I awaken from slumber thinking about Jazz Standards and analyzing their chord progressions with reference to their melodies. I’ve spent a good amount of time doing such things, though not in a while. When I was writing much of Jēmaraz, I was highly influenced my my studies of different Jazz Standards. Since then, I’ve drifted into a modal territory that is wholly my own. It’s time to take a step back and see how my new methods line up with studies of Jazz Standards. So I’ll put some time aside to go through a few of them now and again.
On the other simpering face of my personal block of sod, I have contrasting ideas about how to proceed with the forthcoming so-called electronic album. Apart from the three and a third pieces that are more or less written, I’m going to try something I’ve been aching and pining to try for at least a few epochs or a few hours. It is thus: Every progression is a series of chromatic dyads. They are all be descending. The time between each is brief in the context of both geologic and insectile age. These dyads form a part of four or five note chords that encompass the harmonic movement. During composition, the dyadic notes most likely fall on the outer edges of where I move my hands along the neck of Henderson or Uruqi. They are the (if open strings are not used in the middle) upper and lower notes of a chord. For now, the kind of chords are not defined. Let’s call the notes that are not of the dyads, and therefore in the middle of where I move my hands along the neck of Henderson or Uruqi, melodic peculiarities. These melodic peculiarities, as the name implies, supply a melodic dimension to the composition.
The harmonic idea is stated. I shall try to stick with it for the remainder of the pieces on the album. The composed three and a third, apart from The Fen, may benefit from mild adjusting partially into such dyadic chromaticism.
Molecules swarm about my face, like geologic insects. I bat them away.
Unique timbre in the electronic realm forms an aspect of each composition. Let’s try to focus on one particular aspect of timbre for each composition. The first that I envision is made up wholly of hits from low pass gates. Is that limiting? No, because the rhythm, speed and placement of these hits create an infinity of textures. I begin with static harmony as the textures evolve, then suddenly lurch into dyadic chromaticism. The listener, imprisoned in a two square meter cube (one has to give one’s prisoner room to stretch itself, of course - I’m not a monster), is enveloped in texture and gently descending harmony. This captive will forget completely about being a captive as bliss becomes the only constant.
Following this “model”, each electronic composition, apart from the actual notes and timbres, writes itself. Funny how that works, eh? I sit on the aforementioned simpering block of sod, which has solidified into an edifice, and I laugh and laugh.
