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question on droning
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Kundeleni



Joined: Dec 14, 2006
Posts: 14
Location: Florida

PostPosted: Mon Dec 18, 2006 1:43 pm    Post subject: question on droning Reply with quote  Mark this post and the followings unread

I am really into noise music now and really want to compose my own. What I'm planning on doing is keyboard drones with some light percussive elements as a foundation to my vocal chanting.


My question:
Is there a certain structure to droning? How much of it is improvised versus structured? I've noticed that there are usually a few sustained notes throughout a piece and other tones are gradually added to accent the pedal notes.

How about working with a click? I've tried composing with and without it. Both offer advantages and disadvantages. What is your preferred method and why?

I know there are no set rules when composing, but I'm new to this genre and would love to hear how some of you go about doing things.


Thanks!!

Eleni
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Alexander



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PostPosted: Mon Dec 18, 2006 3:33 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote  Mark this post and the followings unread

Quote:
My question:
Is there a certain structure to droning? How much of it is improvised versus structured? I've noticed that there are usually a few sustained notes throughout a piece and other tones are gradually added to accent the pedal notes.


Yes, there is definitively a structure and usually a drone is used to describe a certain sound within a larger composition or structure. One way of obtaining material to create 'drone' type sounds for a composition is time stretching..
...but then there are a lot of ways for creating drones and no way is the right or wrong. Maybe you shouldn't start with drones, but think about something to say, a gesture or a certain atmosphere then start with creating 'drony' (is that a way to say drone-like??) material. Once you start creating material you can easily tell when something is interesting, you continue the process until you obtained what you think is the vocabulary you need to tell your tale.. the rest is storytelling and with a combination of drones and a percussive/metric element you can do a lot. Thinking about accents in a piece usually comes in a latter stage!

I made a few songs with just a few pad/drone/soundscape elements and some percussive parts or beats, all very minimal and mostly done in a trial and error fashion. I used max to generate data as note on messages and midi cc values, those were sent to my micromodular and sampler and later on mixed and further processed in DP. Most of the composing was done on paper and then trying to create sequences of midi data from max, sometimes I used as much as seven different sequences on a single sound to create melody parts or shifting percussion. The possibilities are as always endless and that is (most of the time) a relief! Finding a comfortable set of tools and managing to create gestures is what I am trying to learn through songs like the above. A lot of fun and that's what it is eventually all about.

Good luck!

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flowersniffer7



Joined: Nov 17, 2006
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PostPosted: Sat Dec 23, 2006 8:59 pm    Post subject: Re: question on droning Reply with quote  Mark this post and the followings unread

Kundeleni wrote:
I am really into noise music now and really want to compose my own. What I'm planning on doing is keyboard drones with some light percussive elements as a foundation to my vocal chanting.


My question:
Is there a certain structure to droning? How much of it is improvised versus structured? I've noticed that there are usually a few sustained notes throughout a piece and other tones are gradually added to accent the pedal notes.

How about working with a click? I've tried composing with and without it. Both offer advantages and disadvantages. What is your preferred method and why?

I know there are no set rules when composing, but I'm new to this genre and would love to hear how some of you go about doing things.


Thanks!!

Eleni


Personally the ammount of structure to any kind of music is up to the individual "composing." I have heard/made very structured drones as well as completely improvised. As with all improv (however especially with noise), you need to have an intimate knowledge of how every piece of your equipment is going to effect the sound to be really proficient at performing in this way... I use a combination of both mainly because I use alot of very unpredictable (mostly homemade) equipment for alot music that I make/perform so I tend to structure any piece of music that will have a tendency towards unpredictability if improvised and I improv everything else...
Drone typically comes with a structureless connotation... However those who use it most effectively to creat moods and whatnot probobly have some set of guidelines they tend towards... Namely Godspeed You! Black Emperor... Their drones seem unstructured, but well rehearsed if that makes any sense. Meaning moreso to say, their drones are slightly different every time, but come to the same juncture in the end.
As far as working with a click... Never have myself so I really couldn't tell you...
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kkissinger



Joined: Mar 28, 2006
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PostPosted: Sat Dec 23, 2006 9:46 pm    Post subject: Re: question on droning Reply with quote  Mark this post and the followings unread

A drone is a tone that sustains while other sounds occur.

