Journey/ emotion was the theme for PDE #1. Even though this process just required music that was tied to an emotion, I still had a little trouble coming up with something. I’m not the best at creating music 	even though I play lots of instruments. ‘Composing’ is not my strong suit; so coming up with ideas was the most difficult part. 

I wanted my piece to be a little mysterious, as if the journey you were taking was an unknown one. I wanted a sense of uncertainty that could impact the listeners subconscious. I think I got close with the material I used. To begin with, I wanted a strong backing section that could repeat. I set up Pro Tools with the Xpand 2 plug in, and searched for sounds. I came across an arpeggiator that featured some low droning and eerie percussion sounds. While playing around with the different notes in the arpeggiator, I found some high pitched hits that used natural and sharp notes, that when struck, added a delayed bell sound. I used the noted A, C and F# for the main bell parts, occasionally adding G# towards the end of the phrase to keep the piece ‘in the unknown’ a little more. 

I repeated the phrase, but changed each pass a little every time. I may have hit a key a little early or late, left a note out, or played the G# in front of the other notes. All of these things were done to keep the piece feeling unnatural, as if the journey was not constant and unpredictable.

I then added a small amount of delay to the track. This was done to ‘push back’ the sounds a little, and to keep the sounds going for a little longer then they would have if there was no delay. I used the plug-in H-Delay for this, and kept the mix function at 11%. I didn’t want the delay to overpower anything, but just to add a new depth to the piece. I also used a slight limiter on the master track, just to boost the overall volume. 
Overall, I felt that the piece that I created matched the journey/feeling theme that was required. I do feel, that the track has room to grow, but I am happy with its overall sound. 


PDE 1

With my research into minimalism, I looked into what made a piece of music minimal. What were come characteristics of this music? I came across two pieces, which explained this to me, quite well. They were ‘In C’ by Terry Riley and ‘Come Out’ by Steve Reich. Each of these pieces is considered legendary amongst minimalist composers. I took some elements from each of these performances to help create my own piece of music. 

To start out, I wanted a simple set of notes, nothing complex. I used the C# note on my keyboard and found a sound I likes used the Xpand 2 plug-in in Pro Tools. I searched around for a sound I likes, going from bells to glockenspiels to pianos to basses. I finally found a sound that I liked, the marimba. I liked the sound because it was quite deep pitched, but still had some high harmonics in the sound. 

I then started playing around with other notes on the keyboard. The C# sounded quite melodic with a lot of other sharp and flat notes. I didn’t want the piece to become to ‘melodic’ so I chose the octave of C# as my second note. From there I came up with the simple alternating pattern that is heard on the recording. 

I then recorded a minute and a half of just the C# and its octave. I performed this at a quick tempo, about 180bpm, although it wasn’t recorded to a click track so the tempo and hits vary and go in and out of sync. Once I had recorded the 90 seconds of material, I set out to add the second influence to my piece (the first being the rapid repeating keys of Terry Riley’s ‘In C’). I took a tape delay (Pro Tools plug-in called ‘Reel Tape Delay’ by AVID) and inserted it on the track. I then messed around with the settings of the plug-in, focusing mostly on the ‘feedback’ and ‘mix’ parameters. I set the ‘feedback’ at 94%, anymore and it just squealed at me. I then decided that the ‘mix’ setting could be automated, and by increasing the mix from 0% to 100% over the minute, I could change how the piece sounded simply with delay. This delay and change in sound is very evident when comparing the raw marimba with the marimba with the delay increasing. 

As well as the marimba and delay, I also experimented with some forms of percussion to aid the piece. The main instrument that I tried was a kick drum that was played in time with the alternating marimba hits. I found that this kept the track to ‘straight’ and didn’t let the delay wash out like it does in Steve Reich’s ‘Come Out’ so I decided to turn it off. 
I then bounced the track down with the delay bypassed and enabled, so that the track could be deconstructed and the effects could be easily heard. 

Overall, I think that while the piece didn’t feature a lot of complex instruments or melody’s, I showed that music could have minimal characteristics and still be effective in creating moods and feelings. 


PDE 3

PDE 2 required a remix of a song, completely changing its genre. Unfortunately, I misinterpreted the requirements and remixed PDE 1. The songs outcome still falls under the remix umbrella of what can be done for this PDE, so I kept the recording. 

To begin with, I had to choose the genre that I wanted to remix my first PDE into. I decided to remix the song into what all songs eventually get remixed into… hip hop. 
I began with a drum loop that repeated throughout the whole song. My previous PDE didn’t have much in the way of a solid drumbeat, so this was already different. I chose a fairly simple loop that featured kick, snare, hi-hat and what seems to be a rhythm stick. This repeats for 2 bars, and then an organ comes in. I chose the organ for its use in popular soul and some hip hop songs. This organ featured a riff that was almost freestyle in nature. It evolved around the same notes from PDE 1 (A, C, F# and G#). 

This riff plays throughout the rest of the piece, always changing and transforming. This constant changing ties back to PDE 1, where the theme of the journey was uncertain because of the changing notes and their order. 

