KVR Audio

mayan · Post by **mayan** » Tue Jan 03, 2006 7:20 am

Hold On!!
[Dedicated to the Memory of James Eder -and raven]
Hi all...It's been a very long time since I've posted anything. The reason is, I have been at work, literally, for the last six months on this one piece. I don't think I have ever worked so hard on anything in my life for such a sustatined period and this incorporates just about every type of musical influence and production skill that I've picked up along the way. Kinda my magna opus, if you will. It is with great excitement that I present this to you.

http://www.hislefthand.org/hold%20on_128.mp3

http://www.hislefthand.org/hold%20on_192.mp3

http://www.hislefthand.org/Rev_William_ ... e_64kb.mp3

I normally let my pieces speak for themselves but this one if very different. So, some program notes:

- This piece was constructed ENTIRELY from a sermon (from the 1920's) that I found in public archives by a radio preacher by the name of William Ransom. There was something so compelling about the force and music and rythym of his words that I decided to use nothing but samples and heavily processed samples from the sermon in composing the piece. The only exception is the drum track - although even some of the "drum" sounds were actually samples from the sermon. Thus the piece was constructed from -literally thousands of "quanta" of sound samples taken from the Ransom sermon. While defying genre, I think that there are many different musical influences that arise out of these "quanta."

I made extensive use of MANY effects, including: Camel Space, Dicer, Anarchy Rythyms, SpectrumWorx, Pristine Effects (and the convolutions from Spirit Canyon), Filtercape, Ohmboyz, and NI Spektral Delay...as well as a host of others
. Some of the samples were formed by folding tracks into tracks and then hammering with effects and repeating the process...kinda like a samurai sword. I did not use a sampler (go figure!) but I did use a couple of the resynth products very, VERY sparingly...Cronox3, Cube2 Chameleon and Vertigo...were the weapons of choice for a very few of the resynthesized sounds.

In a very real way, this, then is the remixed sermon accompanied by itself as an interplanetary orchestra.

-I call my most of my music bardo music. In Tibetan buddhism, the term "bardo" is most-often associated with the after-death state...the state where the consciousness divests itself of everything known to it in its previous life. The broader meaning of the word "bardo," however, is any kind of transient state. Thus, life (as we know it) is a bardo and when we dream, we are in the dream bardo.

While not really a "religious," "devout," or outwordly "spiritual," I found that the piece took on new meaning when a very important person in my life lost a long battle with cancer. He was a buddy of my brother's and we went back all the way to high school. He was the first person to teach me about electronic music and I always considered him to be a musical genius. A couple of months into the project, I realized that the piece was being composed with him in my thoughts. This then, is lovingly dedicated to the memory of Jimmy Eder. As I was finishing up, I read about Raven, someone who I didn't know but always enjoyed reading here. This is also dedicated to him, as well...he's in there somewhere.

-Finally, it's long...an investment of your time. I think/hope it will be very worthwhile. I hope it sounds OK on your system...I've listened to it on a number of systems (stereos, earphones and my car) - It sounds exactly the way I meant it to sound - although it my still be a bit bass-heavy on sub-woofer systems so EQ it to you hearts content. I'm interested in your thoughts about the production. In fact, I would love comments/feedback of any type.

-Even thought it's long - I've posted links for the 128kb version and the 192kb version. For those who are interested, I've also posted the original sermon so you can see the originis of the piece.

Enjoy!

jopy · Post by **jopy** » Tue Jan 03, 2006 12:41 pm

this is really interesting music you have going on here. an obvious point of reference is steve reich's "come out" but the end product is very different from anything reich's done. it is strangely comforting as well, to me at least.

dystonia_ek · Post by **dystonia_ek** » Tue Jan 03, 2006 1:53 pm

Interesting, disorienting piece of collage!

Reverend Rhythm · Post by **Reverend Rhythm** » Tue Jan 03, 2006 3:34 pm

Intriguing!

Could you tell more of how and where you found the original recording?

mayan · Post by **mayan** » Tue Jan 03, 2006 5:45 pm

jmeier and dystonia_ek...Thanks for your comments. I cannot think of a better response than to have two discerning ears find it alternately "strangely comforting" and "disorienting" at the same time. That's perfect!! On the one hand, I try to keep Rimbaud's "derangement of the senses" foremost in my mind when I do my pieces and in this particular piece, I really wanted to have the "derangement" and the "comfort" exist side by side, as it were. jmeier, I'm not familiar with that particular Reich piece but I will seek it out immediately.

