Finding My Sound

I haven’t posted in a while! So I wanted to share something I’ve been working on: “Fuujin” is the first part of a new duo of a capella choir pieces, inspired by the wind and thunder gods, Fuujin & Raijin, in Japanese culture.

Fuujin has a slow moving, ethereal, atmosphere, whereas Raijin will be the more energetic counterpart.

Experimenting in Logic with contemporary composition techniques is a fun, organic way to mold new concepts!

The poem is a haiku by Kobayashi Issa (1763 – 1828) and describes an almost-still life:

神風や畠の稲穂そよぐ也。

Kamikaze ya! Hatake no inaho soyogunari.

I finally have a website!

I had been planning to build one for quite a while, but never found the right tools to execute my vision. I think it’s an important investment for any artist in this digital age.

I haven’t been sure what to post on this blog for a bit. The past year, I’ve been delving into the world of vocal performance (I am now studying classical singing). It has been very confronting and eye opening. I felt like I was constantly being pushed outside of my comfort zone and had to go places, emotionally, that I generally try to stay away from.

Being on stage as a soloist, as opposed to being a composer, you have to exude a completely different kind of presence and self confidence. Most people have told me that when they go to a concert to hear someone sing, they want to connect to whoever is on stage, which cannot happen if the singer puts walls up and does not allow themselves to vulnerable. So this has been an exercise in letting go and opening up, which was scary, but I think will ultimately only improve me and push me forward as a musician and a person.

Hi everyone,

I have been neglectful of this blog these past few months. I’ve been quite busy and have been dealing with some fatigue, so I haven’t been feeling all that inspired to write here. But I felt I owed it to myself to make a new post for the new year. So, a summary of the past few months:

About a week after graduating, I participated in the entrance exams to start a new study in classical singing, and passed. So I’m looking at another 3-5 years of going to school, albeit with only about 50% of the study credits, due to my previous diploma. Singing is something I discovered along the way in my first study and it has become something I seem to have a talent for and really want to pursue further. Finding my voice has been an interesting journey so far; my singing lessons are on a completely different level than before. I’m still having some trouble really connecting with my body and emotions, but making progress.

Not too long after getting in, I was contacted by a group of young game developers, who were looking for a composer to join the team. I’ll make a separate post about that later, but I can already say it was a quite successful endeavour!

I also got a new job and am taking new steps in my personal life, so the past few weeks have been somewhat overwhelming, which is a big reason for why I haven’t been composing as much anymore. I hope to slowly pick that back up and start sharing new music with you all again!

I wish you all a creative and inspiring 2018!

Something new I’m working on: “D20″, for percussion, 4-handed piano, bass clarinet and 8 voices.

This premise of this piece is based on the twenty-sided die, commonly used in tabletop games like Dungeons & Dragons. Due to its extended amount of possible numbers, these kinds of games can vary greatly, depending on which numbers are rolled. This kind of indeterminacy is something I wanted to try in music.

The instrumental part is fixed, but the vocalists roll a D20 several times and then sing motifs that correspond to their roll. Some cells stay in a 4/4 beat, but might have melodic variations, which can be changed up freely, whereas some others have more beats within a cell, thus creating rhythmical shifts. Furthermore, the mix of vocalists can be any combination of voice types, affecting pitch and thus chord structure.

MASTER RECITAL

I haven’t posted in a while, mainly because working on this master recital has taken up all of my time and energy. It has been two years in the making and has been the most challenging thing I’ve ever done. One hour of music, which was not only writing the music, but also getting together musicians, organising rehearsals, etc. The last few weeks have been utterly exhausting, but all the more rewarding. Because last weekend, I got my master’s degree in composition, with great distinction. I could not have wished for anything more. I think it still hasn’t quite hit me that this 5-year phase is suddenly over.

I am now focused on doing a second study in classical singing. I had my audition yesterday and will know tomorrow if I get in. So more news on that later!

Song of the Day #32: Don’t Wait - Mapei.

I came across this song through a recommendation of YouTube vloggers Superfruit (Mitch Grassi and Scott Hoying from a cappella group Pentatonix).

Jacqueline Mapei Cummings (born December 20, 1983), known by her stage name Mapei, is a Swedish-American recording artist best known for this single, which was released via Downtown Records in 2013. Her debut EP, The Cocoa Butter Diaries, was released in 2009 under the same label. Her debut album, Hey Hey, was released September 23, 2014.

The opening of this song, with the gramophone scratch and zither, gives a kind of nostalgic feel. These older elements form an unusual contrast with the use of the vocoder to underscore Mapei’s vocals and the synth pads in the chorus. The percussion is also an interesting mix of modern beat samples and ethnic drums, which also gives the song a more far-off feel, without sounding too foreign.

