Think outside the bar - Musical Creativity 11

I mentioned in a previous article that standard western pop music usually has a pattern based around the bar or measure. Many forms of music do not adhere to this and may have a pattern that repeats around groups of 2, 3, 4 or more bars. By allowing for different stress patterns within the group, the overall rhythm can become more complex.

Flamenco is a great proponent of this. Even in the periods of music with no melody (when you can just hear the hand-clap and/or the percussionist), the rhythm should be very noticeable. The compás is so fundamental to the music.

Just as we commonly use 4/4, 3/4, 6/8, etc for rhythms, flamenco has its own variations. These variations introduce different stress patterns in the groups of bars. For instance, the stress pattern in a Seguiriya will be different from that in a Sevillanas.

Note how rhythmically a Fandango is roughly equivalent to 3/4.

The aim isn't for anyone to become immediately proficient in any form (let alone all forms) of flamenco, but instead to be able to take a part of the flamenco concept and apply it to their own compositions. In this case, I'd suggest focussing on the rhythm to start with.

Esflamenco.com has a great set of pages looking at the different Palos that form the compas.

Flamenco World has a good introduction to flamenco including a good listening guide.

Juan Martin's El Arte Flamenco de la Guitarra book and cd is still the standard teach-yourself book and gives a good grounding in flamenco, not just the guitar parts.

Chuck Keyser's pages are a good place to go for a more in-depth analysis.

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Merge - Musical Creativity 12

Personally I often find the fusion more interesting than either of the basic forms themselves. I mentioned Flamenco in the previous article in this series. As a style, I love it. As one component in a fused musical composition, it's even more exciting. Flamenco itself can be considered a fusion of multiple styles, but I guess that could be said of many styles anyway.

By the way, when I mention fusion, I'm thinking of the fusion of two styles of music rather than the more specific Fusion style that came out of 70s jazz. 

For a fusion of flamenco and metal, Breed 77 have had a few cds of good, melodic rock founded on flamenco concepts:
In My Blood (En Mi Sangre) is a good introduction to their music. Or for one in Spanish:
Un Encuentro.

More acoustic-based are Rodrigo y Gabriela with a few releases, most notably Live in Manchester and Dublin and Rodrigo Y Gabriela. 

If you prefer something heavier, then Uriah Duffy's Flametal band may be more to your taste. The Elder has louder guitars, harsher vocals, but still retains a flamenco feel.

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Bossa Nova - Musical Creativity 13

I've mentioned flamenco in recent articles. I want to diverge from the typical guitar/singer/castanets view of flamenco and move to the more energic latin rhythms. Rather than write what's written elsewhere, The Fifth Fret gives a good article on what Bossa Nova means. 

Notice the stress on the rhythms. It's important. Again we find a stress pattern that works across bars, especially with the bass playing on different beats to normal.

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Raag Raga - Musical Creativity 14

About a decade ago I read a mind-opening passage by Ravi Shankar. It was along the lines of classical music isn't just western. India and indeed other countries and cultures have their own classical music. It may not conform to what we think of as classical music in the west, e.g. written down for a set type of orchestra, but it has its own parallel tradition.

The article was a foreward in a book on Indian music. It was a great book to read, although sadly I admit I didn't finish it at the time. Now I come to read it through properly, I can't find it. I can find similar books, but none with the same foreward. The Google book archive allows us to see some pages of archived books and from that, I've figured out that the book I'm looking for is not among the archived books. Some of them do look interesting though.

I've written a few articles on flamenco and I had wanted to follow-up on them by collating together some pointers as to the history of flamenco and the its genesis in Raags/Ragas. That book was a prime candidate for drawing parallels between the two musical forms. As it stands, I've collected a few links that contain a wealth of information on the subject.

Similar to the compas in flamenco, a raag is a combination of both rhythm and scale. To me, the raga has more emphasis on the notes allowed than a compás does, but both combine notes and stress patterns. More specific, it is the raga that states the notes/melodies to be used and the tala which states the rhythm. Similar to flamenco, the rhythm patterns can stretch across several bars.

