Ukiyo-e (Some May)
3/23/2023
A few weeks ago I was noodling around on a guitar and a Japanese-sounding idea emerged, using the Phrygian mode (Greek but sounds Japanese) and I have been developing it in dribs and drabs. Ukiyo-e was on my title list and I used it as a working title.
Recently, I watched the film Minamata. Very often I'll play guitar while watching films (especially if I think they can be watched peripherally) and sometimes what I'm watching will inform the music in interesting ways. Would I have still developed the song in a similar way watching another kind of movie? Perhaps. But if you're a "combinatorial" artist, where things get "assembled" over time, a synchronicity occurs and it develops a new life and takes off in new directions.
Not that Ukiyo-e has anything to do with Minamata. I could change the title to something with more pathos, but I never go as far as changing the music to be topical, in this case ecological disasters.
Instrumental music has a hard time being about anything specific, unless it is scored specifically for certain events and subject matter. Assembly can go too far if you keep stacking and joining things without some overall aesthetic. It would be kitsch essentially.
5/7/2023
Got the idea of extending the outro like Standard Amarillo with a cinematic treatment where it dissolves to the next scene, supposedly in an old Japanese film.
The jazz bass always sounds the best for an old beast. The outro riff might become an earworm for some people. I like the history of it because it was just something that happened in a synth part. (I wonder if there's a way to bring it in and out, like clouds moving overhead).
If the song had lyrics, it would be something like:
Ukiy-o
Ukiyo-e
When you're young
You live for today
Ukiy-o
Ukiyo-e
Take it slow
It's floating away
Ukiy-o
Ukiyo-e
Let it flow
That is the way
The finest in life
Is a trick of the eye
5/9/2023
All music is enhanced by being played live, although not in traditional scored pieces because of its fixedness. It can't be fixed in the mix, or fixed in any substantial way. In this way, scored music is more like a book than it is music. The other thing that concerns me is that I'm working too much on one piece. If it was a painting I'd keep laying things on and scraping them off. This is why creativity can always be a learning experience.
5/10/2023
While mixing I like to run them in the background while I'm doing something else. Plays must be in the hundreds by now. When I’ve made visual art, I keep it in view on the periphery. This way you’re always glancing at it and allows you to resolve impasses. Passing by it solves the impasses. It works the same with music: The answers will come to you and will tell you what it needs. A practical example would be placing various timbres against each other. I’ve found that when I had a bass part that got buried in the mix, another part pulled it out. It's all about finding the best context between the elements.
5/14/2023
On a lark, I did a string quartet. (3 hours start to finish). I like how all the riffs that arose from happy accidents in the recording became scored elements, such as the Japanese voices from the Yamanaka film.
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