I Am Calm!

I based my drum program off of middle eastern traditional drum patterns. The first drum pattern is Khaliji style, the second drum pattern is Maqsoum style, and the last drum pattern is Wahda style.

I used the Percussion Core Kit, Battu Kit, and Heritage Kit in Ableton Live for the instruments.

Drum Programming

Made a Songo beat using the recordings of:

~Sizzling vegetables in a pan
~Clinking a fork against glass cup
~Pounding wooden table with fists
~Sliding hands down window blinds
~Closing the door
~Clinking a fork against glass lampshade
~Textbook page turn
~Squeaky tennis ball

*Listed in the order in which they appear

Rhythmic Noise

I modeled this song's back and forth to sound like a duet in A major.

I utilized the 1-2-6-4 chord progressions from the song Halo by Beyonce with tweaks during each round.

For the chord progressions I used a wavetable patch with random increasing oscillation between the Amber wave forms. For voice one I used a wavetable patch using a sine wave to oscillate narrowly between the Aureolin wave forms. For voice 2 I used the lowpass analog synth patch with a sawtooth oscillator and a sine undertone.

Call & Response

Sampled the Sufi vocals from the song and BTS video Maahi Diyaan Jhokaan by the Barkat Jamal Fakir Troupe. The chorus is super trancey and seems to be in A minor so I leaned into that and arpeggiated a sitar sounding midi over it as the lead instrument. For mastering and mixing, I panned out the instruments a bit as well as added the glue compressor and a medium room resonator. I reduced the annoying overtones and applied a bandpass filer using EQ eight, glue compressor, and an OTT to the vocal tracks themselves.

Cover photo by Nabi Ali @ab_varaham on Twitter.

I thought y'all might be interested in the chord progressions I used:

Verse1+ Chorus 1
1 (A minor 7) ACEG
2 (1-4-6) ADFA
3 (A flat minor dim 7) A(flat)BDF
1  (A minor 7) ACEG

Verse 2 + Chorus 2
1 (E major 7) EG#BD
2 (1-4-6) EACE
3 (D minor 7) DFAC
1 (E major 7) EG#BD
or
1  (A minor 7) ACEG (up)

Long Chorus 

1 (E major 7) EG#BD
2 (1-4-6) EACE
3 (D minor 7) DFAC
1 (E major 7) EG#BD

then this up an octave
1 (A minor 7) ACEG
2 (1-4-6) ADFA
3 (A flat minor dim 7) A(flat)BDF
1  (A minor 7) ACEG

Sound Composition

Hello Everyone! My name is Arva Syed
Welcome to the Gradient on Radio 1190. 

1190 AM KVCU in Boulder
98.1 FM Translator K251CV in Golden
104.7 FM Translator K284BY in Erie
And around the world at Radio1190.org

If you aren’t familiar with this show, the Gradient plays music every week here on radio 1190. The sets usually start with some familiar sounds and transitions to more obscure genres. 

I usually don’t do album dissections but this week I want to go into one of my favorite albums from the Brazilian 70s set; Os Tincoãs(OUS CHINCO-AS) made in 1973 by the similarly titled band.