Jamuary 3rd
Working this quickly does not come naturally to me. I’m used to agonizing over choices and living in that liminal space between “started” and “finished”. That said, it’s exciting to be faced with such strict time constraints. I’ve been forced to limit the number of simultaneous voices and emphasize the expressiveness of the parts which remain. For Jamuary 3rd I had a few more synth parts in mind, but I couldn’t get them to sit right, so I stripped them away. I was left with just three instruments: the Image-Line FPC (with “HQ Funk Kit” loaded), the original 3xOsc drone, and the TAL-Elek7ro lead.
The prompt for the 3rd was “Minor+Major”. My mind immediately went to seventh chords; seventh chords are basic minor or major triads with the addition of the seventh interval of the corresponding scale. The inclusion of the seventh interval creates a chord which straddles the line between minor and major tonality. For instance, in C# minor the root chord includes the notes C#, E, and G#, and the seventh interval is the note B. The 3rd chord in the key of C# minor is an E major chord; the notes in E major are E, G#, and B. For this piece, I wanted to evoke this tonal ambiguity without simply droning a C#m7, so I programmed two separate 3xOsc patches joined by a Layer channel. The Layer plugin in FL Studio allows one to play the same notes on multiple plugins with a single input. As for the two 3xOsc, I panned one slightly left and the other slightly right; one synth plays a minor chord (with one oscillator playing the root, another playing a minor third, the last playing a fifth), while the other synth plays the corresponding Major 3rd chord. Using the 3xOsc’s internal filter and volume LFOs, I made a drone which alternates between a minor and major chord. If one plays the root and the fifth only, this patch stays within a specific key (C#m at the beginning of this piece).
From there, I decided I could automate the speed of these LFOs with a knob tweak, and I liked the sound of some funky drums underneath. I played a few patterns on my pads and recorded said automation. After a couple of dead ends, I landed on the TAL-Elek7ro lead, and mapped a low pass filter to my keyboard’s modulation wheel.
So the drone synth is playing four chords: C#m, EMaj, G#m, and BMaj. I determined which keys include these chords, and I had a little framework in which to improvise. Ultimately, I tried to switch to a different key with each measure, modulating downwards as the track progresses. I tend to use key changes sparingly, so this was a liberating exercise, and I think it turned out good!
As for the video, I knew I wanted to do a Minor/Major pun, and Jerry Minor came to mind. I think most people would recognize his face, even if they don’t know his name. I couldn’t come up with anyone famous with the surname Major (other than Lee Majors, but that “s” doesn’t work for me), so I googled. Wouldn’t you know, there’s a Gerri Major, and it seems like she was a pretty important woman—and stylish, to boot. I couldn’t come up with any other Minor/Major matches (well… other than one involving genitalia), so I just grabbed a few kaleidoscopic visuals and cloudy skies from pixabay. Oh, and a skull, because skulls are cool.
