In another attempt to challenge myself
and create something strange, I decided to build some kind of beat and basically make a random harmony of some kind of it, something dissonant, maybe partially chromatic, although it didn't have to be... so I wound up with this. I actually think the beat could be really useful in a more "normal" sort of song, rather than something purposefully crazy, but for now, it is stuck here. Let's go through the tracks, it's a shorter song again, so there isn't a ton of layering happening, but the harmony line is kind of complicated to type, so I'll include images of what each instrument is playing.
Listen to Practicing the Weird here.
Tracks 1 and 2 are our beat,
with Track 2 coming in after 8 bars of Track 1. Track 2 is more of a real drum kit, while Track 1 is sort of a rhythmic synth sort of sound, although it works really well as a digital snare of sorts. Track 3 is our first track that I selected things at random with. It's an "Otamatone" synth replica basically, so it has a really cool "wah" sort of effect, and by turning up the glide on the instrument, big jumps between notes can result in really cool sounds. I liked how this was sort of a harmony, but not definitive enough to really give us a key center. Essentially I played 2 bars of this, then it just repeats.
Track 4 is next, which is
a great synth sound, it's a Junior Piano, and only has 2 octaves, like a little kids piano, so you're limited in the range. I decided to just play diads, but essentially select each lower and upper note at random, and not in relation to each other. I did quantize this, just because I wanted it to be a straight 16th note progression, so the rhythm parts aren't random, just all the notes. It also created a bit of a pattern on the midi map, generally moving up and down and back again, although that was accidental.
Listen to Practicing the Weird here.
Track 4, described above.
Track 4, described above.Last up is our "bass",
which I basically mapped a rhythm for, then just moved the notes around at random again. Despite this, the song is still sort of cohesive, in a weird, out there way haha. While the harmonies don't give us any real resolution, they do sort of work out. I found this really enlightening; while I wouldn't use this technique for anything "serious", I could see it being very useful if you had writer's block, and wanted to find something inspiring. However, in this song, I didn't really edit any parts after hearing something "good" within them, like you might do in such a scenario, but rather embraced the random weird stuff, which is difficult to do. Your brain and ears desperately want to correct some dissonance, but it seems productive as an exercise to try and fight that impulse sometimes.
Listen to Practicing the Weird here.
Track 5, described above.
Track 5, described above.