HappyBirthdayJam

Predestined Encounter was composed in 1983 for a jazz-rock ensemble that I was a member of. I wanted to perform the piece with my solo guitar project so I reworked it to make that possible.

Program Notes:
Predestined Encounter was inspired by the feeling of there being something beyond coincidence in unexpectedly meeting someone.


Predestined Encounter

The recent article* on the 30th anniversary of the Spacemen 3 Northampton gig had me in an S3 kind of mode, and this week's track started with seven tracks of Moog Guitar through the Reuss RF-01 Repeater Fuzz.  I quickly put down seven tracks of drones/pulses at different hard tremolo speeds, and the interaction reminded me of Steve Reich's early process music.  That could have been enough, but the next night I put down three tracks of Res-O-Glas guitar, this time through the EHX LPB2ube to dirty them up, and a soft tremolo with Live's Frequency Shifter set to a very low-frequency ring modulator.  Finally, I tracked bass, finger plucking pedal tones while going through the RF-01 again, without fuzz, at several different speeds. 

Drums were the hardest to get right, since I tracked the initial pulses without any set tempo, but I came up with some that had a kind of groove--though (as sometimes happens), the real 1-beat should have been where I put the 4.  Easy enough to compensate for in Live, but it made some of the edits a bit strange. 

Three return channels, all reverbs: one wooden-room-like (drums and Res-O), one a large room (Moog/RF-01), and one concert hall (some of the Moog tracks). Typical compression/limiting on the 2-mix...and it's a dense one.

One pass-through was eight minutes long, so this one--at just under five--is edited down enough to work...but one could listen to the first part for quite a long time. (Or maybe that's just me.)

* https://medium.com/@noodlepie/a-side-are-your-dreams-at-night-1985-sizes-too-big-e122596968a0

Space Process

so you can meme longer   :v 

You can download this on band camp for free

Bandcamp

Dat Boi (Extended)

The Dawn of Memory - Awakening of the Ancients is a representation of the emergence of a civilization from the mists of pre-history. It presents the transition from an era of unfocused existence to an era displaying the beginnings of societal clarity. The piece was composed in 2016 and has been accepted into NSEME 2017 held in Baton Rouge, LA, NYCEMF 2017 held in New York City, CICTeM 2017 held in Buenos Aries, Argentina, EABD 2018 held in Jacksonville, FL, and the 2018 SCI Student National Conference held in Bloomington, IN.

The Dawn Of Memory - Awakening Of The Ancients

Recent History

Portraits of Nine Revolving Celestial Spheres was inspired by Gustav Holst’s composition The Planets. However, unlike The Planets, in which Holst intended to convey concepts related to astrology, Portraits of Nine Revolving Celestial Spheres utilizes the sonification of astronomical data derived from scientific observations as the basis for the musical elements. Each section of the piece represents one of the planets of the solar system and is built from a set of data corresponding to each planet respectively. Among the included data are measurements related to albedo, atmosphere, distance, diameter, gravitation, magnetic field, orbital factors, pressure, relative abundance of the most common elements, and temperature. There are nine sections because as of this writing, there is considerable evidence based on orbital anomalies suggesting the existence of an undiscovered planet. Since there is no data about this hypothetical planet, its corresponding section in the piece employs a nebulous process in the selection of musical materials in order to suggest a broad range of possibilities. The title pays homage to Nicolaus Copernicus’ seminal work, On the Revolution of the Heavenly Spheres which challenged the widely held view of the time that the earth was at the center of the universe. The piece was composed in 2017.

Sonification Information:

The process of constructing the piece began by determining a starting frequency (a sine tone) for each planet. This was obtained by dividing diameter of each planet in miles by 10. Thus Mercury was assigned a sine tone of 303.3 Hz, Jupiter 8837.8 Hz, etc.

A measurement representing acceleration due to gravity (rounded to the nearest whole number) was used to determine how many other frequencies (overtones) would be added to each planet. Thus Mercury had 4, Jupiter 26, etc.

A formula in which the starting frequency was multiplied by a measurement representing the planet’s density to water (divided by 10) was used to determine an adding factor. The factor and the starting frequency were then added together to determine the next frequency used for a particular planet. Thus for Mercury, the starting frequency was 303.3 Hz and density to water was represented as .55. The process went through four iterations as dictated by the acceleration due to gravity result to produce four overtones.

The frequencies for Mercury were 303.3, 470.16, 728.68, 1129.43, 1750.62 (values were rounded when rendered to sine tones). 

In cases where the starting frequency was high and adhering to the formula led to too many high frequencies or frequencies above the range of hearing, the adding factor was reversed to become a subtracting factor in order to create frequencies below the starting frequency.

A set of frequencies for each planet was assembled following the above procedure. 

The length of each section was determined by multiplying relative surface gravity to earth by 60 seconds. Thus for Mercury it was 60 x .38 = 22.8 seconds.

All of the individual sine waves were then imported into a sound processing program and subjected to numerous techniques. Initial processing parameters were set in accordance to various value ranges such as distance (min to max), net flux, temperature, and some others. These ranges were then adjusted based on aesthetic considerations (as one example, the idea of a buildup is important in music and most planet sections have an increase in activity toward the end) to render the processed version of the sine tone. Each set of planet sine waves went through a distinct set of processing procedures.

The processed sets for each planet were then assembled in a digital audio workstation where some subtle effects were applied.

The time between sections was determined by the Log10 of the distance in miles between the planets. Since the hypothetical ninth planet is expected to be at a considerable distance from the others the time interval was compressed for aesthetic reasons.

Portraits Of Nine Revolving Celestial Spheres

Read the feature: https://www.residentadvisor.net/features/2958

RA Label of the month

Central Processing Unit - RA Label of the month mix

Russell Hoffman, the brain behind Evaton Technologies and harp virtuosa Julia Ann Scott visited Pazhutan Ateliers in August 2018. We had an amazing day of creativity as we fused different ideas while improvising on our instruments. In my humble opinion, this is the most perfect version of "Pacific Space" series to this day.

https://www.evatontechnologies.com/
https://www.pazhutan.com

Pacific Space (Version 4) Personnel:
- Russell Hoffman: Modular Synthesizer,The Haken Continuum Fingerboard
- Julia Ann Scott: Harp Through DSP
- Honey Haq: Theremin, Korg Minilogue
- Max Pazhutan: Akai Timbrewolf, Yamaha Motif XF, Korg Monotron

Engineer: Honey Haq, Max Pazhutan

Pacific Space - Version 4

A late-stage rehearsal straight to cassette for reference. Recorded shortly before going into the studio, probably at John Henry rehearsal rooms. This is Mark on guitar, Lee on drums, and myself on piano and organ (the bass was always addressed in the studio once the basic track was down, which is why it doesn't feature here).
It's best to take the 8 minutes out and listen to the end, preferably in headphones, and in a quiet space,

Eden rehearsal cassette

Here is an example of my smooth Lo Fi Beats. Enjoy the beat and if you use it please credit me and let me hear the song! If I like it I will share it across my social media! Also this beat contains NO uncleared Samples.

Smooth Hip Hop Beat Lo Fi 2019

Serial band-starter, compulsive music-maker. Also see http://soundcloud.com/onezero

Space Process

Maurice Rickard

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