Dear Diary
Narrative is everything: the stories we tell ourselves, the stories we tell each other, history, religion, identity. I came to that deep understanding a few years ago in a filmmaking class and it has stuck with me.
I’ve been thinking a lot lately about why I share music online. What purpose does it serve? What am I hoping to gain? I even had a long chat with my therapist about it. Part of it is this need to connect with like-minded people, to be seen and understood by someone capable of understanding - someone with the shared context of being an artist and experience sharing that certain part of ourselves that can’t be expressed in any other way.
But it’s also about crafting my personal narrative, the story of who Qid Love is. Music has been at the core of my hopes and dreams for most of my life. My most memorable experiences and my longest friendships all have connections to music. Music is at the very core of my identity and sense of self. I simply can’t imagine a life without music.
So there’s a dimension to all of this that has to do with crafting and capturing the individual histories of these musical moments in time. There’s the story that each piece tells as both aural setting and tonal/harmonic journey with a beginning, middle, and end. But ultimately, all of these musical efforts and the sharing of them contribute to the building of of my own story, crafting the setting and story arcs for my own artful life.
Thanks for being part of it.
Progress
About the track
The start of this track reminds me of earlier Mood481 stuff because of the fairly unstructured rhythms and piano sounds. This week’s improvisations definitely have a similar overall vibe so far, so I’ll probably shake things up quite a bit after the next couple of tracks are finished.
I used TATAT to drive the piano and the rhythm apps (Ting and Fractal Bits), which is why there’s less structure than the previous couple of tracks. I pulled out Eventide’s MangledVerb to add some extra space to Noises. Eventide’s apps sound amazing, but I don’t use them very often. I really find that I stick mostly to apps that have preset randomization capabilities because I prefer hitting the die a couple of times to digging through menus.
Tools and stuff
Licensed audio samples from Sony.
Gear: Strandberg Boden NX 7, M-Audio Air 192/14, iPad Pro M2, iPad Air
Pedals: Gamechanger Audio Plus, t.c. electronic SubnUp, SSS SRV, Strymon Deco, electro-harmonix Ravish
Apps
Alexander Zolotov: Fractal Bits
Arthur Kerns: midiLFOs
AudioThing: Mantis, Noises, Reels, Springs, Texture
BLEASS: Granulizer, Reverb
Camel Audio: Alchemy Pro
Eventide: MangledVerb
Jam Origin: MIDI Guitar 2
K-Devices: TATAT
Klevgrand: Ting
Korg: Module Pro
Kymatica: AUM, AudioShare, AU3FX:Push, AU3FX:Space
Sugar Bytes: Looperator
[Redacted]: 3
Xenome 803
This is our first 3-note xenome, containing all of the notes of the previous 3 xenomes, so it should be familiar. This is basically 3 notes in a row, so while the distribution of notes limits its harmonic use, it does provide for some simple chromatic movement against a drone.
C-803 scale diagrams
Xenotuning
6-String Guitar
Keyboard
Magic Square
Nocturne