| Hi,
I thought I would take this opportunity to ramble a bit. I'm still
struggling with composing so my thoughts may not be too helpful except to
some of the beginners.
>What are your compositional
>attitudes, approaches or techniques?
I now try to start with a single concept or idea for the composition.
Perhaps a story. I then start generating sounds in Csound. Sometimes I am
trying to generate a particular sound other times I am just trying to come
up with something interesting. Usually the sounds will influence the
direction of the piece. Sometimes I think that if I found the right niche
or style of music for myself I would be able to create some good music. So
I try to compose in different styles hoping to find my place.
At one time I thought I would be good at writing techno music. I listened
to quite a bit of it trying to listen to the basic parts, drums, bass,
Perhaps I could get good at it someday. Modern european techno music seems
to have acquired a very rigid style. Usually in 4/4 with an 808 Kick on
every quarter note. Breaks preceded by fast drum machine drum rolls, a new
phrase part introduced every 2 measures or so, TB-303 sound on the lead.
I've listened to so much that I'm really starting to dislike drums
altogether as well as the signature 303 sound.
The primary songs I made in the techno style are "Teknology World", "Pyro
Technique" and "Space"
http://www.mp3.com/artists/5/plasma_portal.html
Most of the sounds used in these pieces were created using Csound.
After learning more about electroacoustic music and ambient music I thought
I would try composing some. My first piece I based on some of the fractal
instruments I created. I also used a Perl program to generate scores based
on fractals. I usually create a directory for the orchestras scores and the
samples. I often don't bother to save all of the scores once I have samples
generated from them. I then use Multiquence to assemble the samples into a
song.
This one was "Proto Call"
For a piece I'm currently working on I'm using Excel to generate many of the
scores. I then put the samples for a single set of sounds together using
Multiquence. I put together many sample files generated from many different
score files and save this as a new sample file. I then put together several
of these new sample files using Multiquence.
This one is currently titled "Nebula".
There is always a difference between the sound I start out trying to create
and the sound I end up with. There are many happy accidents along the way
where a sound produced by Csound is unlike what you imagined it would be but
in some ways better than you imagine. In composing I find the same thing.
Most of my compositional ideas are vague. Once are start putting them
together they form a new entity which is not that much like my original
idea. I usually name a piece before I start so I will have some idea of the
direction. Often I will have to rename a piece after it is finished because
the name I chose no longer fits the finished piece.
>What are your plans for the future?
I want to do more vocal based sounds and modified voices. I think many of
the most interesting instruments are those that talk to us. Electric guitar
has a very vocal quality, hammond organ screams, harmonicas wail and talk,
the resonant filter has a very vocal quality to it which I think is part of
what makes it so appealing.
I want to create adventures with sounds.
With this wonderful tool, many have
>simply expanded on previous styles or approaches.
I don't see Csound in itself helping that much with composition. I should
probably learn more of the tools geared at aiding in composition. I started
doing some fractal based algorithmic composition back in 1986 or so but then
did not persue it. I think there could be a wide variety of composition
software or performance tools created that would utilize the power of the
computer to aid in composition and improvisation. I realize there are many
programs now that do this although I am not very familiar with them.
Happy Csounding,
Hans Mikelson
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