One of the most famous drones is the opening of Mahler's Symphony #2. In fact, the opening to the original "Star Trek" series sounds so much like the Mahler that I have wondered if the composer had Mahler in mind.

Since you like to chant you may want to check some of David Munroe's albums of gothic (not "goth") music wherein his ensemble sings chant-based organum over drones created with bells and pipes.

And, one can't ignore the classical music of India with the persistent drone around which percussion and instruments improvise.

Pedal points (another word for drone) can be rhythmic as well -- that is, they can be repeated in rhythm. In fact, a pedal point can be broken up into fifths and octaves and still function as a drone (although, in this form the term "drone" is often replaced with "Musette" term). So, whether called a drone, pedal-point, or a musette the function of the drone is to sustain a tone for a relatively long time while other non-drone music occurs.

A drone may consist of more than one sustained note however these are customarily simple intervals: octaves and/or fifths. If you drone intervals, such as thirds, your drone will sound like a sustained chord and instead of an "open" kind of drone sound that allows much "harmonic elbow room" you get locked into a harmony. It is ok to have block chords moving along with a sustained drone however the chords should be completely independent of the drone.

OK, for starters, just pick a note that corresponds to "do" (i.e., do-re-mi) of your scale and sustain (or loop) it. Then play the note while chanting with it. The note can simply fade in at the start and fade out at the end. You can use an oscillator to produce the tone, or loop yourself blowing a pitch on a pop bottle! Or play a single note on a piano or guitar.

To add interest, you can run your note through effects -- chorus and flanging is always effective.

Start out with your drone note in the bass. (yes, the drone can occur in the treble but, try it in the bass for starters.

You can have non-harmonic tones that are sustained -- such as white noise, wind, surf, etc... however these are not "drones" in the classical sense. The effect of such sounds is perceived more as "atmosphere". The classic "drone" sound is pitched and establishes a tonality (tonal center) to the music. Now, everything else that happens can be completely atonal, non-harmonic, and complex -- however the drone itself will be a sustained pitch.

Keep us posted on your progress. The music that one can produce by combining drones with the human voice can be very spiritual and wish you all the best in your musical endeavors.
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midgetfidget



Joined: Aug 22, 2006
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Location: melbourne, aus

PostPosted: Sun Dec 24, 2006 1:39 am    Post subject: Reply with quote  Mark this post and the followings unread

Listen to tim hecker, and tomas koner.

IMO two of the best drone artists around.
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Kundeleni



Joined: Dec 14, 2006
Posts: 14
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PostPosted: Sun Dec 24, 2006 4:18 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote  Mark this post and the followings unread

Thanks for all the very detailed responses. You all gave me a lot to think about .

Alexander: What exactly do you mean by time stretching. Do you mean extending the time signature of the drone as opposed to the rest of the music?

Flowersniffer: I seem to work in a similar fashion to you. I do both improv and structured composing.

Kissinger: Thanks! You really answered most of my questions regarding harmonics and effects. Can't wait to get started! And I do find that my performance is better in this style of music.

MidgetFidget: Thanks for the recommendations. I will check them out.

I hope you all have a wonderful holiday,

Eleni
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migraneboy



Joined: Dec 25, 2006
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PostPosted: Mon Dec 25, 2006 2:43 pm    Post subject: Heres one way to drone Reply with quote  Mark this post and the followings unread

Good info on prev. posts, thanks! Heres my little trick Smile

I´ve done this a few times and the results were been interesting..well the concept is anyway! It all depends on the source material.. It can produce drone-like progressions or constantly evolving micro grooves or both.

1. Take a short (around 1sec) clip of audio, anything that has a little variation in it, be it rhytmic or melodic. For my first test I chose a snippet of a violin concerto that had a 3 note progression in it.

