Martian Prelude | An Exploration of Generative Melodies Part 2
This week, I take inspiration from Offworld Trading Company's title sequence theme, Red Planet Nocturne. I just really love this piece of music by Christopher Tin and the ambience that is created. It's both haunting and beautiful.
And so, I decided to try my hand at taking what was inspiring to me, and creating some music based on it. It's not exactly like the cover songs or patches I've done before, but rather something that was inspired by another piece of music.
As I've said before, one of my conscious goals that I have as I engage in modular synthesis and modular or generative music in general is this idea of creating the kind of music that I love (mainly classical, contemporary classical, non-classical but traditional, etc.). The main difference that I see between contemporary genres, such as EDM, Techno, Trap, or even Rock and Jazz, and classical-style music (under which I would include film and game soundtracks, among others) is the emphasis on melody and harmony rather than beats or lyrics.
Searching modular or synth-based music on Youtube will usually give you a plethora of music that is more beats based. Andrew Huang, perhaps one of the most inspiring Youtube musicians ever, even has most of his modular stuff dedicated to glitch and techno-like stuff.
But I believe modular synthesis is also an amazing platform for exploring music that focuses on letting melody and harmony lead the listener on a journey. And it's not just me that believes this. The famous Wendy Carlos won her first three Grammies by producing an album called “Switched on Bach”, which helped popularize synthesizers as legitimate musical instruments. She would later be part of several film soundtracks, including Tron. And for me, listening to both classical music and film or game soundtracks (as given above) has lead to some of the deepest experiences I've ever had with any form of art.
With the democratizing of modular synthesis (namely current forms of Eurorack and software such as VCV Rack which I am using), the ability to create music with modular systems is now in the hands of the masses. But concurrent with today's rise in modular music is the idea of generative music, which basically means a computer, rather than a human, is creating the notes for an instrument to play.
While we can debate whether machines can really create music until the cows come home, for me, I view this as an opportunity to learn another side of creating music, something that, after learning, actually feels quite natural and more instrumental than typical forms of electronic music production (namely, using Digital Audio Workstations and the like).
But there's also an argument to be made that, just like how Classical music in combination with West African cultural musical expression gave way to Jazz, the current introduction of generative and random control into electronic music will pave the way to something new.
There are parallels here. Just as Jazz is mainly improvisational, the generative aspects of these controls forces spontaneity into the foray of electronically produced music. Furthermore, much of modular music has ambient flavors, and takes cultural and musical inspiration from East and Southeast Asia.
It's an exciting time to be in the music world. Let's keep on creating!
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