brettworks

thinking through music, sound and culture

Category: creative strategies

August 31, 2012

On Four Tet’s Good Taste

“It’s very rare for me to use instruments or synths or anything like that.” – Kieran Hebdan

I have long felt that the electronic musician Four Tet (aka Kieran Hebdan) has good taste. He makes what critics once labelled “folktronica” music, a term that probably came about in an effort to describe how Hebden deftly combines the best of the acoustic and electronic worlds. What gives him good taste though, is something more subtle. It’s his sounds, sure–nothing too exotic, and always invigorating. But also his arrangements that lean towards song forms, as well as the proportions within them–how, for instance, things repeat, but repeat just enough. Things don’t exactly loop Hebden’s world, but rather continue for a precise time. In a word, the music is considered.

For example, in “She Just Likes To Fight” from his 2010 recording There Is Love In You, we hear a 4/4 kick drum, some cymbals, languid electronic guitars (that sound like a gentle take on Malian popular music), a little analog synth and faux strings/pad sounds, an African gankogui iron bell playing in 12-beat meter and a few stick drum samples (maybe a Ghanian kidi drum sample?). There’s at least seven sounds in the texture, yet everything stays unified, understated and calm like a happy sports team on their way to a big game, their positive tension building. You hardly notice that the African 12/8 bell pattern doesn’t line up with the 4/4 kick until after the kick has played twelve hits.

“Circling” is another satisfying Hebden track. It too has a 4/4 kick, but this time with harp, more electric guitar (loops played backwards and forwards from the sounds of it) arpeggiating away, plus a few more abstract pulsating synth sounds. Hebden does little things to make the track hum and stay interesting. For example, the guitar loop is six bars long (instead of the expected eight)–long enough to be compelling, but slightly truncated to keep you on your toes. And once that six bar loop has been in motion for a while, Hebden further plays with its length by repeating just sections of it. As you listen you sense a logic of considered musical decision-making in play, making it feel that nothing is ever plain old repetition. Maybe the key here is that Hebden plays with his materials meaningfully, not relying on technology to make things easy but rather to make possible interesting shifts of texture and proportion.

The other unusual thing about “Circling” is its meter: the piece has a 12/8 meter feel (like the African bell in “She Just Likes To Fight”), each main beat divided into three instead of four pulses as would be the case in electronic dance music’s more conventional 4/4 meter. So even though there’s that steady 4/4 kick thumping away, it’s the three-ness of all the other sounds that gives this aptly titled track its circular vibe.

In this YouTube clip, someone has assembled some old footage that makes for a nice visual counterpoint to Hebden’s piece:

If you are intrigued by Hebden’s music, check out this video from Future Music magazine where he describes his use of the Yamaha Tenori-On, a portable sequencer:

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July 13, 2012

On Finding Cross-Sensory Inspiration: The Spell Of Michel Bras

The Michelin-starred, self-taught French chef Michel Bras may as well be a music composer, such is his multi-sensory approach to his culinary craft. In the ambient and thoughtful documentary Inventing Cuisine: Michel Bras (2008), directed by Paul Lacoste, we see Bras at work on the kitchen–poaching fish, peeling veggies, brooding over his (fascinating) sketchbooks, and generally just looking concerned, lost in thought, and worried about the state of things in his kitchen. But we also see Bras outside in the blowing wind, under overcast skies, finding inspiration in the shifting play of light, wind, rocks, grassy hills, and whatever else he notices in the rugged environment near his restaurant in Laguiole, a remote area in southern France.

In one scene from the documentary (which begins at 4:57 in the YouTube clip below), we find Bras outside observing the sky and landscape through a piece of glass he’s set up on an easel. Like a painter, he’s trying to literally “frame” a piece of his environment by tracing what he sees directly onto what is essentially a translucent canvas. Later, Bras will use his glass tracing as the basis for designing the layout of a new dish on a dinner plate (which we actually saw Bras assembling just before this scene; so much for proper film chronology). “Everyone has their own reading and rewriting [of nature]” says Bras. “The plate is the most difficult part. It’s a sky on a stormy night. The backlit cloud bank captivates me, so maybe I’ll paint it on a plate.”