2. Cuplicate this clip until you have a few minutes of it looped on one track.

3. Copy the original 1sec clip to another track and pitch shift it down just a fraction of a semitone with no time correction. This is Clip 2. Again duplicate this to song length.

4. Take Clip 2 and repeat the process.

5. Take Clip 3 and so on...

Do this many times so you have many tracks with differen pitched and lengths of the same clip looping in one layered sound.

Press play and listen to that sweet drone Shocked

I hope my description made sense.. (Im Finnish) I can maybe try and explain better or give an audio example if someone´s interested.
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Kundeleni



Joined: Dec 14, 2006
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PostPosted: Tue Dec 26, 2006 7:43 am    Post subject: Reply with quote  Mark this post and the followings unread

Migraneboy,

Thanks. Your advice really helped in that I have been trying to find out how to incorporate my chanting into a drone. I want to do a complete vocal piece. This should be interesting. I'm going to give it a try!!

Hope your holidays were great.

Eleni

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migraneboy



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PostPosted: Tue Dec 26, 2006 8:21 am    Post subject: Reply with quote  Mark this post and the followings unread

Great! Im sure this works on vocals, should produce some nice phase variations. If possible, I´d love to hear the results!
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atriplex



Joined: May 30, 2006
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PostPosted: Fri Dec 29, 2006 4:41 am    Post subject: Reply with quote  Mark this post and the followings unread

That's a cool idea migraneboy - the great thing about drone music is the complete freedom you have to play with pure sound. You can just come up with an idea, and set about creating it. It's inspiring just to grab random sounds and samples and discovering what they sound like when, say, stretched to 1/10th their original speed, run through a bit of distortion and a low pass filter, then multiple copies laid on top of each other, a few seconds out of sync...you just come up with these ideas.

Drone music is best when it sits on the edge;
No, you don't have to have some defined, rigid structure.
And you probably shouldn't have no structure at all.
You just need something subtle - that's the "sweet spot" you've got to try and hit.

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migraneboy



Joined: Dec 25, 2006
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PostPosted: Fri Dec 29, 2006 5:06 am    Post subject: Reply with quote  Mark this post and the followings unread

I agree. The fun challenge is to take apparently simple textures, seize them, strech them and put them under the microscope. Try to keep them interesting, sort of like making a single word into a story..

The problem I sometimes have with timestreching is that recognizable "zipper" or "gurgle" (in lack of a better word) that it produces. It can be a nice effect but its sometimes a bit too much.

I use the standard MPEX algorithm in Cubase, but I was wondering if there are more sophisticated, standalone software for timestreching?

For pitchshifting I love my old Harman/Kardon tape deck.. I switched the speed potentiometer and now I can go waayy doowwn Very Happy
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Kundeleni



Joined: Dec 14, 2006
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PostPosted: Fri Dec 29, 2006 7:49 am    Post subject: Reply with quote  Mark this post and the followings unread

Thanks Antriplex. You answered my question on time stretching. I've never sped anything up before, but I was composing more traditional music at the time.

I just got Reason in the mail a few days ago and had some time to experiment. There's so much to learn from a technical standpoint.

What I did last night was take a sample of my singing in the Kargyraa style of throat singing. I sampled a small section and then started messing around the various effects like flanger. I have to say, I am addicted to creating my own sounds.

I can only imagine the experience will intensify as my technical abilities improve.

Thanks for all the input. You've all been truly helpful.

Eleni

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Alexander



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PostPosted: Fri Dec 29, 2006 8:24 am    Post subject: Reply with quote  Mark this post and the followings unread

migraneboy wrote:

I use the standard MPEX algorithm in Cubase, but I was wondering if there are more sophisticated, standalone software for timestreching?


The artifacts you describe are usually related to the algorithm/method used to stretch. Lucky that there are a lot of ways and tools to stretch..

..my software weapons of choice are at the moment:

soundhack http://www.soundhack.com/freeware.php

paulstretch http://hypermammut.sourceforge.net/paulstretch/
(I can't seem to find the osx version, but it's out there!)

spear http://www.klingbeil.com/spear/

All freeware and with a different character!

