I just stumbled upon a new way to perform in Ableton. This is just a proof of concept, but given a prepared MIDI-Clip you could find some interesting results… Think of Instrument-Racks. Kind of remxing your MIDI via Mouse.
Ok. It’s actually just for fun, but picture the potential. So please send me your compositions for cursor & select boxes!
As some of you know, I’m still a student of what is called “Communication and Multimediadesign“. There you learn dealing with all different kinds of media, no matter if it’s print, web, film or audio. Unfortunately I never touched much audio during the studies. I had no room for it. But I gain more and more confidence, that there should be much more music and sound surrounding me in my everyday life.
After purchasing the lovely Tascam DR100 I found myself enjoying the very fundamentals of sound. I guess you could also tell that by listening to my recent work. Just running around, recording everything I can find, as long as it has some remarkable character.
All that collecting of sound-fragments has proven meaningful, as I now got myself working on a first sound design project: Making small animated Typo-Idents audible. They are meant to promote the fonts of a new typo-webshop called Hype For Type. Animated by bauwrk, this clip introduces their best-selling Neo Deco:
The best possibility to grasp the nature of this work is to watch it without sound. This is where i started. Then gradually made my way to that “spacey” feel. Find the match! Tell me what you think!
As stated earlier I also wanted to use this blog for recommending music. To give some insight into which artists inspire me. Hauschka is one of the recent ones. I heard his music the first time sitting on a church’s floor. Listening to Hauschka and two accompanying cello players was such a true and real moment. This music is so direct and pure – true essence – that it took my breath.
To get an idea of what is was like, watch this video here:
Sitting there, I thought about using computers for music. How absurd. The only thing you can accomplish using a computer for music is painting pictures. Trying to recreate something. But there is no way.
I once met a math-student, who said, that what mosts excites him with music is the fact, that it’s actually just math. Everything from matching the right frequencies to the grid of the beat. Hm…
Maybe there are some aspects, that you can represent using numbers and formulas, but math will never create music that moves. Ever heard a piece of generated music that touched you? (For a start, try generating some music on this site)
I truely believe that when there is a guy like Hauschka he just has the ability to transfer feelings right into the people’s hearts. It is this uninterrupted direct connection of his soul, his fingers and the audience receiving it through the tones he plays. This can never ever be recreated with a piece of sequencing technology in between.
What does it mean for me? Basically (at the moment) I am a computer-musician. Hm… I will think about it…
It’s been now already two weeks living off my daily routine trying to focus on music. It feels really great to just make yourself room for what you call your passion.
Nevertheless, it was of course (again) a bit naive to think, that after these 3 weeks there will be an EP to be released. Here I can let my activity circle full-time around music and sound, but I had to reconfigure myself first. Get myself on track again, after my head was dug into some other stuff for university (programming Flex/Actionscript for example).
Still, i get something done. Have ideas to follow, loose ends to connect and instruments to play. The feeling turned out to be right, that my basic musical nature is about playing “real instruments” with direct control over all aspects of musical expression. I’m falling in love with the piano more and more. It has such a beautiful and warm sound. Just hearing the sustain of a nice chord reminds me of home.
So beside my Ableton-activities I also wrote a little piano piece, which is not yet completely finished. I recorded it, all the tiny little hick-ups included. But in the end they really don’t matter, as the message lies somewhere else…
I assure you that all of my activities will definitely lead to an upcoming EP, but there is still a longer way to go for me. 3 weeks not enough (who would have thought). So stay tuned…