Amitava Sarkar and the ICMCA provide the following definition of a Raag:

- The list of specific notes that can be used during playing of the raag
- The manner in which the notes are used, i.e. specific ways of ornamenting notes or emphasizing/de-emphasizing them
- Manner in which the scale is ascended or descended
- Optional or required musical phrases, the way in which to reveal these phrases, and/or combine them
- The octave or frequency range to emphasize
- The relative pacing between the notes
- The time of day and/or season when the raag may be performed so as to invoke the emotions of the raag for maximum impact on the mental and emotional state of the performer and listener

That gives some insight into the framework which a Raag provides. Even the time of day and season can be involved Imagine if you were told that it was only appropriate to play Country music between 9am and 11am in Summer?

Raags:

Simple introduction at About.com

More detailed information at:
Know Your Raga.com
Chandrakanta.com
Ravi Shankar

The archived books:

The Dawn of Indian Music in the West - Lavezzoli
Romance of The Raga - Moorthy

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Filter it out - Musical Creativity 15

Timing itself can be used more creatively. One of the features I use is to have two concurrent rhythms. This may simply be a drum, bass and guitar line focussing on the main beats of 4/4 but with a synth patch in triplets.

One of the best ways I've found to do this is to apply filters based on what's worked for me before, then tweak on a trial and error basis. Fortunately I've had a very good success rate. 

The trick that works for me is to apply a tremolo and a modulation effect to the synth channel. The tremolo is important since you can turn even a pad sound into staccato tuplets. That's useful. It can add a bounce to the music. Usually, I start with the synth playing either a pad sound, one per bar or set to some regular pattern such as quavers. The tremolo takes the input rhythm (if there is one) and turns it into a different output.
Add a modulation effect such as a filter bank and you can spice up even a boring sound. 

Try setting the tremolo depth to 65% instead of having it cycling between completely on and off. Set the cycle Phase to 160 or 170 and you can quickly get a groove going.

If that doesn't work, try adding a stereo delay, again this can be set to a tuplet time. You may have to work out the time in seconds to get the rhythm you want.

Signal Chain
In the above scenario, I'd see the following channels.
1) drums
2) bass
3) guitar
4) synth -> tremolo -> filter

If you need the natural sound of the synth to come through, then put the effects on a parallel channel
1) drums
2) bass
3) guitar
4) synth -> bus 1
Bus 1) tremolo -> filter -> delay
Then mix the bus output in to suit. This is also useful because you can eq out the low-end of the synth effects.

The attached mp3 uses both of the signal paths above. It starts with just drums and guitar. I then introduce a synth pad into the mix. The synth is processed through a rotor speaker simulator for some modulation and a tremolo for a rhythm effect. I've automated the tremolo rate to change at around 49 seconds. About 1 minute 2 seconds in and I've changed to another synth sound. This time the synth has its own output mixed low, but a pre-fade send is send to a bus. On that bus, I've put a filter (for changing the high pitch eq), a tremolo for the rhythm and a stereo delay (also for rhythm). I had to add a compressor to keep the output under control as well, although that's not always necessary. Just depends on how extreme the effects are. 


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Rhythm Change - Musical Creativity 16

dsc_0250.jpgEarlier today I wrote an interesting bass riff. Technically, it was nothing special, but it had a good groove to it. I didn't really know where I wanted to take it next, maybe repeat a simpler version of the riff and bring in other instruments for detail. I did know that I didn't want to lose the idea as it's likely to form the foundation of something bigger later on. So I recorded it to a 4/4 clicktrack.

The recording didn't have the right feel so I deleted it and started again. This time, I do what I normally do and put down a drum track first to play along to. I also knew that a standard, straight rock or pop beat wouldn't do it justice. This called for something different. If I'd have decided where I was going with it, then I could have chosen the appropriate drumloops based on the time signature, groove and feel. But I didn't.

