I’m having difficulty posting to this server, so please refer to my main site at http://www.brianmadigan.com where you will find all the blog postings to date and newer tracks that are not on this site.

Throw Some Sounds – mp3

Now here’s a really good example of something that seemed to have lost its way but was then salvaged and developed into something quite different from what I’d expected.

Essentially another piano improv, I wasn’t at all happy with where this was going but had the feeling that were I to put a bass drone under the mayhem, then things would start to make sense. I found a great synth patch that provided the pulsating bass and some nifty effects on top as well, rendering it very ‘playable’. What had been there was the rather atonal piano and stringy synth that now meanders around in the background. By relegating these parts to mere texture, I was able to build something more solid on top but still retain those parts, as they were the original seed that gave rise to everything else.

This kind of accidental composition is one of the things I enjoy most of all and creating something that appears random but also has some kind of integrity is a source of endless fascination to me. In the end it’s just painting with sound, really. Sometimes you want to go in the studio and just throw some noises at the walls to see what sticks. This is what stuck today and I have to say I really like it.

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Repercussions – mp3

Well, my PC is playing ball again; though it is creaking a bit and may need replacing before too long.

Here I’ve again followed my often used method of improvisation, then quantisation and copying to different sample patches. I’ve used piano, marimba, harp and percussion, then removed the piano on which everything was originally played. The method is sound and there’s a useable sound pallet here. However, to be honest I was distracted and just threw this together really. But as my Tai Chi teacher used to say: it’s worth practicing every day, even when you don’t feel like it, as you always learn something – and I’d agree.

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Well, at the risk of a hundred Mac users saying ‘I told you so’, I have to report that my PC has let me down today. Although having said that I’m not so sure it’s not just doing me a favour. I started today’s track as usual in the evening yesterday but to be honest wasn’t very inspired by what was coming out. Now I know I always advocate pushing through until something useful comes out and I did continue working on the track this morning. However, I still wasn’t convinced that this track had anything to offer that I haven’t already covered here and my heart wasn’t really in it.

And then the PC crashed… and crashed again… and kept on crashing whenever I tried to reopen the file. Now I’ve other work to do at the moment and can’t be trying to restore my PC but hopefully it will start up as usual this evening after a little rest. In the meantime, I can’t help feeling that perhaps it just has taste. Any Mac owners had a similar experience?…

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There Are None – mp3

Another long one today, reflecting the unstructured and improvised nature of the creative process. Essentially a piano improvisation, I played around with various effects on the piano: MIDI echo (which creates the rising arpeggios), delay, modulation and a cave-like reverb. With a little quantisation, this started to make sense and then led to the inevitable addition of a simple loop. I slowed the speed right down (also resulting in quite a lengthy piece) to make space for all the various echoes and effects and then added a nice spacey bass riff. For a little bit of final polish and some more spaceyness, I’ve added a synth part that has an integral sequenced sound and used this on every down beat, stepping chromatically around to reflect the movement in the piano.

The whole thing lacks any coherent form but I think creates quite an interesting atmosphere if you allow yourself to just get lost in the sounds.

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Crazy Lizards – mp3

Continuing my current trend for posting longish tracks, this one is a kind of rambling lounge/avant-garde jam, featuring piano, acoustic bass, mallets, electric guitar and loops. It actually began in a rather unconventional fashion, by playing around with creating rhythm tracks using slices of drum loops. These were then copied to the mallet-instruments (there are two marimbas and a set of vibes), to create kind of abstract ostinatos.

When I listened to the three rhythm/mallet parts, I decided some improvised piano would go nicely over the top. I adopted my ‘one-take’ rule of yore, by which I only allow myself one go at a take and then decide afterwards how to make it fit. This creates a combination of tension and freedom in the performance and really does imbue you with a sense of ‘performance’, as opposed to just ‘noodling’, which I can recommend. I then added another loop, to give a little more consistency to the rhythm, followed by bass, which really creates a sense of a live jazz session. Then finally I couldn’t resist adding some heavily distorted guitar – and why not?…

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Anywhere But Here – mp3

Another minimalistic piece, starting with overlapping piano phrases, which spread onto strings and woodwind. I’ve used solo instrument samples, as opposed to ensembles, as I wanted to create the impression of a small ensemble playing together.

There are, of course, many dissonances in this but I like the idea of linear parts that intersect and abrade, as opposed as always being harmonious. I am shortly to embark on a choral commission and could well imagine these kinds of ideas lending themselves well to voices. There is something pleasing about having parts that move independently but then hold onto resonant notes at different moments. For me, this evokes some sort of timeless perpetual motion and I find it quite meditative.

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One Hundred and Seventy – mp3

This one’s probably less ‘Roykfrapp’ and more ‘Frappgelis’, I think. Lots of noisy synths with a kind of filtered rave-synth thing set against an uncharacteristically slow, funky beat. With the lead synth, the bass and the pulsating arpeggio that comes in on the repeat, this has quite a retro sound to it (makes me think of Vangelis and also the theme to ‘Educating Rita’ for some reason).

I started out with a piano motif that became completely overtaken once I hit on the rave sound. That took me off on a whole new tangent and rendered the piano redundant, which makes a change. I actually did some more work to this but ended up with a rather lumpy mix, so this is not the latest draft. However, the indiscretions in the melody that I’d sought to iron-out are less troubling than the mess I made of the mix by working too late at night. I had added a second lead sound to the final repeat of the tune but don’t think it made too much difference. In this mix, I’ve sharpened things up a little with an extra layer of rhythm and some additional low bass.

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Come On! – mp3

More meanderings today. This was really just me trying out some synth patches to see what they were like. Again, these were largely of the evolving or sequenced variety, so this left little room for actual composition, although they have been played in, as opposed to merely looped.

The challenge here was to create something cohesive and not too cluttered from the very dense sounds. Adding the little vocal samples provides a small window of humanity and a handy little hook. Otherwise not much to say about this one.

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Still Searching – mp3

I wanted to develop yesterday’s piano sketch a little further and this is what resulted. As anticipated, I have used a solo instrument – an oboe – together with strings. I’ve actually doubled the oboe at the start with a solo violin and then had that instrument break away to play some close harmony.

You can see how there is now a whole new melodic layer that goes beyond what was originally perceived to be the ‘tune’ in the piano part. The violin harmony also accentuates some of the darker harmony and this could of course be changed to sweeten the piece if desired at another point. As often mentioned, I enjoy having little ambiguities within the harmonic structure of a piece, as these give rise to a wealth of possibility, so that something that seems at first quite pedestrian can have legs and evolve into something more complex and interesting.

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