This scene reminded me of composers finding inspiration (or the idea/ideal that composers find inspiration) in their environments by turning their ears towards say, the rhythmic sound of city traffic and hearing music as with Steve Reich’s City Life (1995)

or maybe noticing the enchanted aura of an old cathedral and imagining out from there as with Claude Debussy’s La Cathédrale Engloutie (1910, performed here by the composer himself in 1913!)

or otherwise paying attention to something else that they want to translate from one medium into another.

And back to cooking, this is what is so fascinating about Bras in this scene: the cross-sensory nature of his creative process. As is the case with someone who experiences synesthesia (experiencing one sensory domain in terms of another–like hearing a chord and seeing the color purple, etc.), Bras is taking in something visual but funneling it through olfactory means: a sight becoming a taste (not to mention a texture, a set of relations and contrasts). It’s all about one of my favorite processes: transformation. And not only does Bras work cross-sensorially to transform elements from one sphere to another, he also gets deeply into the materials of his craft:

“For years, I’ve been interested in the abstract side of things. I get into them, I identify with them. In cooking, I often identify with the ingredient. I try to understand it, become one with it in order to recreate it.”

Finally, like a composer who knows how different rhythms and harmonies will interact to make an enchanting sum greater than its humdrum parts, so too does Bras knows his edible materials well. For instance, he attributes his interest in pastry to the fact that they have a structure that can be altered in a predictable way: “You put in flour, add sugar, you know the outcome.” Bras, then, is a materialist, but like good artists in other fields, he’s a materialist fueled by imagination and the sense(s) to change one kind of matter into another:

“I have a physio-chemical approach to food that helps me enormously. Because I learned on my own it was a real struggle. Today I can sense and predict the transformation process.”

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May 24, 2012

On Beginnings And Anywheres: A John Cage Aphorism


I see the words on an inspirational magnet in a shop window.

“Begin anywhere”

the late American experimental composer John Cage (1912-1992) tells us.

But what was the point of this telling?

Cage in fact walked the walk of his talk, relying on rolling dice, consulting the Chinese I-Ching book of hexagrams, and even scrutinizing the minute imperfections of music staff paper to define anywhere for him and assist in making the decisions (or free himself from the decision-making) required to construct his music scores.

But again, what was the point of this telling?

A quick and perhaps unreliable Internet search reveals that Cage might have meant his words as advice for those facing the psychological paralysis brought about by not knowing where to begin their project, their work, their book, their art. Perhaps–and now that I think of it, Internet searches themselves can often be exactly like this as well–the problem is having too many options, too many links, which brings about a flawed question to oneself: Where’s the best place to begin (my search, my project, etc.)?

It’s a flawed question because there is no best place to begin. From the standpoint of creative work, all places are good enough and all places are beginnings.

Finally, something else comes to mind when I think about that inspirational magnet. Begin anywhere, certainly, but once begun with whatever it is that you’re doing, be deliberate about your going. Cage walked the walk of his talk in this respect too. Whatever methods he used to help him make musical decisions, once he set up the system, so to speak, he rigorously adhered to it, letting it take him and his compositions somewhere (and these somewheres didn’t always make for engaging listening either). In other words, it takes a great discipline to grant oneself the freedom to begin anywhere and then let that anywhere run its course.

