Plankton

open your eyes to the ocean waves primitive atmosphere and lightning a closed glass container now close your eyes enable your alpha waves close down your i feel your galaxy's spiral waves employ meditation let the sound take you away ponder your DNA's spiral the wheels within wheels close to the edge down by the river surf your alpha waves finally close your eyes Note: I recommend listening to this album on headphones, while lying comfortably in your bed. It is meant to be like those self-hypnosis recordings. It works best for me when I'm tired. The artwork is a carefully selected screenshot from the iTunes 6.0.4(3) music visualizer.

The word "drop" has a variety of meanings. Look them up. Many of these meanings apply here. ~~~ notes ~~~ Initially I was using the Electric Piano just to capture chords and melodic ideas, with the plan to remove that track once I was done. But, by the end of working on this piece, it just fit so nicely I ended up incorporating it too. There are no loops in this. Everything started out played on keyboard, followed by lots of editing. I used the JamPack4 Steinway, Harp, as well as English Horn, Xtra Oboe Legato, Xtra Flute Legato, Viola Section, and Xtra Bass Section Staccato and Legato. The piece is in 7/8 time, with 5 sections containing 18 measures each, plus a short ending. The first and second sections contain the main chord progression. The Steinway introduces the theme in section two. The third section modulates to the relative minor, featuring oboe and flute on the theme. The fourth and fifth sections repeat the original chord progression, while the strings do some variations on the theme. The last part starts out repeating the chord progression, but basically switches to I-IV-V-I to end the piece. There's some longish echo on the Harp to get a sort of arpeggio effect. I also used the echo on the Bass Staccato.

As you stroll towards the sun, the first step in your transition from the everyday life into the realm of the ocean. Your software macros, those habits that run each and every day and make you do what you do... must be quelled. To reveal the true center that is you. Listen through what you know, to that greater knowledge out there. She's always been there. Waiting for you. Dressed in love. The green-eyed lady. ~~~ notes ~~~ I used the GarageBand "Hybrid Morph" software instrument, starting with the "Circuit Dialog" loop for the footsteps in the cavern effect. It's also used with "Star Sweeper" as a start for the long breathing sounds, perhaps what a surf sounds like underwater in the distance. For the bass, I started with the "Thumpy Hip Hop Bass 01" loop for the rhythm, but modified most of the notes and the loop length. The organ is the "Tone-Wheel Organ" doubling the bass. It reminds me of the old Hammond organ. For the electric piano, made up some chords to go with the bass.

Step into the garden. Step into the blue hour. Feel the innocence, smell the flowers. You're in Paris, long ago. ~~~ notes ~~~ I started with the GarageBand JP4 "Stormy E Clarinets" and changed all the notes. Then I used "Woody Latin Bass 06" and changed most of those notes. Then I layered on more loops: "Whole Tone Piano 08" with entirely different notes. And other loops. Finally, I added "Monastery Organ 01" with lots more note changes.

Your next step. You sink into the sea. Softly the light fades to green. Life is all around you. As you drift down deeper. Look up at the circle. Words lose meaning. ~~~ notes ~~~ The piano part was captured by a two stage process: first I noodled around on the keyboard while thinking "you sink into the sea" - that's the rhythmic component behind a lot of this. Once I was comfortable playing it, I recorded it into GarageBand with no metronome. I also captured some improvising in a mode having a variety of names, like Major Gipsy, or Double Harmonic Major. The notes are: D Eb F# G A Bb C# D. It can be coded as 1312131, see this list of modes. I think I first became aware of this mode from a Liszt work I heard years ago. It's a really cool mode to play around with. It has lots of nice symmetries, and those two minor third intervals are wild. Then I edited the heck out of it in GarageBand! The beginning and end are quantized timing. I left the timing of the improvised part in the middle as is, because i wanted to keep the expressive ritards intact. So GarageBand's nice even measures mean nothing in the middle. I also changed around the pitches of many of the notes as I refined the string part, so half the pitches changed: only the velocity and timing remained of what I had originally recorded for the beginning and end. Finally, I also reduced the loudness of several notes.

You continue to drift deeper, through thermoclinic layers of water, always towards your destination. You float weightlessly, no longer able to feel your body. ~~~ notes ~~~ This is a manually generated algorithmic work using GarageBand with the Orchestra JamPack. The percussion track is built up of a sequence of different instruments with an increasing number of steps between each time an instrument is struck. The number of beats between steps range from one through five. Ignoring the sequence with a note on every beat, the remaining step pattern forms the beginning of the sieve of Eratosthenes: the sequence of beats when there is only one instrument struck forms the prime numbers. From there, I adjusted it a little to sound better. The notes are roughly in exactly the order the instruments are found in the Orchestra Percussion Kit, with a few adjustments for aesthetics. The harp is formed from two repeating overlapping groups. One group is 8 1/2 measures long, the other group is 11 measures long. So the resulting pattern of notes never repeats over the duration of the song. (It would eventually repeat if played long enough.) The violins are formed in a similar way using 9 measures and 9 1/2 measures. So these never repeat. And the cellos play a repeating pattern 10 measures long, along with the French horns the play a pattern 10 1/2 measures. Overall, none of the repetition rates match up, so no part of the song is ever actually the same. The parts don't play continuously throughout, they are cross faded.

