published on
Title:
Atonal Cyclops
Dates:
23-Jul-2021 (inception), 15-Aug-2021 (finalised), 23-Aug-2021 (released)
Artist:
Composition, performance, production and artwork by Norman Freund
Description:
A mix of Jazz, Atonal harmonies and sound samples from unexpected places.
After listening to some atonal Jazz improvisations from Christian Howes, inspired me to write by own atonal composition. Perhaps the art of picking out random notes that sound interesting, well that is how it started out. Some more inspiration came from a lecture from Rick Beato on tone clusters. A collection of atonal melodic ideas, atonal cluster chords and some fast paced arpeggios was then the beginning of this composition. The percussion section then followed. Most of the melodic and chordal sections were played with a church organ inspired instrument, I just imagined my self playing a massive church organ where the walls and floors shook as the chords were stacked up. The second instrument I learnt was an organ, heavily influenced by the works of Baroque composer J.S. Bach.
The bass line was then added, a synthesised bass characterised by the use of portamento. At times the melodic content came from the bass, other times a back drop.
In the mean time, a friend of mine passed on a sound sample of their electric tooth brush, tucked away for a music challenge to see what I could make of it musically. The buzzing sound was interspersed with rattles, and by chance without pitch modification offered a good introduction sound, which was later used as a melodic instrument through pitch shifting, various sound filtering and reverb effects.
My electric violin was sitting on my desk, beckoning to be played, so I tried out some melodic ideas, improvising on top. This was a combination of rhythmic chop and echoing out the sentiment of the bass line and developing it further. The violin offered a smooth warm contrast to powerful church organ sound.
The Stigma synthesiser from Full Bucket was also used in the atonal arpeggios, a sharp contrast to the church organ sound.
I have been toying with the idea of taking the percussion section’s rhythm and apply this directly to a melodic instrument section. Without a change in the rhythm, I applied this to melodic instruments but added melodic content. This then fades out with the purely percussion section taking over. The instrument use for this introduction was the sound sampled and pitch shifted of a hollow pipe being hit.
So yes, samples from perhaps strange places, a hollow steel pipe and a tooth brush.
Instruments:
* CurtainRodKnock, VST, sampled by Norman Freund
* Church Organ (Captive Cathedral, Ableton Live, Houston Singletary), VST
* Percussion (64 Pads Dub Techno Kite, Ableton Live), VST
* Synth. Bass (Anxious Woofer, Ableton Live, Houston Singletary)
* Tooth Brush, VST, sound sample recorded by T. Schuster, VST instrument creation by N. Freund
* Electric Violin, NS Design 4 String Wave
- Genre
- Jazz & Blues