Here is Cage’s “Sonata V” from his Sonatas and Interludes (1946-1948) for prepared piano:

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March 22, 2012

On Pop Music Production Geneologies: Ester Dean’s Compositional Process

In his recent New Yorker article “The Song Machine”, John Seabrook explores the songwriting process behind contemporary pop music. Today’s Top Forty hit, says Seabrook, “is almost always machine made: lush sonic landscapes of beats, loops, and synths in which all the sounds have square edges and shiny surfaces, the voices are Auto-tuned for pitch, and there are no mistakes” (50). Much of this electronic pop is sung by woman such as Beyoncé, Lady Gaga, Katy Perry, Nicki Minaj, and Rihanna. And it sells a ton too. Rihanna, for instance, has sold upwards of 120 million digital singles.

But what makes pop–even electronic, Auto-Tuned pop–pop are its catchy hooks. Enter Ester Dean, a singer-songwriter with a deep talent for writing snap-crackle melodies. Dean collaborates with producers (such as the Norwegian duo known as Stargate) who write instrumental tracks for her to sing over. The collaborations have led to numerous hit songs made famous by others including Rihanna’s “What’s My Name” (which I have written about here) and “Rude Boy”, and Nicki Minaj’s “Super Bass” (which I have written about here).

Dean’s compositional process is to intuitively groove with the song, initially singing nonsense vocables–which may well explain the hook in Rihanna’s “What’s My Name”: “Oh, na-na, what’s my name?“–that mesh well with the rhythm of the track. From there, she fleshes out words that make lyrical sense. What’s interesting about Dean’s process is that it effectively captures her initial viscerally rhythmic response to a track and then systematically builds upon this energy. As Seabrook describes Dean’s particular (and lucrative) skill:

“Somehow she is able to absorb the beat and the sound of the track, and to come out with its melodic essence. The words are more like vocalized beats than like lyrics, and they don’t communicate meaning so much as feeling and attitude…”(49).

Below are clips of both Dean and Rihanna singing Dean’s song “What’s My Name”:

You can read Seabrook’s article here.

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February 21, 2012

Sound Decisions: On Daniel Kahneman’s “Thinking, Fast and Slow”


“Instinct puts us in the moment, intellect is slower.” – Robert Fripp

“The proof that you truly understand a pattern of behavior is that you know how to reverse it.” - Daniel Kahneman

Sometimes while working on writing new music I’ve noticed how I oscillate between two frames of mind. One frame feels spontaneous and intuitive. Within this frame I work quickly to put sounds together guided by what feels like nothing other than the task at hand. Typical thoughts: “Oh, that sounds cool! Do more of that! Do it again!” (And again!) When I’m in this frame the work feels easy and unencumbered; I’m confident in knowing what sounds “right” and proceed accordingly. The other frame of mind feels more encumbered. Within this frame I’m deliberate and cautious, working slowly and always wanting to “weigh the options” and get a bird’s-eye view of how everything works and connects. Within this frame I want to know where we’re going before we get there rather than just being thrilled by the ride itself.

I worked for many years with a vague awareness of these two frames of mind. But all that changed recently when I read Daniel Kahneman’s Thinking, Fast and Slow, a comprehensive dissection of our patterns of intuitive and deliberate thinking and the tendencies of each. Kahneman is a an Israeli-American psychologist and Nobel Laureate with expertise on the psychology of judgment and decision-making. According to Kahneman, human thinking can be characterized in terms of two types. To help the reader get a sense of their differences, Kahneman refers to these types of thinking as System 1 and System 2.  System 1 is the intuitive type. It is by definition impulsive, jumping to conclusions based in limited evidence. System 1 generates impressions, feelings, and inclinations; and when “endorsed by System 2 these become beliefs, attitudes, and intentions” (105). System 2, on the other hand, is the deliberate type. It is by definition cautious and capable of reasoning (48), and also somewhat lazy in that it needs to be kick-started into action. No matter what we think we may believe about how we think, Systems 1 and 2 are always engaged to various degrees, as well as in conflict–battling it out for our attention and engagement.