I was browsing some video game soundtracks on YouTube and came across a playlist with work by Tim Follin, whom I’d never heard of. Follin (born in England, 1970) is no longer active as a video game composer, but did some really impressive, unique work for the older consoles, including the Commodore 64, Amiga, Atari ST, Sega Genesis/Mega Drive, and NES. Tim, who didn't have much of a musical background other than being into prog rock, got into video game music through his brother Geoff, who was a programmer at the time. They collaborated on quite a few tracks.

It's hard to pick just one track, so I'll list some of my favourites here.

Solstice (NES, 1990): Title Theme.

The first track in the playlist took me completely by surprise. During the first 8 seconds of this theme, you would think this would just be like any other simple 8-bit theme. But then the flourishes and noise channel come in, creating some very cool textures, and the piece takes off with a fast tempo and an agile melody. There is a lot of variety in this theme. And to think, this is just the title screen!

Silver Surfer (NES, 1990): Stage 2

Similarly to the previous track on this list, this theme takes off with rich flourishes and syncopated rhythms, instantly pulling you in. The agogo-like bells, ringing in the B part of the theme, are a surprising transition, keeping you on your toes. It's hard to believe this was programmed on an NES chip!

Time Trax (SNES/Sega Genesis, 1993/1994): Title Theme

This one's a bit newer. You can still hear Follin's signature arpeggios and flourishes, but the extended capabilities of the newer consoles give him the opportunity to create some entrancing pads and recreate instruments that are closer to his prog rock background.

Ghouls 'n Ghosts (Amiga, 1989): Main Theme

A bit more mellow than a lot of his usually upbeat work. The acoustic guitar and soft strings add a surprisingly nice contrast with the groovy basslines.

Composition: Sleep

This is a composition from a few months ago that I sort of forgot to post. It was part of one of my exams, where we had to use the program Pd (Pure Data) as part of the creation process. I used a loop station to record my voice, out of which I made a tape of sorts. I then repeated the process but without any distortion or effects (apart from reverb) and improvised over the sound clouds I had previously created.

The text is an excerpt from Oscar Wilde's 'Ave Imperatrix'.

Song of the Day #30: Land of All - Woodkid.

I’ve had a soft spot for Woodkid ever since I first heard Iron and Run Boy Run. His unique percussive elements, vocal timbre, and the way he uses orchestral elements in a popular setting really makes him stand out. Yoann Lemoine is an artist through and through, and you feel that through his music.

Land of All is Woodkid’s newest single and is part of his original soundtrack for the film Desierto. He posted the song on his Facebook page and had the following to say about the writing process:

“I met Alfonso a few months after the release of Gravity, and he happened to be a fan of my work, which really surprised me. He liked the percussive dimension of my work and asked me to compose and produce the soundtrack of his new project Desierto. Later, I met Jonas, his son, in Paris and we discussed the idea to create a piece that was radical, earthy and dark.

After a few tests, Alfonso pushed us further and wanted the score to be unique and avoid any reference to traditional soundtracks. Jonas wanted the music to be the voice of the desert itself, always half way between sound design and music. We wanted the wind to harmonise with the drones played by the orchestra, same with the engine of the truck, the footsteps. We tried to tune the nature with the music.

Although some of the pieces are written for 3 cello voices, most of my work on this film has been to deconstruct and destroy the sound of the orchestra, sampling individual voices of instruments and destroying them digitally, chopping them, looping them, pitching them. Make winds sound like strings and brass sound like woodwinds... I was interested in how extreme time distortions algorithms can destroy digital sounds and recreate crystalline glitches and overtones over the original sound. I played with these algorithms and these destructive processes a lot, drowned them in reverb, stacked overtones and microtones to create vibrations and dissonances. We made the cellos bark like dogs and slowed them down in post production, recorded french horn on tape and played the tape 4 times slower in order to get sub frequencies that would still sound organic and breathy. I remember laying down meters of tape in the corridors of the studio and dipping it in acid to alter the recording.

We wanted the music to be an emotional actor and were not afraid to make the music exhausting and annoying when it had to be. There is a very cruel scene in the film that is only scored by 2 minutes of the same loop of a grotesque sample of a distorted oboe. It sounds like an animal crying, and the never-ending repetition of it is brutal and cynical. I think it’s Jonas favorite part of the score.

