Warm Sunrise

Washed Memoir Episode III: Asher’s Theme

What’s the idea here? (Art Corner)

This composition makes me think of a couple of things: a sunrise and my son, Asher. It gives me the feeling of beauty in the world that I get from my family and from the people that I love. But, there is something here that is particular to Asher and I’m not sure why. If my children are reading this in the future, don’t worry, I love you all nearly equally the same.

I think this simple composition stands on its own without needing any additional instrumentation or words. I aspire to create cinematic music that can evoke visual images and this particular piece has a lot of cinematic potential (so give me some sync placement deals$$).

Additionally, it makes me want to write a short sci-fi story about the sun rising in a hopeful environment after recovering from trauma…so that’s what I did. This story is to be read at a pace of 120 BPM which will roughly synchronize with a 3 minute read for the duration of the piece. It can also be synchronized with the 34 minute mark of Return to Oz. I’m kidding on both accounts, but it sort of syncs up with the music if you squint and read very very slowly.

Hit play, then read…

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Warm Sunrises

De-L awakened as the suns were rising. A soft breeze brushed the side of his tent which housed his partners and companions. The weather today felt temperate and within parameters that wouldn’t require system recalibrations. Recalibrating encampment weather-shield systems were part of De-L’s daily activities—a finicky task that earned him nothing but complaints from his partners and fellow camp members. Today was the first time that De-L had awakened peacefully for quite some time. There were no alarms or encampment leaders shouting to get moving or to get started with the day’s scavenging.

If and when they were able to sleep at night it happened in shifts after multiple day scan-and-gather intensives. The rising of the three stars meant it was time to sleep and it was rare for any campers to sit and enjoy the sunrises.

People under constant attack for a sustained period need sleep. Because attacks primarily occurred at night, the Triumvirate had to produce new sleep schedules and protocols every 16th rotation. Over the years, encampment biorhythms had adjusted to a primarily nocturnal schedule. Not only was the danger more acute at night, the camp was riddled with anxiety under darkness. Cloaking systems made Hoppers nearly undetectable with minimal natural light. More often than not, they could dissuade or destroy Hoppers with scan-and-seek systems during the day; but circumstances forced all camps in the mid-region to remain in motion most evenings. Many young campers had never slept during the night and were doing so for the first time.

De-L stepped out of his tent to witness the long, slow rise of the yellow, red and orange rays with refracted purples and greens peaking over the eastern plateaus. Plumes of black smoke still ascended from burn locations across the valley. The plumes annotated the hard fought victories leading to the new peace accord. Concerns remained over non-compatible chemical releases and uncontrolled species micro-evolutions but these were problems for another day. 

As the smoke dissipated upward, the chemical compositions mixed with the sunbeams to form shimmery blue-green refractions shining down in compact rays over the scorched landscape—like a mirror ball for the new world.

De-L let the flickering light wash over his hardened, scarred skin, and reflect off of his metallic interfaces. The light swayed over the tents of the encampment, reverberating off the outrider’s equipment and creating a short dazzling spectacle that resembled a burning blue flame over the camp. De-L was sure this was an illusion and looked around to see if anyone else had noticed. Everyone in proximity of his verbal comms was asleep, which reminded him to relax and take in the beauty of the world that he had neglected for so long. Nearly all personnel within his sensory radii were quiet with the joy of a long-needed rest. De-L faced the rays as they made their skyward ascent with the consistent pace of infinite time. He let the warmth of the suns return him to the world of the living.     

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How did I make it? (Gear Corner)

The main bassline for this piece is a warm and rich 2600 patch that I stumbled upon. It is a little buzzy after mastering and mixing—I think in a good way. This simple progression has been the creative spark for three pieces. I think could just keep going with this one bass riff for a few years. The music begins with this main progression and adds a counter melody at a slightly higher register with a similar tone/sound design. There is one more 2600 track—a patch that keeps the high, consistent warm buzz and periodically gets modulated when you hear the frequency shift upwards and become more present.

The remainder of the sounds come from my Yamaha Clavinova electric piano. This is a wonderful piece of equipment that my mom purchased for me at a thrift store a couple of years ago for Christmas. Was I asking for an electric piano for Christmas? Nope. Was I slightly annoyed at having to move it when I wasn’t quite sure what it was? Yes. Was I intrigued by it all the same? Yes. The Clavinova provides a few standard sounds like piano, organ, strings, chorus, etc. that can be combined in pairings of two and a few built in basic effects. There are decent speakers for practice, but it also has quarter inch outputs to run into an amp and MIDI out, in and thru. It has nice weighted keys and I am just starting to explore hooking it up to control more stuff via MIDI. Regardless, I like some of the possibilities with the built-in samples. So…thanks Mum!

I believe what I am playing here is the strings plus chorus setting on the Clavinova, going directly into the audio interface with little to no effects. There are 7 or 8 overlapping layers using these same settings. For mixing, I kept it pretty simple, but applied a channel strip (SSL EV2) to everything and just did a little tweaking to try and differentiate some frequencies between the Clavinova layers. It all sort of blurs together, but hopefully in a good way.

There is one unexplained audio phenomena (UAP). I believe I hear a natural arpeggio happen in the high range—it sounds like a little shimmer. I definitely hear it around the two minute mark and 2:30 mark. I tried to capture this UAP as a sample, but couldn’t quite make it work in a way to hear it more often or more prominently. My guess is this is feedback occurring from the overlapping parts, but I don’t know. If you hear this as well and can explain it- please do!

That’s it. Pretty simple, just a series of intertwining lines, part of a musical trilogy in C major—the happiest key.

On the next full episode of “Washed Memoir” I’ll be bringing you a straight up banger of a track that won’t require any writing or explanation, it will be so damn pure. Sadly, I’ll write about it anyways. The next interim transmission will be a “heads-up” when Warm Sunrise goes live on streaming services.

Thank you very much for reading or listening and hopefully both!