New piece in 5-tet...

Inspired by Aaron's recent 5-tet offering, I've just placed a new 5-tet composition
"PentaFunk" up at:

http://www.cae.wisc.edu/~sethares/PentaFunk.mp3

It's got a fairly full "orchestration" in the funk vein (minus James Brown's vocals), and the
sounds are drawn from an FM synth and from some of the 10-tet sounds I had created
earlier (in pieces like "Circle of Thirds") so if they sound familiar, that's probably why. After
all, 5-tet is kind of the "whole tone scale" associated with 10-tet.

Any commments or questions are welcome. Enjoy!

--Bill Sethares

On Thursday 22 April 2004 10:46 am, Bill Sethares wrote:
> Inspired by Aaron's recent 5-tet offering, I've just placed a new 5-tet
> composition "PentaFunk" up at:
>
> http://www.cae.wisc.edu/~sethares/PentaFunk.mp3
>
> It's got a fairly full "orchestration" in the funk vein (minus James
> Brown's vocals), and the sounds are drawn from an FM synth and from some of
> the 10-tet sounds I had created earlier (in pieces like "Circle of Thirds")
> so if they sound familiar, that's probably why. After all, 5-tet is kind of
> the "whole tone scale" associated with 10-tet.
>
> Any commments or questions are welcome. Enjoy!

Bill !!!!!

This was *thouroughly* enjoyable, and you took my slant, and IMO, really took
it further (esp. regarding orchestration and thematic cogency). Mine was
about 'experimental', minimalistic process, and more of a 'throwaway' piece;
yours seems to have a much more 'traditional' form, with that 'bass break',
arrangement, etc. I could tell that you gave everything much thought, and it
shows.

The orchestration, with that simple bass line, and that great portamento lead
patch, was stellar !!!

I was smiling all the was through this, thinking 'Go Bill !!!!!!' That'a
something that the best music does to me, makes me laugh or smile (or
cry--but that's not this genre)

One suggestion I thought --- and this may as well apply to my 5-tet funk as
well---the stereo imaging is strong enough, maybe a little less reverb? I
think esp. for the drums. For funk, I like a tight, dry sound. And not to say
that I didn't love it, but I'd love to hear a slightly faster tempo, maybe...

Bravo !!!

Warmly,
Aaron Krister Johnson
http://www.dividebypi.com
http://www.akjmusic.com

Aaron,

{you wrote...}
>I could tell that you gave everything much thought, and it shows. The >orchestration, with that simple bass line, and that great portamento lead
>patch, was stellar !!!

Seconding all your comments - Bill knows I'm a sucker for his work (you do, Bill, don't you?).

>One suggestion I thought --- the stereo imaging is strong enough, maybe a >little less reverb?

One thing that Bill and I have in common is that we both like our mixes pretty wet. I know when I'm objective about it I feel mine could dry out a bit, and I've made that comment to Bill before. Old habits, and tastes, are hard to break...

Cheers,
Jon

--- In MakeMicroMusic@yahoogroups.com, "Jonathan M. Szanto"
<JSZANTO@A...> wrote:
> Aaron,
>
> {you wrote...}
> >I could tell that you gave everything much thought, and it shows.
The
> >orchestration, with that simple bass line, and that great
portamento lead
> >patch, was stellar !!!
>
> Seconding all your comments - Bill knows I'm a sucker for his work
(you do,
> Bill, don't you?).
>
> >One suggestion I thought --- the stereo imaging is strong enough,
maybe a
> >little less reverb?
>
> One thing that Bill and I have in common is that we both like our
mixes
> pretty wet. I know when I'm objective about it I feel mine could
dry out a
> bit, and I've made that comment to Bill before. Old habits, and
tastes, are
> hard to break...
>
> Cheers,
> Jon

I have to side with Aaron that funk drums sound a lot "funkier" with
less reverb. When Stretch recorded/produced our demo CD, we went
through a lot of iterations of telling the engineer how to tweak
things. For the funk track, we weren't happy until he took *all* the
reverb off the snare drum.

Anyway, all this 5-equal funk is making *me* wet! ;) Love it, guys!!

I'm about to post something about makingmicromusic, if my schedule
allows . . .

>Inspired by Aaron's recent 5-tet offering, I've just placed
>a new 5-tet composition "PentaFunk" up at:
>
>http://www.cae.wisc.edu/~sethares/PentaFunk.mp3

Nice!

-Carl