I have been creating a additive synth in max/msp to use with spear to recreate analyze data adding FM and AM modulation. The possibilities are endless when you analyze a sample and rebuild it using additive synthesis, but it requires a lot of theory and work.. and my brain is too small. Wink

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migraneboy



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PostPosted: Fri Dec 29, 2006 10:07 am    Post subject: Reply with quote  Mark this post and the followings unread

Great!
Thanks you very much for the links, I´ll give those a try.. I doubt I´ll be going into the MSP building stuff anytime soon, I suck at math Embarassed Altough I´d love to have those realtime multitrack/looper/slice/strecth/pitch/mangle thingys I´ve seen people use..
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Kundeleni



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PostPosted: Fri Dec 29, 2006 10:14 am    Post subject: Reply with quote  Mark this post and the followings unread

Alexander, thanks again. I have sound hack somewhere on my hard drive. I may give the time stretching a try and see what I can come up with.

Eleni

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migraneboy



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PostPosted: Fri Dec 29, 2006 10:29 am    Post subject: Reply with quote  Mark this post and the followings unread

This Paulstrech sounds AMAZING!! I just popped in an mp3 of an old downtempo track of mine and right now Im floating in space with huge slow waves of static and deep bells ringing and choirs fading in and out in the distance and..... oh my god! Im sitting pretty much hypnotized here..

Shocked

Awesome program. Thanks again!
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jksuperstar



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PostPosted: Mon Jan 01, 2007 10:27 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote  Mark this post and the followings unread

Static Strobe Emitter (a member here) had some music where he took several of his own songs, and speed them way up to the point of making new short 3 second samples out of them. He made some music with these samples, see his section in the Artists forum area. Sounds like another technique that could also be recursive.
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ian-s



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PostPosted: Mon Jan 01, 2007 11:59 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote  Mark this post and the followings unread

migraneboy wrote:
This Paulstrech sounds AMAZING!!


Hell yes, amazing how it makes almost anything into an ambient masterpiece.
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Absurdist Lover



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PostPosted: Fri Jan 05, 2007 1:03 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote  Mark this post and the followings unread

Wow, that Paul-stretch is easily the coolest freeware sound mangling thing I've seen in ages! ! Shocked

I can't get over how smooth the results are. It just makes shimmering soundscapes out of everything. And it does no wrong! This has so many uses it just isn't funny Twisted Evil
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Kundeleni



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PostPosted: Fri Jan 05, 2007 3:42 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote  Mark this post and the followings unread

Here's Paulstretch for OSX. Can't wait to experiment.


http://icem-www.folkwang-hochschule.de/~jb/stuff/paulstretch-1.000-m1.dmg

Eleni

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Kundeleni



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PostPosted: Fri Jan 05, 2007 3:58 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote  Mark this post and the followings unread

Alexander...

Thanks! I can't believe the wild sounds I'm getting with this software!!! I threw a sample of my singing Kargyraa and it's doing some intense stuff with it. Wow!

ELeni

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Kundeleni



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PostPosted: Fri Jan 05, 2007 5:22 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote  Mark this post and the followings unread

in Paulstretch, what is meant by type?

Blackman, Hann, Hamming, rectangular?


Eleni

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blue hell
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PostPosted: Fri Jan 05, 2007 5:29 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote  Mark this post and the followings unread

Kundeleni wrote:
in Paulstretch, what is meant by type?


http://hypermammut.sourceforge.net/paulstretch/ has some info on this.

edit : the program can do some pretty weird stuff on voice Very Happy

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also .. could someone please turn down the thermostat a bit.
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KV



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PostPosted: Fri Sep 07, 2007 8:16 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote  Mark this post and the followings unread

thanks for this! it's fantastic
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blue hell
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PostPosted: Sat Sep 08, 2007 7:07 am    Post subject: Reply with quote  Mark this post and the followings unread

welcome klangverkstedet

And on re-reading this thread, thanks to Kevin for explaining the drone ! I must have seen it at the time but not read or something ...

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