Tribalism #1
13 March 2011 Filed in: Music
Listen to Tribalism #1
I had thought to explain the origin of this piece by saying that during my worldwide wandering I had landed on a mysterious island where I had recorded the chanting natives but the truth is that it is only me in my recording studio going berserk in front of a Neumann microphone!
I had also thought of doing something “tribally” different, but my muse forced me somewhere else, nevertheless, as the title implies, more “tribalism” lies ahead.
This is probably a natural reaction after the sleekness of ECM-flavored tunes like “Over The Beta Rainbow”.
The form of this piece is the traditional “call and response” structure.
The rhythm is asymmetrical. This element was actually the initial idea for this piece and was influenced by Jacky Ligon’s “Other Time” album.
This song is a pitch shift tour de force. Both the leading voice and the choir are created this way (both derive from the same audio recording).
There is also a third, rhythmic, vocal element that you can hear underneath lead voice and choir.

In order to create the choir I automated some parameters of Logic Pro’s pitch shift: semitone shifting and mix between natural and processed voice.

I also used Logic Pro’s Flex Time function to quantize audio tracks.
Read and listen to the follow-up: “Tribalism #2”