex Machina

Over the next few months I'm planning a short series of blog posts documenting my attempts to compose some brief musical sketches composed all or in part with SuperCollider. The general aim is to learn the language but also to acquaint myself with some of the myriad methods for composing music with computers.

However, before all of this, without even intending to, I've managed to compose my first piece of music in 6 years. Except, I feel somewhat guilty actually claiming this as my composition because it was born from a typo. A dumb mistake given life by an internal process I don't fully understand.  I think this sums up why I've fallen in love with SuperCollider. Even making mistakes can lead to fascinating sonics.

The story is that during my early experiments with the language I managed to produce a sound somewhat akin to distorted, Congotronics-esque percussion. Inspired and ready to lay down some pulsating rhythms, I tried to tweak the sound I was listening to by changing the pitch of those pseudo-drums. Without realizing I accidentally entered a 0 for a parameter that scales the frequency of the sound (I've shared the actual code at the end of this post). Well you don't need a particularly strong grasp of audio synthesis to know that multiplying your sounds by 0 is not really what you want to do.

I expected silence. What I got was something else entirely. Strangulated tones, metronomic clicks and garbled noise. From this disorienting soundscape a series of squeals and beeps occasionally coalesced into fragments of melody. In fact the sound possessed an almost human sense of dynamic pacing, loudly bursting forth to surprise you before retreating into the gloom. This glitch, this aria for processor, continued for about a minute or so before it lost all momentum, ticking along to itself for an infinity. All this took place in a microscopic and hermetic sound space devoid of any natural colour as if I was able to listen in to my laptop's own private raving.

I couldn't help but be inspired by this truly Cageian moment. Chance encounters and sound for sound's sake at its very best. I had to record it. But of course being a meddling little humanoid I tweaked with some inputs, recorded a few more variations, made it faster and slower, added a second voice. I edited these short recordings together to make a piece of music with a few interesting variations but still maintained the odd character of my original mistake.

Mixing it proved quite difficult. Being paranoid these unnatural sounds were too loud I think I overcompensated and mixed it too quietly. Oh well I'm sure the little voice inside my laptop didn't want me messing with its beautiful song too much anyway.

I hope you'll enjoy the mistake that's probably more expressive and adventurous then anything I'll write on my own. Happy Colliding!



The Code: