This month’s song is titled Cavern.
Last year I spent a good portion of my creative time learning all that I could about synthesizers. I dug deep to understand how they worked and how to create pads, soundscapes, and sequences. Even though I still have a lot to learn, one of my goals for this year is to do the same for modular synths. In the picture above you can see the modular synths I used for Cavern. Each module has a different function. There are reverbs, oscillators for producing sound waves, and modules that produce random notes to name a few.
This first experiment with modular synths led to a range of sounds. There are ambient pads, granular synths, and patches of random notes. After some processing, I was left with a cluster of light, floating ambient pads that wash in and out and contrast nicely to the deep, fuzzy growling of the lead synth.
My new album is titled Extraordinary Voyages, the name given to Jules Verne’s collection of 62 novels, eight of which were published posthumously by his son. Extraordinary Voyages, the album, will be loosely inspired by a selection of these novels. Cavern is my impression and imagining of A Journey to the Center of the Earth.
Have you read any Jules Verne’s novels? Do you have a favorite of his? I’d love to hear from you in the comments.
Sharing
A Song
“Sun” by Hania Rani
A Book
How to Write One Song by Jeff Tweedy from
A Quote
“Poetry is what happens when words are opened up, and those worlds within are made visible, and the music behind the words is heard.” - Jeff Tweedy from How to Write One Song.
Thank you for reading and supporting this newsletter. The best way to show your support is by liking and sharing, which you can do by clicking the share button below, word of mouth, or sending a message to a loved one by Morse Code. If you would like to read more here is a link to my previous article, Instrumental Archaeology, Issue 1, Bone Flutes, where I begin my look into the history of instruments.
Instrumental Archaeology, Issue 1
“Where words fail, music speaks.” - Hans Christian Andersen Music speaks to us across time. I can set out sheet music and play a piece written two hundred years ago or I can listen to an early jazz record from the 1920s. The composers are no longer here, but their music, in this way, connects us to them. The same is true of artifacts.
This is sweet. Ethereal. I’ve read a twenty thousand leagues under the sea. Didn’t love it because I always thought it meant 20,000 leagues DEEP not AROUND lol
Oooh - yeah this is fantastic! Nice work!