Nothing really new here. I’m mostly just looking at harmony – creating tension and release, trying to make voicings as clear and economical as possible, and let the changes be simpler and more concise.

Download here (5.9mb)

Also added a bit more hiss and background ambient noise (in this case, the rattles and hums of the morning bus to work, when everyone is half-asleep). It all seems to helps mask the jumps between sections.

Need to keep honing

These last few sketches are starting to feel a little samey. Maybe I’ll only get so far making things in Logic on the bus to work; I should change things up. Less laptop prodding, more real playing.

Randomness in notation and recording

Working out how to explore some of this in a live setup is probably a good way forward. How would I fold chance operations into a performance or recording context? Been reading a bit about Stockhausen’s Zyklus (1959), where the score can be read either normally, or upside down, or back to front, and contains a whole range of notation, from fixed to chance-based. Must get a copy.

Network delay as compositional material

Another tiny thought has just bubbled up from a memory of talking to Phil ages ago. He mentioned was playing Sketch #01 on his laptop, through some wireless speakers, I think, and that the streaming over wifi caused a lag from time to time, interrupting the music. Sounds like this is ripe for an experiment that doesn’t use regular kick/snare/hat drum patterns, and uses network delay as a way of playing with dramatic pauses or something. Worth a go, I think.