Instead, I went through my loop library, investigating the main grooves I thought would work. These turned out to be the 12/8 patterns, 4/4 shuffles, 6/8 patterns and a group of funk tracks. I use BetaMonkey Loops and they're already arranged into well-named groups. Just meant I had a lot to choose from.

Still not having decided, I put roughly 8 bars of each loop on the drum track, keeping the more similar loops together and hit record.

Wow, what a change. I've always known that musicians play differently according to what the other musicians are also playing. (well, they should interact but watch out for bedroom guitarists). I also know that I play differently when the rest of the band change what they're playing, unless it's a conscious effort to keep on the same line.

Each 8 bars had a different feel. Some worked, some didn't work as well, some really stood out. Two very different styles stood out for me and I'll choose one or both of them to go forwards with.

This is the basic track with bass and drumloops. It's not an even 8 bars per change, I was aiming for enough time to develop the idea. If you listen just after each rhythm change, you can hear where I adjust my own playing to suit and at least in one place, I just didn't react in time. It is different playing along to changing drumloops compared to a real drummer. The real drummer would pre-empt changes, either adding notes, even ghost notes or missing notes out as they lead into a change.

This is a raw track with minimal processing and won't end up as it is in any real recording. I will re-record the bass and play it neater when I do the recording for real.

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Choose a different instrument - Musical Creativity 17

I use the technique of changing instruments when I'm revisiting a track that has lain idle for a while. Depending on the deadlines involved, my usual way of composing is write and stop writing when I've hit a dead-end. When I revisit the track, could be the next day or a few months away, I'll try to add more to it. I find the quickest way to add a different flavour is to change the main instrument at the point of where I'm stuck. For instance, let's say that I've got a guitar-based melody for 2 minutes and I'm stuck as to what to do after that, then often I'll change to a keyboard or bass even if only to record 5 seconds or so.

 

It's about the inspiration

The point about this isn't necessarily about the sound of other instrument, but the inspiration that I derive from it. I play guitar differently to how I play bass and different again to how I play keyboards/piano.

 

The Clincher

And here's the weird part for me: after writing the new part on whatever instrument I've chosen, I often re-record it on the original instrument. To my ears, that usually works out better. Especially as it's more likely to blend in better with the first 2 minutes. That's how I see swapping as an aid to creativity; it helps me bypass some of my habits

 

But why bother?

A lot of it is to do with breaking habits. I mentioned that I play guitar differently to how I pay bass. Actually, I play acoustic guitar in a different fashion to how I play electric guitar (and that can be divided as well; pick/no pick, clean/distorted, amplified/DI and so on). Add to this the fact the instruments play notes with different tones and frequencies and I begin to pick out different melodies than I would on the original instrument. More than that, my timing is different because of how I've learnt to play the instruments. I'm better at some than others and so I think differently when I play them. In some cases, it forces me to think about what I want to play and how to achieve it. In recording the part again, I often find the habits that were present in my original playing.

 

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Start on a different instrument - Musical Creativity 18

I mentioned in the previous article about using a different instrument to get past a block, well I also use them to start the process as well. If I compose starting with a guitar, the feel of the song will be different to that if I started on bass. Mainly because if I'm writing on guitar, I'm thinking about chords, riffs, patterns and where the song can develop. Whereas on bass, I'd be writing something that grooves and that locks with the drumbeat.

How well does it work?

Although I'm a better guitarist than bassist, I prefer the songs that I've started on bass. Why? Generally because they're easier to tap your feet to. For something to capture your attention, despite being largely one note at a time, it has to be more interesting than a song that has access to other attributes (such as chords, separate melody, etc). I'll still add in other parts as well beyond the bass, but they'll be there to complement the bass and drums. That does make mixing more awkward since the bass would be have to more prominent than usual. And similar works when I start on keyboard first. Getting away from my main instrument boosts my creativity no end.

