Drowning the oud

Thanks to everyone who listened. This piece is just a jump-start to writing...

Grouping replies together, he types:

To Kraig - thanks, you know I value your ear. As for the fact that it could go on, if it were real music it might. And change along the way. But that will come later.

To Dante - yeah, that little box is pretty interesting. It goes a bit farther than a standard sample-widget, and I give them high marks for ingenuity in designing a product that really attempts to do One Thing Well. I hope to do a little piece-let with one of the bagpipes.

To Robt - thanks for liking the setting as well! I've gotten to a point in my life where plain old music (at least when it comes from my pen/mind/fingers) doesn't interest me as much as little audio stories. I'll try not to over-do the style, but I look around at the world and realize that all the sounds fascinate me, not just musical sounds. I'd like them to live together in small versions/visions.

To Aaron - you wrote: "I was hungry for this to be an alap, so that we could eventually have a tabla enter and groove with it.... The scale was delicious, as was the sample, which didn't tire my ears out." Funny, after I did it I *almost* went back and added some percussion, but I'm trying to avoid that - not dogmatically, but... - if only because percussion is the thing I most expect I can do, and I won't grow if I don't attempt other things. See the Carl note on scale/alap...

To Kalle - you mentioned some Hindustani music (yes, I've seen quite a few people using those "sruti boxes"!) I wonder if it wouldn't make sense to have one that is solar powered (maybe not in Scandinavia, but...).

To Carl - thanks for the ears. The scale? Damn, I wish I could tell you! I just turned on the music computer, but for some reason this synth doesn't show up automatically in a saved project - you have to reload it (might be a fluke of the timed demo). And I was trying different scales, and don't know if it was the scale that was programmed with the patch or another - sorry.

You mentioned: "My only complaint is too much reverb on the oud, and perhaps also on the whole mix." I agree, and some of that came as an anomoly of headphone mixing. Trying to set the instruments in a virtual space without listening 'in the room' hosed that one. I almost fixed it, but I Cheneyed the thing and shut off the box...

*****

Again, I appreciate the downloading and ear squinting. I'll keep working to put to rest the idea that Jon is all talk and no music...

Cheers,
Jon

Hi Jon,

> To Robt - thanks for liking the setting as well! I've gotten to a point in
> my life where plain old music (at least when it comes from my
> pen/mind/fingers) doesn't interest me as much as little audio stories. I'll
> try not to over-do the style, but I look around at the world and realize
> that all the sounds fascinate me, not just musical sounds. I'd like them to
> live together in small versions/visions.

Sounds interesting :-).

I remember reading some poems by a Japanese poet Matsuo Basho
- he used a mixture of prose and poetry, so the prose setting
described the situation and events leaading into the poem,
so each poem had a little story about it. I gather
that it was a traditional Japanese way of setting
out poems. By a story there, it means something very
simple, just a few lines possibly, paragraph or
two - that he went to a particular place, and then
while listening to the waterfall beneath
a cherry blossom tree he wrote this poem or
something, then it gives the poem he wrote.

Maybe the same idea can be used for audio stories
with audio settings leading into music
then on and out in some sort of story?

So not the same as music that tells a story because
the music is a kind of musical moment set within the story,
rather than a story itself, with the story
itself told in the audio setting, something
very simple too, just the sun rising or
a rain shower begins and you see a rainbow,
or some such. There for instance I suppose
the audio setting could be the sound of rain
gradually falling more and more heavily in some
audio setting, and the music blends into it
and then somehow evokes the rainbow,
that kind of a thing.

Robert