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i fell backwards into modular a few months back during a lengthy study into the nature of continuous physical systems and chaotic resonance.
i've intentionally avoided forums, cultural events, and music-in-general for the last ~year as a means of incubating endogenous emergent patterns. i decide to build modules by reading their description and if the purpose is inscrutable then i buy it or build from schematic. manuals and instructions are discarded.
i have no idea what i'm doing.
but i made this a couple nights ago. this is a single track recording of a live jam... i popped a microphone into my amp box and the record button on audacity, then recorded that output into my iiphone.
again, no idea what the hell i'm supposed to do here.
the only thing programmed or sequenced is the kick and snare, which are happening at regular intervals. the remainder of the variation is either emergent from the system itself, or me twiddling on a time control delay knob, or a set of ADSR sliders. that's about it.
a colleague said that this sounds like something from the blade ii soundtrack but i think it sounds like complex nonsense.
i fell backwards into modular a few months back...
Oh, hell! Did it take the paramedics long to dig all of the patchcables out of your back, or...
i have no idea what i'm doing.
but i made this a couple nights ago. this is a single track recording of a live jam... i popped a microphone into my amp box and the record button on audacity, then recorded that output into my iiphone.
again, no idea what the hell i'm supposed to do here.
-- beeb
DON'T question the process. That would be Rule #1 here.
If you've arrived at a musical point where you're flowing on the twin engines of "beginner's mind" and "intuition", then you actually DO know what you're doing, you just haven't figured out how to communicate that to yourself. Continue working along those same lines; eventually, you'll figure out an entire set of your OWN rules and methods for composition with modular.
As for those terms..."beginner's mind" is right outta Buddhism. It's the principle that states that "beginners" can actually have a better idea of what to do when they know very little of what they're doing that with. As such, you're not constrained by a headful of rules and "accepted" methods, so you're more apt to create excellent work when you DON'T know those aspects. Also Public Image Ltd....where John Lydon, Keith Levene and Jah Wobble agreed that it was better for Levine to play guitar as if he had no idea how to play the guitar. Results there? Some VERY substantial additions to how to approach that instrument!
"Intuition", though...that's the "magic" at the core of improvisation, and something Karlheinz Stockhausen explored extensively in various works, starting in the mid-1960s ("Mikrophonie I") through the early 1970s and his ensemble works. Plus, there's two collections of his text pieces ("Aus den Sieben Tagen" and "Fur Kommende Zeiten") where musicians are supplied with a text, and their task is to allow a group-sense of intuitive action to arrive at a possible result. However, the interesting thing about those works is that they're surprisingly consistent. Back in the mid-1990s, I performed the first set's "Set Sail for the Sun" along with an ensemble...we totaled 6 people. And after some warm-up passes, we started arriving at fairly consistent results, and everyone was a bit nervous about that; were WE in control of the process, or vice-versa?
In 2002, I got a chance to discuss that with Johannes Fritsch, the violist on many of the ensemble projects from that period. I explained what was going on with those "cohesive" passes, and he smiled and simply noted "Ah...then you did that right!". Very, very interesting, indeed!
Yup, Lugia is right on. Just gotta keep plugging away at it (pun intended) and I recommend you keep hitting record when you get to something you like. I find it very valuable to listen back critically and think of what I could have done differently. Cheers!
Yup, Lugia is right on. Just gotta keep plugging away at it (pun intended) and I recommend you keep hitting record when you get to something you like. I find it very valuable to listen back critically and think of what I could have done differently. Cheers!
-- TumeniKnobs
and to be able to use the sounds you like/record as samples :)
Exactly, what Lugia says. If you already have a good baggage of music you listened to, then just let happen what happens on the modular. And listen back. I've been in this sort of feedback loop for half a year or so and people tell me I'm improving, which heavily strokes my ego, and that's much better than Facebook likes. But the main point is this - have fun, listen critically while you're doing it, see if you can tweak things here and there to make it cooler/nicer for yourself, and then listen back to it the days after. You'll find you'll get better at getting a result you like afterwards as well. Not always what you expected, but that's part of the game. And did I say - have fun?
BTW - I liked that jam! If you have something USB equipped like an iPad or a computer, getting a simple audio interface will help the recording quality a lot.
