piano sounds
05/11/2011
Matty Fresh - Trail Blazer http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SFtoCdghlCs
today, I listened to a song that Matty Fresh had posted on facebook. very lush - lovely piano sounds & beats. I’ve seen a video interview with him where he showed the process he follows in producing a beat - digging in the crates, sampling the vinyl records, transferring to the computer.
then I had these thoughts about the piano sample taken from the record. the sound has layers of stories and human connections with it. there’s the pianist - all those years of training and practicing the piano which led to them playing that song on the day it was recorded. the composer of the original song. the booking of the sound recording studio - I can imagine the musicians in the room - the pianist at the piano, playing the song. how many times did they play this melody that day. did they get into the zone. the sound recording engineer recording the sounds - how did they adjust & tweak the sounds. was it recorded onto tape. was it a new tape or had it been used before and were there traces of older sounds already on the tape. then it was sent to the vinyl processing plant to be both archived and brought to life during the vinyl production process. were there any imperfections introduced in this process. all these steps took time. did the musician think about their performance again afterwards - wonder if they could have changed something, or if it was perfect as is. then the industry takes over and the record gets released and people buy it. who bought this record - the one that the sample was taken from. how many hands has it passed through, and how many plays did it have on people's home record players, or out & about? what were the people doing when they listened - what were they thinking. did their record players add some imperfections to the sounds by faulty equipment, or overuse? did they play the record over & over so it was almost worn out and the vinyl getting thinner and thinner with each play. at some point their lives changed and the record was sold and ended up in a dusty record bin that Matty Fresh pulled it out of and took home and added to his collection. how many other songs were listened to before this one was chosen - how many times was it played by him to be imprinted on his memory to pull it out later when this song was being created.
I read the other day about all the atoms in the world. http://www.aliak.com/content/rearranging-patterns-atoms-monads has some of my ramblings on it
thinking of all the rearrangements of the atoms that were involved in that piano sound. it seems to me that it holds more emotional attachment to me if the sounds have gone through more human atoms, than just creating it on a computer and saving to mp3. it "feels" different - can't explain why, but it "sounds" different too - sound and feeling tied together. is this because there are remnants of the atoms from others. do some of the human atoms get transferred to the sounds/music during it's creation? in a minute way... when they're made with soul - the Soul? the transfer of atoms - from time (but no atoms in time?), or effort, and physicality to the instruments and analog sounds. analog sounds are frequencies - we’re always listening to these, even if the song was created digitally, as our ears and brains work in analog mode. is this another reason why they sound more natural.
-- metaphysical ramblings / ideas