But most of the time, it’s System 1 that steals the show due to its quick reaction time and sureness in its judgements. Consider a musical example. Let’s say you hear a particular chord progression and you just can’t help feeling a particular feeling comprised of a series of emotional associations. It’s as if the music made you feel a particular way, and darn it, this is what the music means. It’s obvious! Your emotional reaction to the chord progression is what Kahneman might call “associative activation” and pure System 1 at work: “ideas that have been evoked trigger many other ideas, in a spreading cascade of activity in your brain” (51). This cascade of associations is just one of the many reasons why System 1′s workings can feel so right and intuitive. By contrast, to get a sense of System 2 at work consider being asked to multiply 24 times 17. System 1 is of little use here (and anyway, it’s doubtful much in the way of particular emotions will cascade out of this task). You need to slow down and deliberately work through the problem to solve it. This slow-moving deliberateness is the strength of System 2.

The main theme of Thinking, Fast and Slow is that we should be very skeptical of our intuitions and not let ourselves believe whatever comes to our minds (153). This is difficult to do because “following our intuitions is more natural, and somehow more pleasant, than acting against them” (194). Moreover, intuition is unreliable because it’s susceptible to all manner if influence, including what psychologists call “priming”–an idea presented to us in a subtle or not so subtle way that influences our actions. There are dozens of case studies in Thinking, Fast and Slow that illustrate the shortcomings of System 1 intuitive thinking, including discussions of narrative fallacy (how creating a flawed story about ourselves in the past shapes the illusion that we understand our future), how we exaggerate the coherence of what we hear, focusing illusions (our tendency to overstate the impact of certain circumstances on which we focus our attention), cognitive illusions (such as the illusion of the “hot hand” in basketball), the dangers of confidence and optimism (!), the strengths of using algorithms to guide decision-making, the limitations of the “insider’s view”, the folly of risk-management and forecasting, theory-induced blindness, the power of loss aversion, the sunk-cost fallacy, how memories can be wrong, how to spot cognitive minefields–and on and on. In this exceptionally rigorous book the detailed case studies are many and the evidence solid. As rational beings, we are hard-wired for error, “prone to exaggerate the consistency and coherence” of what we experience (114). To make matters even more sobering, it’s difficult for us to truly change ourselves, to re-set how we see the world and our place in it. We have, says Kahneman in a phrase that sums up well our predicament, an “almost unlimited ability to ignore our ignorance” (201).

***

So what has this to do with me making music? Well, as I sit at the computer working on a project, Kahneman’s book has me imagining the dialog between my Systems 1 and 2 and how my System 2 thought processes have been helpful to the project’s progress. I began over a year ago, working willy-nilly on five different tracks that were related in that they all use audio samples of the same earlier work of mine. There were some convincing moments on each of the five pieces-in-progress, but the material was all over the place. 

What I now think of as System 2 demanded some overriding order, so I started to boil the pieces down to just a few sounds and made sure each piece had exactly the same sound palette. While this decision to boil the pieces down felt arbitrary–for how could I ever decide on the sounds when there are so many interesting ones out there?–it also seemed, practically speaking, necessary. And shockingly to me, the boiling down process took several months of arguing with what I now think of as System 1 which always just wanted to get down with playing and having fun. (“System 2, Why do we have to be so organized?”) But System 2 insisted on the constraints, knowing that without them System 1 would flounder and I’d get frustrated–like an archer without a target. Finally, with the sound palette and an overall direction in place courtesy of System 2, I could get back to playing, attending to the (fun) details of building patterns, linking parts, editing, and assembling structures until they sound right.

There remain some uncertainties about this work-in-progress, especially concerning the qualities that can make the music hum when they’re in place but drag when they’re missing. In other words, I’m not sure the music will work until . . . it does or doesn’t. But what I learned from Thinking, Fast and Slow is that questioning one’s intuitions with slow, big picture deliberation (quick–24 times 17!) can ultimately be energizing. It certainly helped me get around what felt like a block with no clear cause besides the unreasonable expectation that intuition is the solution to all musical problems. At the computer, I still work in spurts of what feels like System 1 intuitive forward momentum, and I still don’t quite know where I’m going or how exactly I have come to know what I know. But that’s okay, because I proceed with a confidence born from realizing that uncertainty is part of the musical game and I can still make sound decisions in the face of it.