I remember being in studio in Paris when the Charlie Hebdo attacks happened. I was editing and composing on terrible images of mexican immigrants being shot like animals, and the news on TV were even more disturbing. It was winter and I had not seen the light of day for a long time. Studios are pretty dark places. Everything collided in my head and I had to call Jonas to take a break, I realised the film was really affecting my mood. After a few days I called him saying I wanted to write and sing a song for the end credits, he accepted instantly. Land of All is about the idea of home, about missing home after you try to settle down somewhere else. I also used Land of All in one of the climatic scenes of the film, but I pitched down the whole song, and reproduced it to make it sound like slow motion. If you listen carefully, you can hear my voice singing the theme like the grotesque grunt of an animal, an inner dark voice that painfully pushes the chord progression forward.

As we were building the film with Jonas, and as he was adjusting the edit of the film, we both realized that working on this film at this exact moment in time was providential and much more meaningful that I would think.”

I’m quite fascinated to read about his process, because I am recently starting to get into similar techniques. Recording and transforming sounds, looking for unique timbres. Even the most seemingly banal and insignificant “bruit” can become something intriguing. This proces is a great way to test (and develop) your creativity. Personally, right now, I’m only scratching the surface when it comes to transformation. Most of what I do simply includes Space Design filters in Logic Pro X and pitch shifters. But doing things like dipping meters of film into acid, truly altering the raw source material... That’s a whole other level, and it only affirms my respect and awe for Woodkid’s creative spirit.

You can purchase and listen to the Desierto soundtrack through Woodkid’s official website: https://woodkid.lnk.to/desierto

Composition: Seasonal Snapshots: Japanese Haiku Cycle

Seasonal Snapshots is a cycle of five miniatures for mixed choir, set on haikus (in English translation) by some of the great Japanese haiku poets, Matsuo Basho (1644-1694), Masaoka Shiki (1867-1902), and Ō no Yasumaro (? - 723).

Hi everyone, I’ve been absent from this blog for a while, but I’ve been quite busy.

Last week, I spent 8 days in Bologna, Italy, for a workshop centred around composition for screen. This was an international experiment to research a new masters program the coordinators are trying to create.

There were eight composers, from Lyon, Montreal, Bologna, and Ghent, along with two film directors and two animators.The purpose of the workshop was for director and composer to learn how to communicate artistic ideas and co-create/transform a project. A piece of music can completely change the atmosphere or interpretation of a film, which became apparent quickly, as there were many different styles present, both in the composers and directors. From acoustic to electronic to sound design, from documentary to abstract images. Half the fun of this experience was to get to know all these different people, their background, philosophies about art, life...

I got paired up with one of the animators, who had a semi-abstract film. She used recognisable elements, such as trees and birds, but transformed them through movement and morphing the shapes (all hand-painted), and created depth using different layers. We spent a long time trying to find sounds that would echo this feeling: recognisable, but transformed into something totally different, to create a unique atmosphere.

I have to admit I was quite intimidated, as almost everyone else had quite a bit of experience under their belt, whereas this was my first big writing-for-screen project. I had done a couple short cues for student films before, but nothing quite like this. I struggled quite a bit in the beginning. But through lots of communicating and experimenting with my director, we came to a unique result that we were both quite pleased with. I really got to push myself and had to be creative in ways I wouldn’t have thought of before. 

Composition: Dancing Snow

This was part of one of my exams. The task was to use modern techniques and the program Pd (Pure Data) to create contemporary works. This piece uses lots of sampling, granular and FM synthesis, recording techniques, amongst other things. A bit more experimental than what I'm used to, but this was really fun to make! The ideas started coming together while I was on a walk in the Ardennes, during the holidays. I was walking through a forest and decided to record some sounds with my iPod. The very first sound you hear is actually just the rustling of some leaves. Recording with the iPod gave me the possibility to try out different mic positions, creating an interesting stereo effect. 

One of the next sounds is a small stream of water, which was quite fascinating to me, as it was flowing through a stone tube. This almost created some kind of overtones. I just had to have that sound and transform it!

Another prominent component of this composition is choir samples. I recently worked together with some fellow students to perform a couple fragments from a new work of mine. I cut out a few chords and used granular synthesis to extract textures from it, almost like making it into a synth pad. You can hear it the most clearly around 2:25 [the original sample is just a 1- or 2-second clip].

Apart from that, I just played around with panning, space design, added some digital instruments, let my imagination do its thing!

When I first got this assignment, I didn’t think I’d be making something like this. But this opened me up to a lot of new possibilities and a different side of creating sounds. It was great to experiment and really just go by sound, rather than classical structures, harmonies and counterpoint. It makes you listen and think in a different way.