Reverend Rhythm: thanks for the listen! Where? I found it at...http://www.archive.org/details/Rev_Will ... _Things_Be

How? My then-boss at work turned me on to the site. I started pawing through the material and came up with that gem of a sermon. Somehow or other, I decided to compose a piece using no other element than his voice and the minimalist drums.

Reverend Rhythm · Post by **Reverend Rhythm** » Tue Jan 03, 2006 5:58 pm

Thank you! I'll check it out.

You have a very creative mind! To get from the sermon excerpt to your piece took a lot of right brain activity... even while you were editing.

liqih · Post by **liqih** » Wed Jan 04, 2006 12:34 am

ok I'm listening and loving that, it was worth the long download,

firstly I love the original source as I'm a big fan of ancient blues and spirituals, but I usually also hate who like Moby make a peace great only for stealing a good negro vocals,

but your track is different, much more contemplative and celebrative,

on some spots I still feel the Moby temptation when you cut the sample on drums, but I forgive that, <grin>

the best parts IMHO are the one like the ending,

also when you bring the original voice in, this could be more reverbered or filtered, for a more dream state effect, at least to me

thanks for your work

Sickle · Post by **Sickle** » Wed Jan 04, 2006 12:42 am

Sounds like you went off the Deep End..

Good for you, man..This is great!

polyslax · Post by **polyslax** » Wed Jan 04, 2006 2:27 am

Wow! Cool, disturbing... just awesome what you've done. I'm currently sourcing similar material to use myself.

droolmaster0 · Post by **droolmaster0** » Wed Jan 04, 2006 3:16 am

I really, really, am liking this.

mayan · Post by **mayan** » Wed Jan 04, 2006 5:18 pm

liqih...thanks so much, man...good ideas...I'm still tweaking I guess so I will keep experimenting.

Sickle...that means a lot to me. Show me a Deep End and I will be happy to go off!! I value your tastes, so its great getting this type of feedback.

polyslax - thanks!! greatly appreciated. I HIGHLY recommend cruising the old-time radio newsgroups, etc. in Usenet. There's an absolute Treasure Trove of amazing material to be garnered.

droolmaster0 - mucho gracias...that's great to hear!

polyslax · Post by **polyslax** » Wed Jan 04, 2006 6:07 pm

mayan wrote:polyslax - thanks!! greatly appreciated. I HIGHLY recommend cruising the old-time radio newsgroups, etc. in Usenet. There's an absolute Treasure Trove of amazing material to be garnered.

Thanks for the tip. You or others may be interested in the site I'm currently exploring for content. It's a project at U of Cal, Santa Barbara, to digitize and preserve recordings originally made to cylinders of wax or other materials. You can download full .wav files or .mp3s and there's a lot of musical and spoken content from the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Here's the link:

Cylinder Preservation and Digitization Project

mayan · Post by **mayan** » Thu Jan 05, 2006 3:36 pm

that sounds tres cool, polyslax...will definately check it out!! Coolness of project exceeded only by another person I met on another forum who was leaving his old job to become the archivist of Louis Armstrong's music estate...all tapes, vinyls, shellacs, etc. Oy!!!

respirator · Post by **respirator** » Fri Jan 06, 2006 9:53 pm

First of all: Thumbs up for the intro to your track. Very interesting to read your thoughts and techniques (very similar to my own approach). We should all do that more. Anyway it made me listen, so it worked.

The concept is very cool, and I certainly understand your fascination with the original recording. Funky. And so is the piece. Disjointed electro-funk-punk. I love it. But man, there is many ideas going on in the piece. I wouldn't mind an extended version that dwelled a bit on the different ideas/techniques - but perhaps it would be to much. I especially like the piece around 7:20 - 8:00. But all was greatly enjoyed.

Thanks a lot for sharing. And please don't take 6 month to finish your next tune

mayan · Post by **mayan** » Sat Jan 07, 2006 10:02 pm

Thanks so much, respirator. Your words mean alot to me. I wrestled with the format and structure and ultimately decided that I wanted the sharp shift of aural scene...I actually shortened it quite a bit, perhaps not a great decision...but I wanted that feeling of being propelled -perhaps against one's desire.

Hold On - 10 Minute Genreless