Today was intense and challenging.
That bass sequence that entered just at the end of yesterday's session took this track in a direction that I hadn't predicted. I started the day by reading up on "repetition", and found an interesting article that compared "musematic" and "discursive" repetition in music. A "museme" is a short motif, and when these are repeated, the result is circular. In contrast, when a longer phrase is repeated, the result is more linear. With this bass pattern, my main concern was getting trapped in a narrow corridor. So, I worked with the phrase for quite a while, extending it and shaping it.
After 2 hours, I felt a bit lost, and lacking any clear direction. I started to wonder: what "is" this music? What am I expressing? What do I hear and feel?
Before taking a long break to go outside, I listened through and wrote down some ideas.
"Wasteland. Vast. A resolute journey, solitary, moving ahead with hope."
When I got back from my afternoon walk, I worked slowly and gradually, first working with the synthesizer lines and the sequences. After a few takes, things started to congeal. I sat at my piano keyboard and began improvising. The result was surprisingly intense and dramatic. I guess that's just how I hear music.
So I enjoyed this section very much, and found it very hypnotic. However, I wanted more, that is, more bass clef notes (I am not trained in musicology you can tell). I was thinking of Vaughn Williams "The Lark Ascending" and what it would sound like if the composer had not written in any parts for trombones or double basses or bassoons (and so on), say. So for a piece that is going to be, what is it, 45 minutes, I would like more than three simultaneous instruments to carry me through the experience. But that is just my thoughts at this time. I have yet to listen to Day 4....
I really don't have the necessary musical acumen or background to objectively evaluate something like this. I just know what I like and I really liked this.
Honestly, you nailed it today!! Today's session built seamlessly from yesterday's, and I felt like I had read another chapter in a book that had taken me deeper into the plot. I can't wait until tomorrow! Also, it was great to hear what you had read about repetition... Thank you for sharing your personal discoveries while on this journey!
When the piano enters near the beginning, it adds a rippling effect to the flow of the voice. Then when it becomes more percussive, I feel like the journey is speeding up and I feel like I am travelling faster, perhaps through threads of rain that come streaking through the forest as I am travelling. It becomes more intense and urgent as it develops. I like the use of the piano as a driving force when the voice leaves. It adds a sense of some urgency until it peters out. It seems like the rain may be dissipating, and I have arrived somewhere if I am taking the journey. I like this track a lot.
My thoughts....
Minute 1 - Freight train edge to a lonely wind
Minute 2 - 1-2-3-4 fundamentals emerge...now we are going somewhere
Minute 3 - Theme reassuringly reemerges
Minute 4 - A transition--take wings above it all. Industrious, purposeful basss
Minute 5 - Busy complexity...we're getting close! Not sure what to yet :-)
Minute 6/7 - Whirring gears in the Engine Room of life. Things are starting to make sense