I added a bass guitar to fill in the low-end spectrum of the piece. This bass played the same notes that the main organ did, but the notes were played a little differently. I kept the pattern constantly repeating rather then the organs more ‘freestyle’ approach. I used the ‘Funk Slap’ setting on Xpand, and played the bass throughout the piece. 
The last track that I used for this piece was another arpeggiator that played a high-pitched repeating pattern. This was played on the A key, keeping the root note of the piece central. I added this to tie the piece back to its original form, which was PDE 1. This provided a little bit of mystery into the piece, because it is hard to tell fully what the sound is. 

This remix definitely has opportunities to expand and become more. Unfortunately because of my misinterpretation of the subject matter, it didn’t fall into the specified guidelines. However, I do believe that the piece is a good attempt at a remix of a previous song. The genre has definitely changed, but the notes and patterns are still recognisable, making the remix successful. 


PDE 2

PDE 4 called for a piece regarding ‘noise art’. I interpreted this to mean that almost anything could be considered an instrument. To create this piece, I used Hollywood sound effects to simulate drumbeats and other ‘melodic’ content. The overall outcome is a piece built on sneezes, explosions, crowd sounds and can openings. 

To begin with, I located some sound libraries that were open source. I then began constructing a basic drum pattern of kick and snare. For the kick part, I used a man sneezing. This would change over a two bar period, going from one kick per bar, to two kicks per bar. The snare part was man sighing. Like the kick, this was repeated throughout the entire piece. The kick and snare are the only things playing for the first 4 bars. At the start of the 5th bar, a door closing heavily is used with the sneeze for the kick drum. 

Other sound effects like a soda can opening and a parrot squawking fill up some of the other elements of the soundscape. These sounds act as random melody parts that are featured in some songs. As well as the drums and random melody sections, I used crowd sounds, kind of like a bass guitar. The crowd sounds provided a low rumble throughout the track which definitely filled up the low end spectrum.

I used a cannon sound to add to the snare. This cannon sound had a nice long reverb and added a lot of punch to the piece. The cannon is also the last instrument to play at the end of the piece, leaving the reverb to finish the song off. 
This song is unique because a professional team recorded every sound, but the sounds aren’t being used in a manner that the recording team would normally imagine. I am using movie FX to create a piece of music, which I think shows how versatile every sound can be.


PDE 4

PDE 5 required a piece on Musique Concrete. To begin this, I looked at some old BBC footage towards the start of the popularisation of the theme, and drew inspiration from it. I used my trusty old kitchen as the source for the sounds, and used some modern plug-ins to change and manipulate these sounds. 

I began with recording my roommate washing up. There were the usual sounds of water over dishes and scrubbing, but when he dropped a fry pan on our metal bench, we heard a new wonderful metallic flutter sound. From this discovery, we used the metallic fry pan sounds along with taps, cutlery, and brushes. We created a grove from this, which I recorded into Pro Tools.

I then recorded some other sounds like container of pasta being turned over on itself. We recorded the fan that draws heat from a stove on two speeds, as well as a fridge opening and closing. We also recorded a bottle with liquid in it being tapped on the to hole. This created a lot of weird and wonderful sounds. I added them all together in Pro Tools and tried matching them up. 

Because we didn’t record anything with a click track, or a sense of time in mind, the tracks were a little all over the place, but I believe that this worked in out favour. I added some effects to the frying pan track, like a phaser. This phaser gave the weird metallic flutter sounds even weirder properties, which sounded amazing. 

I ran the fry pan section normally, and then reversed the track. This reversed track is placed right at the end of the normal track, so the normal and reversed tracks lead right into each other. I added chorus and reverb to the pasta and bottle popping tracks respectively. These odd kitchen sounds begin to run into each other and mix amongst one another. This created some other weird phasing sounds, which really added a new weirdness to the track.

This was a difficult PDE to start, but once I began and realised what I could achieve, I began to enjoy it more and more. The sounds here are unique and definitely don’t adhere to any genre or preset which I like.  


PDE 5

PDE 6 was a field recording. I had many things to choose from because I have done a few field recordings in the past. I chose to use a recording of rain and birds singing because it was the most natural, uninterrupted by man recording that I had.

Getting this recorded was very simple. I had to stop recording a song one day because the rain sounds were bleeding into guitar takes that I was doing for a different project. I really liked the rain sounds, so I stuck my SM57 out my window and recorded nothing but the rain. At one point, a low rumble of thunder can be heard, which I thought was really peaceful considering the destruction that thunder can bring. 

I kept the recording going for a few minutes until the rain started to lighten up. After the rain subsided a little, I could hear birds begin to sing. This tied peacefully in with the rain sound. To think that in the middle of Sydney, the rain and birds could be heard over traffic, planes, trains and people was quite incredible. 

I really like this piece because it is pure and natural. There is no processing on the track, just a microphone and nature at its most violent and beautiful. Rain is always a calming sound, but the added bonus of bird songs at the end makes this piece seem like a recording from deep within a jungle. To have been recorded in a Sydney suburb on a random afternoon makes this a very nice piece. 

Overall I am happy with all of my PDE’s. I have never been one to compose or write music, whether it be conventional pop songs or weird experimental music. I feel that I have a new set of tools for identifying anything as an instruments, and new ways to manipulate these sounds to how I want them. I definitely believe that there is room for improvements, but for my existing skill set, I have achieved a lot of new knowledge. 


nicho121