Bix in the sky with Gamma

bix2

Listen to Bix in the sky with Gamma


This short song shows a few things:

The 2 melodic instruments are both resynthesized versions of wind instruments (originally a trombone and a soprano sax) processed with Camel Audio Alchemy

Partials of both sounds have been inharmonically retuned to comply to the requirements of Carlos Gamma tuning system (see “Spectral Mappings for Carlos Gamma” for more explanations) that is featured throughout this song

Everything started with me improvising with my ribbon controller and the trombone sound over a drum loop (that I afterward discarted and substituted with the “cool jazz” one once the song took shape). The melody was shaped playing my NS 88

Part of the melody came to me while walking
Jerry, my Golden Retriever, at night. So, once back home I had to rapidly turn on my MacBook Pro and Halberstadt keyboard to save it for posterity

I am using the same mode of
Carlos Gamma devised by X.J.Scott I have used sofar for all my Gamma pieces (Gammalan, Adagio Gamma, Moonlight Gamma Serenade) while waiting for my Opal isomorphic keyboard to arrive

The song title has something to do with
Bix Beiderbecke (I mangled the soprano sax sample enough to become what, to me, sounds like a cornet that immediately reminded me of him). It also has something to do with a Beatles song for inexplicable reasons

This “cornet” sound is the first one I have created with additive synthesis that has struck my fantasy as “potentially” functional

My jazz background keeps haunting me. This tune sounds, to me, like the soundtrack of some TV series of the 50’s (incidentally the first episode of the Perry Mason series was aired only few days after I was born)


bixb parrymason