Organic Sound Article

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noblow

The Search For Organic Sound

I have always loved to interfere with instruments I know nothing about.
It was how I  - and I expect many others – began my interest in music banging around on the keys after my brother and sister had finished their piano lessons.
I love the mystery of an unfamiliar instrument and often in my perverse way of approaching let’s say, a hurdy gurdy with a fork and a guitar pick, I can find a way to coax something from it that a skilled player may have overlooked, ignored - or avoided. Many times I have heard a player say words to the effect of “I’ve never heard someone do that on a (insert instrument du jour).”
“Let alone deliberately...”.

Basically if it has strings or you can hit it, strum it, patch it, bow it, plug it in or depress it’s keys I’ll find something to record and use. Everything, that is except if it requires breath. Wind instruments have always eluded me. I have a duduk and a Native North American cedar flute which sadly remain unexpressed and neglected.  There may, however be hope for them. My deep affection for cello resulted in the purchase of one in 1990. Despite repeated attempts it continued to mock me from the corner of the studio where it stood until just recently when I learnt to co-ordinate by way of a friend’s suggestion that I might be interested in the bowed dulcimer. The BD’s frets made it easier to pitch and left me to concentrate on the bow hand. One day,  I tentatively picked up the cello and all of a sudden it made sense. I was feeling pretty cocky about it until a year later when I began cello lessons and my teacher then set about un-learning me of everything I had picked up from Youtube. Tuition for the cello is a lengthy, humbling  process but one I am thoroughly committed to.
On the other hand I am not adverse to hitting a stainless steel garden spade with a rubber mallet and recording it’s playback from a cell phone speaker.

I will never be a virtuoso be it of piano, cello or New Guinea nose-flute. That I can assure you. I am curious of the tonal elements and rythmic nuances that exist between the perfectly intoned pitches and articulations of a skilled and dedicated player. When required I always bring a favourite musician(s) in for the virtuosic duties.
Afterall, not every score has need of a garden spade.

The choices are exponential when electronic processing is introduced. There are a myriad of applications in both hardware and software to process  the instruments. Guitar pedals and amps, re-recorded after inserted through a modular synthesiser and processed through an iPad to name a few – the possibilities are endless when the digital and analogue worlds pleasantly crash, collide and ultimately meld with one another in a sea of sonic bliss.  Hopefully.
One of the most exciting processes of scoring is creating a pallette of potentially useful sounds in advance of viewing the images – textures and feels that help to define the atmosphere to best empathise with the film. They can inform, support and sometimes even drive the writing to new and unexpected places in an attempt to give a project it’s unique and indiviudal signature and identity.
Scoring for me is hands on. The writing of the score is at least partly in the playing and not just the writing, programming, recording or production. It’s the combination of elements bouncing off each other like billiard balls in a slew of cause and effect all of which is hopefully in support of the ultimate driver – the story.

And apart from that it’s so much damn fun.