David McSherry

Enter Calico Released

So, it’s finally out! Clear Notice’s debut album Enter Calico is now available on iTunes, Amazon and Bandcamp.

Back in April (on April Fool’s day actually!), I was asked by my Twitter friend Kieron James if I’d like to contribute to a compilation album of Electronic music he was putting together. I’d not written any music for two or three years and I thought it would help me focus some ideas together for one of my MA portfolio pieces so I agreed to write something for it. I’m very glad I did too as it’s turned out to be such a strong album and one which Kieron has done a sterling job of compiling, promoting and generally making sure the whole thing happened. And, there’s still the iPad app to come with some very interesting videographers contributing.

I got a pretty good grade for my portfolio too

Portfolio Submission One

The first twenty minutes of my hour long portfolio are now finished and handed in. The music I have composed falls into three parts:

SGT – 400
Part one is the soundtrack for the Siemens animation. As I explained in an earlier post, the animation is for corporate purposes and is a slow motion fly-round of a 3D model of a gas turbine engine. I tried to incorporate some recordings I made of the engine sounds but they are full of screaming mid and high frequencies which masked any musical parts I put it near. I managed to squeeze it in near the beginning of the track. The complete artefact is yet to be finished; there’s still a voice-over to record and mix.
SGT – 400 by mandrill1

UD+
Part two is a stand alone music track I composed for the forthcoming Clearnotice compilation album. I really enjoyed working on this track as I was free to take it wherever I wanted. I ditched my usual Logic and wrote the track in Ableton (to which, I’m still a noobie), and mixed it in Pro Tools. Pure Tone did a lovely job of mastering it. The starting point for this track’s composition was a beat I made that was influenced by a Jeff Mills track. There is also a nod to Delia Derbyshire (in some of the little sprinklings on top) and the drones are a mangled Marcel Duchamp sound poem. You can hear a 30 sec preview of the track below. There are some great artists scheduled to appear on the album – I’ll post more information when it is released later this summer.
U?+ Preview by mandrill1

Appointment
The third piece is the one I had the most difficulty with. It is a score for a short film. The film focusses on a WW2 veteran and includes some flashback scenes to significant moments in his wartime experience. I wanted to avoid the obvious orchestral instrumentation as much as possible and create an electronic score but, due to the period setting of some of the scenes, this proved to be difficult and I compromised with a hybrid of the two. This is my first attempt at scoring for film and I found it very tricky; always being mindful of the key points in the narrative and supporting the dialogue or action when required. I discussed the piece at great lengths with my supervisor (the writer/director of the film) and it went through six iterations until we were both happy(ish) with it. I also didn’t have split dialogue and sound effects mixes to work with, meaning some of the dialogue was very low level. You can hear the full score below and, although it works much better with the dialogue/effects track and pictures, I’m still not completely happy with it.
MA Film Soundtrack: Full Score by mandrill1

Composition Portfolio

My first three essays are done (and I’m really pleased with the grades: 70/75/80!) and now, to complete the first phase (Post Graduate Certificate), I must write 20 minutes of music. It’s been a while since I last made a serious attempt at composition and, as I want to try new approaches, I’ve moved over to Ableton (from Logic) as my primary tool. I’ve chosen to submit a hybrid portfolio, meaning the music in it has various functions. It can be an underscore for a film, for example, or simply a stand-alone piece.

My first piece is a soundtrack for an animation for an engineering company. This is a real-world brief that came to me through my job at the university (there’s no payment in it, unfortunately!) and the requirements are very, well, brief: ‘mainly bed with energy (not excessive) and with instrumentation to sit behind commentary.’ The animation is for corporate purposes and is a slow motion fly-round of a 3D model of an engine – the odd panel floats off to reveal what’s underneath. Exciting stuff.

My first attempt is at something quite neutral sounding in terms of genre (other than it’s an electronic piece). With its steady pace it is cold and detached but also quite hi-tech sounding. It is minimal with arpeggiators that float throughout the piece with a few glitchy random rhythmic elements. These could be interpreted as machinery coughing and spluttering – not what I imagine the client is hoping to evoke, I’m sure! I’ve not heard back from them yet so there may be a major tweak or re-write ahead.

16m 19s to go.

Engineering Animation Soundtrack (tweaked) by mandrill1

The Tail Wagging The Dog

Industry Studies

A lively debate around copyright and (in my opinion) how overzealous copyright laws obstruct the development of new music and culture. If you’ve not heard it before, Nate Harrison’s Can I Get An Amen? (2004) is an excellent investigation of these issues using the iconic Amen break as a case study.

Analysis

The following is a series of notes taken from reading and discussion around Kasdan and Appleton’s rather paranoid text on the influence of technology on the composition process Tradition and Change: The Case For Music (1970).

In traditional Western music there is a division of labour between the composer, the performer and the audience. In the West, the score narrowly defines how piece should be performed.

Systems of the East, however (India, Indonesia, Japan), are much looser allowing for variation on the part of the performer. In ‘World Music’, for example, the audience can be much more a part of the composition itself.

The rise of the virtuoso performer saddles the composer with a burden. The virtuoso tended to neglect the score and in an attempt to reach the audience with an accurate recreation of their work, composers would clutter their scores with instructions to the musician. This would result in complex demands on their performance and musicians would gravitate to earlier, simpler works. Commercial considerations, such as the cost of a symphony orchestra, would also impinge on the compositional process.

This separation of roles of the composer, performer and audience have been changed with technological innovation. Technology allows the composer to communicate directly with their audience without an intermediary. In electronic music the composer is also responsible for the performance, every beat, texture or fragment of sound is intended, or at least edited, to sculpt the composition and performance to the desired shape.

As an electronic music composer, how much do your tools of choice inform your music making? Who (or what) is in control, you, or the technology?

By processes of continual sonic metamorphosis on the single ‘clink’ of two wineglasses, Trevor Wishart’s Imago (2002), constructed with self-designed software, is an attempt to answer this challenge in sonic art.

Published in 1970, the Kasdan and Appleton text amusingly and perceptively predicts an “instantaneous realization” available to the composer of the near-future in a “semicomputerized studio”:

“A small keyboard, similar to that of a typewriter, would be used to specify the original, electronically generated material. Once specified, the sound would be played and the composer could make any changes desired. This material could then be stored on a computer memory and could be instantly recalled should the composer want to hear it again or develop the idea further. Once completed the work would be transferred from the computer memory to recording tape and made available to various ‘performance’ media: radio, record companies etc. The composer could carry out this process in his own home using a data-phone connection. The significance of electronic music, in which the composer deals direct with sound, lies not in the use of new material but in the fact that the composer is communicating directly with his audience without an intermediary.”

It’ll never happen

Praxis Makes Perfect

Everyone keeps telling me it will fly by but from here, January 2012 seems like a hell of a long way off. I enrolled on the MA in Music Production (composition pathway) at Leeds College of Music today and January 2012 is when (hopefully) I’ll graduate. The reading list and the workload also seem a little daunting and the drive from Lincoln is, well, you can imagine.

Reading for next week is Analytical Methods of Electroacoustic Music by Mary Simoni, A Guide to Musical Analysis by Nicholas Cook and Gerd Leonhard and Dave Kusek’s The Future of Music (good job I’ve already read that one) along with a whole load more.

So am I glad I’ve decided to load myself up with even more stuff to do? Of course I am! After years of writing and producing music, it’s a chance for me to dig deep into critical environments, social context, analysis and theory. To write some more music and reassess some of the music I’ve made in the past, maybe even finding more reasons as to why it sounds the way it does…. as Tony Wilson would have said: “Praxis makes perfect”.