What else?

Find a complicated drum loop or better still a series of drum loops. Then write to that. Can work well if you drop the drums out of the mix at regular intervals.

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Try to emulate another instrument - Musical Creativity 19

The same but different

I referred to utilising the differences in each instrument for inspiration in a previous article.

A similar inspiration can happen when you try emulate a different instrument. At first attempt, the emulated instrument often sounds nothing like the intended instrument. That's not necessarily a bad thing.

In one session, I'd used a guitar and processing to emulate an organ sound. I did try re-recording it later with a proper organ patch, but it just didn't have the same feel. I'm still happier with the guitar version and so I kept it. You can tell it's not an organ; that doesn't bother me. I like the sound I ended up with and that counts. Can't remember the exact effects I used on the guitar, when I find my notes, I'll post them as a comment. From memory, I probably used a guitar DI, chorus, rotor cabinet simulator, amp simulator, tube emulator and heavily compressed it so there was little dynamic range. That's a lot of effects, but it got me the basic dirty, organ sound I wanted. I also added a stereo delay to complete the picture.

The End Result

What I learnt was that it's not necessary to have the sound perfectly emulated since often I don't want the perfect sound. Everything we do in the recording process is implementing a choice on how we want the end result to sound. That could be how which microphones we choose or how we place them, which preamps, how much low-end rolloff is applied, eq at recording and or mixing and so on. In the same way, the end result of an emulation doesn't have to sound like the intended instrument. It can do things that the original can't. Try playing 6 concurrent notes on a 4 string bass. Can't be done. Generally you wouldn't want to, but sometimes an effect like that can be useful.

In the story above, I had an organ sound that I couldn't create with an organ synth. And I had attributes of a recorded guitar. I liked that.

The track was "Roll On" and you can find it in Show Reel 4. In the background, there's an atmospheric pad or two that fade in and out. It's only at 2 minutes 50 seconds into the track that I introduced a proper organ sound to heighten the mood. The organ sound I added contained more treble and was a cleaner sound than that provided by the processed guitar.

Other situations 

Another common situation would be trying to record an instrument that you wouldn't normally have access to such as a sitar. Actually I find that a lot of the time, I don't want an accurate sitar sound and an emulation is more likely to fit into the sound I'm looking for.

Is it worth it?

Depends on why you're trying to emulate the instrument.

Sometimes you find a different destination along the journey - in trying to emulate in instrument, you find a melody or a sound that wouldn't come from either the source or the intended instrument. That's my preferred ending.

However, if you're trying to achieve a perfect emulation, then expect to spend a lot of time, tweaking velocities, changing patches many times mid-way through a melody, tweaking zones or ranges, mixing in different instruments. All to get the best sound possible, which unfortunately may still be recognisable as an imitation if you've chosen the wrong notes. Some instruments are easier to emulate than others.

But it should still give you a great idea of what it could sound like from recording the real instruments. From a creativity point of view, I love the near-instant access to banks of instruments so I can figure out if a sound will work out as well as I can hear it in my head or whether I should be thinking of a different instrument or melody. 

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Emulating Guitar - Musical Creativity 20

Which type?

Firstly, I'd want to decide which type of guitar to emulate and then understand as much as I can about that instrument particular type of instrument and how it's played. Actually, that can be said of emulating any instrument. Take note of the instrument's range and where its tonality changes with pitch or volume. For an electric guitar, take note of the pickup types, whether it's strummed or picked, how many notes at a time, how the guitar would be recorded, etc. A strat sounds markedly different to a Les Paul.

Apply the process

Whatever you use to produce the sounds for an electric guitar, it generally sounds better being put through a guitar amp simulator as well, in much the same way that you may do with a guitar. Guitar amps are often mic'd up with two mics and the two tracks mixed together for the desired effect. So try the same sound through two channels, one to emulate the close-up dynamic microphone and another to emulate a condenser placed further away. The condenser channel would be subject to more room sound, so bring in your convolution effects if necessary.

