Original composition 2: Students will present an original composition comprising exploring rhythmic techniques discussed in class – for example: Rapid Block Development, Rhythmic Cells, Non-retrogradable rhythms, Augmentation and diminution, Rhythmic Ambiguity, Tuplets, Metric Modulation, Rhythmic Matrix, Polyrhythm and Polytempo.
I was excited for this assignment as I've always had a fascination for rhythmic techniques. I thought it would be a good opportunity to show my take on drum and bass breaks, chopped up and resampled in a jungle kind of manner.
Below is a typical example of me taking a breakbeat sample and 'converting it to sampler track' in Logic which maps out every transient or 'hit' of the break to their own midi notes on your keyboard. This feature is an absolute god-send as it increases the speed of workflow by a thousand compared to the golden era of sampling where it would be some what tedious on old clunky machines, although the trade off for the speed is that you lose the 'vibe' of said clunky machines.
Here you can adjust velocity and timing of the hits which makes for easy re-arranging of and audio file. You then have full control over the audio file with Logic's Sampler plug-in, where you can modulate the sounds to your hearts content.
I left it pretty simple and didn't get too wound up in the modulation of sounds as the breakbeat samples I've been collecting over the years are all pretty top notch. I changed the pitch of some and re-arranged them so they weren't so noticeable and did a few filter sweeps here and there.
I wanted to make something pretty chaotic since this was going to be played to an audience in the Richard Gill Auditorium, and due to Covid and the death of a pet this was going to be my first 'performance' of the year so I wanted it to be a memorable one.
After playing the piece in class on a Monday morning and Lindsay being pleased with what I had at the time, which was purely percussive sounds, I asked him if I could put some bass in it so I went home that day and ended up with the recording we have here.
For the bass I used samples from old libraries I had that didn't require much treatment at all. Since this I've been following this kind of music for so long I have a lot of sounds that just 'fit' with each other and the genre.
Hopefully it kept people engaged and surprised, and with the reception it got I think it did.