Life is all around you. In so many ways that we can't begin to fathom the complexity. Each moment now takes a long while. Each moment reveals a new way to see the big picture. ~~~ notes ~~~ This piece is in five sections. I used GarageBand's "Evolving Atmosphere 02" to begin the opening section, and to open the last section, as a hint the ending is near. (I also thought that "evolving" was apropos.) "Evolving Atmosphere 01" is used to separate each section, it sounds like breaking glass, which is nice for the idea of breaking into the next moment. And there are unintelligible voices, again, just the thing. "Evolving Atmosphere 04" is used as the main sound of the first section and fifth section. "Evolving Atmosphere 05" is used as the main sound of the second section and fourth section. "Evolving Atmosphere 10" is used as the main sound of section three. Some extra string notes, sinking downwards, were added. The overall structure is: 02 ===04=== 01 ===05=== 01 ===10=== 01 ===05=== 01+02 ===04=== 01 04 fade The drums follow this same symmetric form. "Relaxed Drum Groove 02" in section 1 and 5. "Hip Hop Beat 03" in section 2 and 4. "Deep House Dance Beat 05" in section 3. In section one, I expanded the drum loop length by 4, and switched around the end of each measure a bit, to avoid too much monotony. (The repeat in section 5 is just the original loop, to avoid being distracting.) The other drum loops were left as is. The next layer is sounds of many humans blended to sound like an approximate ocean surf, or flowing water. The idea was to equate "an ocean of people" with the literal ocean. The countless lifeforms in the sea are like the countless kinds of people in the world. Or something like that. "Beach Sound Effect 01" - with tons of filtering, compression, etc. "Crowd Sound Effect 02" - with track echo and reverb "Crowd Applause 02" - with some EQ and phase shifting, so the surf is flowing all around you. Bass was added as needed to build a little tension. I created a bass loop using the "Tight Synth Bass" using the motif from "Sink Into The Sea." And "Disco Pickbass 05" was left as is. "Smokey Clav" echoes the bass line in the middle section, and returns at the end to tie things up. The "Orchestra Steinway" doubles the same line at the end, for various reasons I can't explain, including to refer to "Sink Into The Sea." And, finally, I snuck the Steinway in at the start of section 4, playing a reference to "Sink Into The Sea" yet again. Seven Giga-Humans.

You've been here before, but things have happened. It had just been BMNT, the hour for the counter-offensive missiles to be launched. But you see only the blue of the pre-dawn light. If you didn't know about this concept, you would never notice it in the music. That is the point. You must tune out, to keep focussed. ~~~ notes ~~~ I used GarageBand JP4, using various "Capitol A" loops. The overall form of this song is a slow cross fade from electric guitar and rock drums, into entirely orchestral sounds. It starts with the notes from "Capitol A Harp" - played on "Big Electric Lead," "Jazzy Rock Drums 03" - pretty much unaltered, and "Woody Latin Bass 02" - expanded and totally modified. Over time, it morphs to: "Capitol A Violins 2," "Capitol A Violas," "Capitol A Cellos," "Capitol A Basses," "Capitol A Harp" - all unchanged. And "Capitol A Violins 1" - almost unchanged, I modified one note. "Stormy F Orchestra Kit" drums, looped but otherwise unchanged, to achieve a military feel.

Last step. Words have no meaning at all now. ~~~ notes ~~~ An algorithmic and manually generated work. I used GarageBand to mix and cross fade the tracks. I also added a background subliminal voice and some sound effects of seagulls and waves. (Love that rainstick!) The actual notes were generated using a Tcl script that executed the following algorithm. There are 13 phases, using a cycle of fifths. The last phase repeats the original key of the first phase. Each phase is divided into two parts. The first part is built from a pentatonic scale. The second part is built from the same scale with one particular note removed. This note is about to change. The idea is to smooth the upcoming modulation by avoiding the one note that will change in pitch. In other words, the second part is ambiguous: it is between the key of the first part and the key of the upcoming next phase. At the end of the second part this note is lowered a half step to form a new pentatonic scale. This new pentatonic scale is up one fifth from the previous scale. (It turns out, this has an added benefit: when the first new note of the key finally appears, it has a sort of tug on your heart. It works especially well on the second appearance of the tubular bells.) Notes are chosen randomly from the scales. The cycle continues until it finally returns to the original key. The song starts in C with this scale: C, D, E, G, A. The next key is G with this scale: G, A, B, D, E. The note that changes is C to B. So during the second part, the C is avoided; there are only four notes in the scale: D, E, G, A. The pattern continues in this cycle of fifths: C, G, D, A, E, B, F#, Db, Ab, Eb, Bb, F, and finally back to the C. The subliminal voice: The sea is where all water originates and eventually returns. The cycles of transformations of water from liquid, solid, and vapor are not unlike the phases that each one of us travels through as we flow through our lives. At first our being is fluid, molded by our parents, our families, our friends, our world at large. Eventually we crystalize into the beings that we are throughout most of our adult lives. And, at the end, our essence slowly evaporates once again into that eternal form. We flow as does the water from the mountains to the sea. We are all, each one of us, a part of the grand cycle that is life. You should see.