Despite the usual administration work for the server (watching log files and react to bad behaving visitors accordingly) and hunt for obscure music to write about, I even began working on my third Nodepet release. Which means for the first weeks nothing but tormenting audio sources with overprocessing, make them squeak, scream and stutter and store them for later usage. This may not really sound like someone working on music, but I do have my own recipe:

In short, if complementary noise happens to meet each other and interact nicely, it usually starts to spin off melodic lines by itself. Though I use larger chunks of audio data, I only use parts of them (those that catch my interest and seem to be suitable for transposition or reversal). In this case I take it with Gilles Deleuze:

Commencer par la premier principe, c’est un peu une méthode qui emprunterait le modèle de l’arbre: on cherche d’abort la racine. Mais il y a une autre méthode ou un autre modèle, c’est celui de l’herbe. L’herbe, elle pousse par le millieu

I do not start sequentially (the tree model), but somewhere in the midst of my work and reach out to either side (the herb model). This is also one of the ways of creating similar variations without being identical, slightly modifying the start conditions but maintain just enough to recognise the phrase as a whole. Each of these components have their own characteristics and carry the core of the phrase with them. What I call “phrase” is a sequence of tones or sonic events that can exist for itself. In “traditional” composing the phrase is subject to the metrics being used. But, much as in life, a sonic event does not only consist of symmetric, regular shapes and this is the core of my methology: I free the “phrase” from its cage of regular metrics and let it end where it seems appropriate by its inner necessity.

My current phrases are rather harsh this time and it will become a challenge to remain both abstract and listenable. Tonality, just like the motive in photography, is not relevant for the overall outcome. That is still the construction as such, how its parts are connected with each other and how well contrasts are set. I do not expect any fast results though, as traditionally I continue where I last left off and first have to re-adjust my work to new principles. That is, I do not rest on my achievements but constantly destroy and rebuild them, mainly focussing on things that were not satisfying in the previous incarnation.

But then, what is satisfying? That, I do not know. Perhaps it is the struggle itself, or to say it with Albert Camus:

La lutte elle-même vers les sommets suffit à remplir un coeur d’homme; il faut imaginer Sisyphe heureux.

Thus I should consider myself lucky for my unrest.