BRIAN MAKES MUSIC

A series of videos exploring various musical subjects including; composition, tonality, alternative music making ideas and more.

EPISODE 1 • Real Time Music Doodle// Paperjam // Composition on paper.

I really enjoy writing music on paper as I don't have to listen to the notes while I do. Always an exciting and rather treacherous task!

But so you won't only have to hear me ramble on I have retrospectively inserted harmonic clusters and suggestions of the emerging piece. Sort of a simulation of what's occurring in my noodle, while I doodle tunes.

Harmonic clusters are initially arranged as a sequence of stacked quartal harmonies rooted on various notes. Chromatic linking chords are inserted in between and the soup is stirred, parts and ideas are extracted and a piece is born. With a little help from Shakespeare this time. ;)

At the end of the process you'll hear the recorded sketch (I'm thinking guitar and bass on this one).

EPISODE 2 • A method for generating and arranging tones from transcendental numbers, whilst babbling on of course.

I've been listening to this quite a bit since I made it and, maybe I'm imagining things, but it does leave me feeling something and at times the tones combine in such a way as they almost sound like they are warping.

Do you hear it too or do I need a vacation somewhere nice and quiet?

EPISODE 3 • Resonance and the 'Rostiger Nagel'

Located in Senftenberg, Brandenburg is the 'Rostiger Nagel', a 30 metre high observation tower made of 111 tonnes of Corten steel, whose 162 steps lead to the viewing platform at the zenith.

On a recent cycling trip me and friends Rory & Pete encountered the Rostiger Nagel.

The thing seemed so alive with sonic possibilities that I was reminded of Nikola Tesla's experiments with sympathetic vibration and buildings. So, following in Dr. Tesla's way, we set about exciting the molecules of the structure by using a guitar with a phone tone generator app and a bluetooth speaker to find the primary resonant tones. Once found, these tones are played into the structure at various points using differing waveforms, dynamics and octaves.

What resulted could certainly be heard for miles.

Tone Generator and video editing by Rory Grubb

Percussion and video • Peter D'Elia

Guitar and structural tuning • Brian

EPISODE 4 • Complex Music from Simple Shapes

Piece begins at 3:58 minutes

If tackling complex harmonic relationships and sidling in and out of ambiguous tonalities, yet ending up with a coherent and enjoyable result sounds like way too much work, well friends have I got the thing for you...

In this video I demonstrate how simple shape relationships can be used to generate solid micro musical material for expansion, inclusion in larger pieces, or simply to enjoy for themselves. Like pets. Pets that live forever. Nice pets.

The audio realisation is two electric guitars, mostly at the octave with some electronic elements and doubling. And a triangle. And no cowbell.

Confession: I did add a note on the first section yellow triangle (a 5th) as I wanted to get the flat 2 major 7th thing suggested. But otherwise it's all rock solid true to the shapes.

Check out Peter Schatt's Tone Clock over at toneclock.org if you like this kind of composition method. There's a heap of stuff on it there.

EPISODE 5 • Interactive Online Synth

This video is an interactive synth of sorts which I cobbled together as I was curious to see if the idea would work. To play, press 1-9 to hear notes of a G minor scale. I noticed that the first press of each number usually requires buffering but thereafter it's pretty playable with a touch of latency on the upper degrees.

In the absence of any interaction, music will play on its own. These are live guitar improvisations with asymmetrical/incommensurable loops based around a recurring theme. You can interrupt this music by pressing any numbers between 1 and 9 to continue your exploration of the G minor scale. I've made '9' the octave and '7 and 8' the two '7th' options, F and F#.

Note: This hastily assembled idea won't work on mobile devices (I imagine) but you can still enjoy the guitar improvisations nestled between the scale degrees.

The D note has some reverb tail from the piece before to make it subtly a V7 Dominant chord. Useful for making a V7 - i kind of cadence. Slick.

I also noticed that this 'machine' sounds real nice if you play it against La Monte Young's The Four Dreams Of China LP. But then again, what wouldn't!

Enjoy the Infinite Music Machine with friends and Family.

EPIISODE 6 • The World's Slowest Glissando

Glissando begins 1:36 and at 2:40 I forget how to spell 'Rhythms'. But in fairness Peter Suurmond forgets how to spell 'Wavelengths' at 3:20. So it all comes out even Stevens.

So here's the pitch... You take a group of notes and gradually raise them together in frequency by a semitone (half-tone) over three minutes. I'll bet the family silver that a person will not be able to perceive the pitch change. Instead I feel that the awareness shifts to the changing wavelengths resulting in evolving rhythms heard beneath the tones.

As with my last video, this is a functioning microtonal instrument that you can play too.

Press the numbers 4-9 (notes I like to call 'U,V,W,X,Y and Z') to play the ever-so-slightly-different tones and create your own microtonal composition. A 'U' major arpeggio would be played by cycling U, W and Y (4,6 and 8) for example. At least that's how I like to think of it. Great ear training anyways.

In order to glide as seamlessly as possible between notes I employ nanotones: the theoretically infinite axis of frequencies that exist between any two pitches. But don't think about that too much or you won't be able to sleep. Believe me.

This composition (entitled 'Sleight of Hand') consists of three such tones gliding as seamlessly as my resources would allow up a minor 2nd over three minutes and then suddenly returning to the original pitches.

I reckon this test constitutes a composition, not because of the underlying principle described above but because of the arbitrary decisions i.e. The use of three tones, the decision to relate their frequencies by 33% and by selecting a duration as well as the loudness of each tone and panning etc... I keep it pure though as reverb or such relish would mess up the wavelengths.

But above all, it's an experiment. Like a microscope held over the everyday tones that make up our favourite music. I did kind of approximate the tones in terms of the minor 2nd but it's very close and the effect is the same anyway. You can hear just how 'far' you travelled when the pitches return to the beginning tones.

I did search for impossibly slow glissandos on-line (for about 5 minutes) and came up short. But I imagine the likes of composers La Monte Young, Stockhausen, The Long Now, Oliveros etc... probably knocked this concept out of the park in the mid 60s already. If you know of such a piece please pass on the name!

Either way, the world of Nanotonality is floating my boat this week and I thought it was worth a share.