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January 17, 2012

On Perception, Presence, And The Creative Process: John Berger’s “Bento’s Sketchbook”


“I’m taking my time, as if I had all the time in the world. I do have all the time in the world.” – John Berger

John Berger’s Bento’s Sketchbook (2011) is a meditation on the connections between seeing, feeling, and drawing, and how these connections shape how we perceive and make sense of the world. The book takes its inspiration from the writings of the 17th-century philosopher Baruch Spinoza (1632-1677). Spinoza worked as an optical lens grinder by day, and in his free time wrote monumental philosophical tracts on rationality that helped pave the way for the Enlightenment. (Is there is a better argument for having a humble day job so you’re set up to do serious work in your spare hours?) Among Spinoza’s assertions: that God and Nature are one and the same, that body and mind are unified, and that there are three kinds of knowledge–opinion, reason, and intuition (only the intuitive type is “eternal”). Spinoza is widely considered to have made significant (and early) contributions to our understanding of how the mind works.

Spinoza–”Bento” to his friends–apparently kept a sketchbook, but it was lost to history and no one seems to know what was in it. Berger (1926-), an eminent English art critic (author of the classic Ways Of Seeing, among many other works of criticism and fiction) and a painter himself, was inspired to use Spinoza as his muse when a friend gave him a beautiful leather-bound sketchbook. This sketchbook got him wondering: What did Spinoza’s sketchbook look like? Bento’s Sketchbook dovetails around excerpts from Spinoza’s writings, and Berger’s own included sketches–of plants, people, paintings in galleries–are a kind of reply to Spinoza’s missing ones. These drawings are the starting point for Berger’s engagement with Spinoza’s thought through the reflections, inquiries and stories that comprise this brief book.

There are many amazing little ethnographic vignettes in Bento’s Sketchbook that demonstrate Berger’s wizardly powers of observation and writing. But my favorite sections are those that zoom in on the creative process–and I don’t use that phrase as a cliché either. Berger can really unpack things as only a practitioner (who can write) can. For example, near the beginning of the book he describes, and shows sketches of, a small flower in front of him that he’s in the process of drawing–a series of lines that question what is observed, accumulating “the answers” (8). And here is the fulcrum of the process: “At a certain moment…the accumulation becomes an image–that’s to say stops being a heap of signs and becomes a presence…This is when your looking changes. You start questioning the presence as much as the model” (ibid.). Then the refining begins. “You stare at the drawing…at what is radiating from [it], at [its] energy” (ibid.). You take in, in other words, its presence. The accumulative process continues as you add and subtract bits until the work feels finished and right.

No matter what artistic field you work in, there are a lot of sound observations in Bento’s Sketchbook to mull over. The challenge, as any artist/composer/writer/Maker of Things knows, is getting to that point where the thing’s presence starts to assert its energy back at you. You know when this is happening (“this is where the looking changes”): the music starts to play in your head when you’re somewhere else, or the ideas from the page keep repeating themselves silently. That’s presence asserting itself.

Berger also articulates some of the more ineffable aspects of artistic craft. In this passage he describes the intuitive naturalness (for lack of a better phrase) of his craft: ”When I’m drawing…I have the impression at certain moments of participating in something like a visceral function…a function that is independent of the conscious will…in something prototypical and anterior to logical reasoning” (149).

And even though this is primarily a book about seeing and drawing, in synesthesia moments Berger uses tactile and sonic metaphors when describing the search for the right color: “You search touch by touch for a timbre…and then you discover whether or not when applied…the color matches the ‘voice’ you were searching for” (22; italics added).