It's the space as well 

The recording space and techniques used to record a classical nylon guitar would be different than the for a electric guitar through a hi-gain amp. They would also be mixed differently.

I'm a guitarist, why would I want to emulate a guitar?

I can think of several reasons:

1) Saves having to get a guitar, amp, microphones, etc out to check out an idea

This isn't really an issue for me, I have an acoustic and at least one electric ready to go at all times. But if you're short on available space in your home studio, I can see this being the case. Occasionally I'll change the patch on a channel to a guitar so some midi notes I've written are produced by a guitar-ish sound, just to get a quick feel for whether it's worth learning the part on a guitar. If I then want the guitar recording, I'll record it properly myself.

2) For creativity

For the same reasons in starting on a different instrument, to be able to play in a different style to what you're used to playing on guitar. By trying to play the instrument on a different interface (e.g. a midi-equipped or USB keyboard), then you have to think differently. That brings out a different result compared to just playing guitar on its own.

3) For flexibility

To play something you couldn't normally play on guitar. If sweep arpeggios are beyond your talent, then you could program them in using midi. Or if it's genuinely impossible to play on a guitar, e.g. a stab consisting of 4 consecutive semitones, e.g. D, D#, E and F in the same octave. Ok, that example would be pretty discordant, but it may float your boat for one reason or another. More useful would be chord inversions that may be theoretically feasible but so awkward to transfer between that they're impossible from a practical perspective.

How effective can it be?

I've found it inspiring to try different musical phrases using an emulated guitar. I've also found it helps with my composing workflow. Furthermore, I can produce something technically complex in a shorter time than it would take to learn it. This has been useful when I've wanted to record an idea for future reference. Better to have the emulated sound that fits into rough mix, which will give me longer to learn the more complex parts, than forget what I wanted to record. In that sense, I'd be using it for taking notes.

If sonic accuracy is your aim, then perhaps try one of the more specialist virtual instruments such as RealStrat. I don't use virtual instruments, I remember looking into one a couple of years ago and I was impressed, very impressed in fact by the resulting sound demo. I was suspicious of how much time it took to get that result. At some point I'll go back and try it again and look in more detail.

Tuning

Apart from the fact that the strings can be tuned to different notes, e.g. nu-Metal would often feature at least a dropped D, if not yet another whole tone decrease, the interaction of the strings themselves can be important. For any guitar with a floating bridge (think most stratocasters and telecasters), the pitch of any one string is dependent on what's being fretted on the other strings. Bend one string and the others will decrease in pitch by a few cents. A lot of blues leads and chicken pickin' styles make use of this effect.

Tone

Guitarists apply tone and produce different sounds just in their playing style. For instance:

1) picking nearer the bridge produces a harsher tone (ponte)

2) picking nearer the neck produces a softer tone (dolce)

You could emulate the above by have a simpler tone more like a sine wave for the dolce sounds and adding more harmonics and a bit of distortion to emulate ponte. I'd also bring in compressors and gates to modify the envelop so that the attack on dolce is slower. The overall volume is lower on dolce than on ponte. If you're going to emulate a classical guitar, then ensure that your samples/virtual instrument can handle the difference between ponte and dolce and hopefully a few points in between. 

Free or Palm-muted

By resting the side of the palm on the strings near the bridge, the guitarist can dampen the sound of the strings. This is reminiscent of a low-pass filter and if the guitarist increases the pressure applied to the strings, the cut-off frequency is reduced, thereby reducing the resulting tonal range. The palm-muting also reduces the dynamic range, probably why it's used to much in heavy rock chugging. By keeping the volume consistent, you can quickly develop a rhythm. Actually guitarists take it a step further and change the pressure applied as the notes are played. This can result in notes being accented or muted througout the phrase, accentuating the desired rhythm. 

Further info 

KVR Forum had a good thread on emulating guitars.

How a guitar works

 

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