Name: Thunderstorm Road by Keith Baxter
Duration: 2 min 52 s
Description: A soundtrack to a fictional videogame...more songs incoming

A soundtrack to a fictional videogame...more songs incoming

Hitch Wyatt

Thunderstorm Road

Title:
Power Pipe

Dates:
14-Apr-2024 (inception), 17-Apr-2024 (finalised), 18-Apr-2024 (released)

Artists:
Music composed, performed, produced by Norman Freund
Artwork by Norman Freund

BandCamp Purchase:
https://normanfreund.bandcamp.com/track/Power-Pipe

Description:
Some inspiration from the "Microtonal Music and Tuning Theory" facebook group, a post on a guitar with 24 frets (Ref. [1]), 12 in the usual 12EDO places, then the remaining in-between tuned to harmonics. So I messed around with my acoustic and electric guitar and did some calculations trying to reverse engineer what harmonics were used, didn't use any of it, but did get me in the right mood for some electric guitar noodling. Will revisit this 24 hybrid tuning another day.

So, back to Power Pipe. Tuned the strings with heavy distortion on and by ear, so effectively tuned JI (E-A as 4:3, A-D as 4:3, D-G as 4:3, G-B as 5:4, B to E1 as 4:3). Found a nice scale to noodle on and this became the scale used for Power Pipe. As it turned out, the scale was in the key of C# in Locrian mode, but by the time I improvised with this tuning in my Live session, ended up as the Phrygian mode.

Here is the scale I used, normalised to start with C natural (and as defined in the scala file):
0:200c
1:300c
2:500c
3:698c
4:798c
5:998c
6:1198c
7:1396c
8:1496c
9:1696c
10:1894c
11:1994c
12:2194c
13:2380c
14:2580c
15:2680c
16:2880c
17:3080c

with each line defined as
ii:xxc

where
ii = step number
xx = number of cents, rounded to zero digits right of the decimal point

The scale definition is:
GuitarWizzard
17
100.00000000
300.00000000
498.04499913
598.04499913
798.04499913
998.04499913
1196.08999827
1296.08999827
1496.08999827
1694.13499740
1794.13499740
1994.13499740
2180.44871127
2380.44871127
2480.44871127
2680.44871127
2880.44871127

Because this tuning did not include all of the semi-tones, the standard piano mapping put notes in strange places, but forced me to look in new places for inspiration. I used a a synthesiser with heavy distortion, setting the mood (thanks Jon Catler, Ref. [1] for the inspiration).

I then added some percussion using the Push2.

Then out came the Soma Pipe, all done with inputs from my voice, using mostly the Filtera and Orpheus modes, with the intro section done using the Harcho mode. The tuning used with the Pipe was all improvised, using the backing tracks already recorded as inspiration and guidance. The Pipe tracks served dual roles, harmonic and percussion. As usual, the Orpheus mode was a bit of a mystery tour, exploring what frequencies to set the two resonant filters too.

The introduction section, bar 1, used the Harcho mode of the Pipe, then disguised the sounds of what was to follow in the main section with Robert Henke's Granulator II granular synthesiser, my custom reverb Max for Live device (feed back and delays), the Live Spectral Time device effect and finally a sweeping high pass filter.

References:
[1] "Jon Catler, 12-Tone Ultra Plus Guitar demo, Part I, 5/15/01", Youtube video, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O2eukIoSsKM.

Thunderstorm Road

Keith Baxter

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