In sum, there’s a quiet magic to Berger’s writing–the way he says the right thing with the least amount of fuss and filigree, leaving clear prose that rings in your mind like a bell long after it’s struck. By noticing the things that count–and making things count by noticing them–Bento’s Sketchbook invests simple gestures, everyday transactions, and common moments with massive grace and resonance.

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December 1, 2011

On Wonderment And Scripts In Electronic Music Making

“I always say to myself, what is the most important thing we can think about at this extraordinary moment?”—Buckminster Fuller

There’s a feeling I’m getting used to by now as I make electronic music: a sense of wonderment regarding all the sonic possibilities I’m not exploring at this very (extraordinary) moment. Once upon a time that sense of wonder would stymie me, freezing my progress in the humble here and now with thoughts shaped like question marks circling around the prospect of what could be.

It’s easy for an electronic musician to fall under the spell of what could be. One reason for this is that even the most humdrum of software tools offer a staggering number of  possibilities for shaping sound.  Where shall we go and how will we get there? You’re not limited by your musical-kinesthetic technique as much as your intuitive decision-making skills. In my case, vast worlds seem to open up with a cursory–and sometimes quite accidental–twist of a virtual knob or click on a virtual button. Oh, that sounds cool! (I think to myself) Searching for cool sonics, I spend a lot of time just listening and making little adjustments and gauging their effects. (I don’t remember ever doing enough of this when I was studying music at university–too focused I was on acquiring technique or perhaps learning some piece?) Here I’m reminded of that quote from the composer John Cage about how he never imagined anything before he experienced it.  This has been my experience as well.  As a phenomenologist sitting at the computer, I try this and that until the sensual rightness of something catches my ear and gives me a means by which to imagine.

Moreover, what is in the state of electronic music technology–computers, software, hardware–is constantly evolving, pushing musicians one way or another.  In her article “The De-Scription of Technical Objects”, Madeleine Akrich argues that technical objects have “scripts” or possible “scenarios” inscribed into them by their designers who “attempt to predetermine the settings that users are asked to imagine for a particular piece of technology…” At the same time though, users “may define quite different roles of their own” in their quest for finding new ways of working not intended by the technology’s designers (Shaping Technology/Building Society, MIT Press, 1992, p.208).

So it’s a negotiation between musician and technical object–the “script” of the encounter co-written as it were.

***

But back to wonderment. Because the possibilities feel endless, we have to rein wonder in by deliberately limiting our scope, narrowing our focus, paring things down. One strategy that has served me well in my “current” project–begun in 2009!–is to decide on a set of sounds and stick with them and only them. For my project, these sounds include a few not so exotic staples (a sub bass, a bell, a harp, a pad, an organ) plus about six different drum machines (including replicas of Roland TR-808, 606, and CR-78 machines for you gear heads out there). Everything is set up and ready to go so I can work quickly and preserve a sense of play. Also–and this is important–if I can’t find an interesting sound from among these sources . . . then tough luck for me. But I also keep in mind that these sounds are also just a starting point. Indeed, they may well be morphed into new forms later on in the composition/production process.

A second strategy is to build symmetry and cohesiveness into the pieces by moving  parts around from one section to another. It’s a little like the concept of a “common tone” where a note from one chord continues into the following one, acting like a sonic glue. Similarly, a repeating hi hat pattern or a marimba drone can be moved around and used as connective tissue. Of course, the very design of my digital audio software program with its “clips” and “scenes” layout is an example of Akrich’s script that guides my way of working and thinking about musical parts as moveable common tones.

A final strategy I use involves building into each part a sense of directionality: moving from a pattern that is sparse (few notes per measure) to one that is more dense (more notes per measure). In this way, each part develops over the course of its duration (which can be anywhere from 4 to over 100 measures). When several parts of different lengths with different rates of moving from sparseness to density are running simultaneously, the overlapping directionalities can make for interesting listening.

These strategies have served me well.  And I’m always on the lookout for new ones that will focus my work by keeping wonderment about what I’m not doing in check for the moment.

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