The joy of playing

Honing keyboard playing skills and stepping away from the sequencer once in awhile, is good for the soul's yearning

Today’s post is a collection of recordings I’ve made this week on the Hydrasynth Explorer, connected to nothing more than my Zoom H6 recorder. I have been exploring a mixture of melody and chord progressions along with the synths wealth of expressive possibilities to come up with these.

It’s worth mentioning that I started playing keyboard when I was a kid but never had formal lessons, though I did learn to play guitar at one point with the help of a professional teacher. I have had a number of keyboard instruments over the years, starting way back in the day with a Bontempi! Then when I was in my early teens my parents bought me a Casio for Christmas. I have always had an interest and have taught myself over the years, as I started to buy more serious keyboard synths. The latest I’ve added to my small but sure to grow collection is of course the Hydrasynth!

I’ve never been particularly interested in learning to play music by other people and have never been keen on joining a band. I prefer to do my own thing. I am an introvert after all.

I have been obsessed with music theory for years, often reading books on the topic at length, I think some of it has sunk in somewhere; I’m fairly good at playing by ear, not as spontaneous as some people but I can muddle my way through it.

So I may not be a classically trained pianist or fantastically good musician and more often than not, I am happy sequencing my compositions via the DAW or hardware tools. I just enjoy the process and there is a lot to be gained from it.

However recently, I have decided to go back to playing, to learn some new tricks, maybe go wild and explore jazz chords. I am obsessed with Eb Minor for some reason.

I think a lot of this is because I’ve been exposed to so much wonderful music throughout my 52 years on this planet. Everything from Jean Michel-Jarre to Steely Dan with some Dave Brubeck thrown in for good measure. Having a background in electronic music from the ambient to the banging Techno, Vivaldi to John Coltrane. Ray Manzarek of the doors, is another big inspiration.

Going back to the Hydrasynth, I can tell you that I am so glad I bought it, it is the ideal instrument for me, almost like ASM made it for me. I know they didn’t but the sounds it produces are lovely and I can quite easily find patches that inspire, in fact they inform me - if that makes sense to you - they give you a cue and the feel that you need to derive something from the sound that leads to a great chord and melody.

Sculpting the sounds as you play gives them an organic flavour, that breathes life into a performance even if it’s just a simple idea being sketched out in the privacy of my study at home, a little raw, timing a bit off but helps expand the palette of musical knowledge, be it exploration of exotic scales or those jazz chord progressions.

Let’s move on to this week’s “sketches”.

Sketch 1

I like to refer to these as “sketches” in this journal and this one takes one of the electric piano patches that I particularly love that offers some flexible parameters for performance and I love the effect that the mod wheel has on the sound, that granulated warble, is just lovely. I shall in future posts delve into the mechanics of this synth, as the mod wheel can be assigned a variety of functions to “morph” the sound as you play, adding plenty of flavour.

Sketch 2

The e-piano presets on the Hydra are rather nice, leaning more towards the lo-fi end of the spectrum but can very easily be “brightened” to sound crispier. This was my dreamy little sketch. I was quite happy with this one too, as I am on a learning curve in order to improve my playing skills.

I recorded the audio directly into a Zoom recorder, rather than into Ableton, so there weren’t any chances to quantise the MIDI. In future posts, we shall delve into Ableton or Logic a bit more because I normally prefer to capture my MIDI. Once I’ve got that data, it is much easier to manipulate it, to reason about it and build up a library of useful pieces.

However with this recording, it was more about the moment, the raw feeling.

Sketch 3

When I started drafting this post, I had planned to share more but I am going to leave it at 4 because I simply didn’t have as much time as I had hoped - I gradually write these over the course of the week and then when Friday comes, my chosen publication day, I end up rushing it out.

Sometimes it’s best to drop something, saving it for next time.

Sketch 4

Ok bonus sketch - just found this one on my SD card, simply a sequence preset straight from the synth and it’s a cool one. Playing chords and inverting them is a lot of fun here and tweak the params of course!

Talking of playing instruments live; here are some events coming up.

Events coming soon

April

Every month Readipop host an EMOM evening at Reading’s South Street venue, where a number of artists take to the stage and perform throughout the evening. The venue is easy to get to and is located close to Reading’s various car parks and not too far from the train station if you are coming in from further afield. You can find the full details via this Eventbrite link. 10th April, starts 7pm.

I tend to hear about these events via the Modular Cafe Discord. If you know of any coming up of a similar ilk; please drop me a note in the comments below.

There is a Modular Cafe meeting coming up in April and it’s on my birthday, 17th April but I am going to miss it because I will be down in Cornwall. The details for this event and all others may be found on the communities website.

May

Next month, there is the Ambient Afternoon, taking place down in Wimborne Minster, a place I know well, as that is where my parents reside.

It takes place on Sunday 18th May, starting at 1:30pm and finishes at 5:30pm. Set in the garden of the Museum of East Dorset complete with afternoon tea. Don’t ask which way scones should be served! I have Cornish in my blood! I am sure it will be a great jam though… sorry, couldn’t pass that one by.

Thanks go out to

Adrian Newton

for bringing this one to our attention and there will be at least two “ModCaffers” there as far as I know.

Testchamber preview

On Monday night this week, my wife and I went along to Woking’s Nova Cinema to watch the preview screening of the Testchamber documentary. We loved it and enjoyed the narrative direction that it took, weaving in the history of the wind tunnel with the music. it was interesting how this fed in to the creative process of the 20 artists who took part. Their pieces mostly took direct inspiration from the men and women who built the facility in Farnborough and the work that took place there over the decades since.

I loved the stories that were told and how the documentary also included the people who used to work at what was the RAE (Royal Aircraft Establishment).

The building has in the past been a measuring instrument and for the purposes of the Testchamber project, it became an instrument of the musical kind. I loved that synergy, the way in which engineering and art converge, breathing a new lease of life into this building.

The cinematography was fantastic and the sound mixing was exquisite and in the cinema space, made me feel as if I was in Q121 itself. The sheer level of detail that the editing went in to, the way the Dolby Surround system was used - Oh boy it was good.

I also felt it told a very important human story, how music is a great healer, a bond between people and how it brings out the best in us all.

Make beeps - not war. They didn’t say that in the film, that just popped into my random head!

In short I was transfixed, don’t think I budged one inch throughout the whole viewing because I had a numb bum at the end - which is probably more than you needed to know!

My wife liked it too and she (mostly) hates electronic music! So there you go!

It was lovely to see Adrian Utley of Portishead come down and take part in the Q&A, what a lovely chap and very supportive of Modcaf. I think most Modcaf members brought along partners and their children to see the film. A great turnout!

Thank you

Thanks as ever for your support, this past month has been one of the best for this project with 16 new people signing up. Please share it with other people.

See you again soon - I am taking a break soon, so there may not be another post until late April.