Well, obviously she’s not going to completely hate it (or if she does she’ll pretend she doesn’t) because she’s my mum, and even though I’m 44 she still does ‘proud mummy’ posts on Facebook. However, she does like a nice catchy tune and this is definitely not that.
What we have in the video is: three tracks of clock ticking, each one at a slightly different speed; one melodic pattern that is at the same tempo as tick 1 (you may remember ‘Ominous thud’ from the last post), a different melodic pattern that is at the same tempo as tick 2, and yet another melodic pattern that is at the same tempo as tick 3. I wouldn’t recommend listening to all three at the same time. (There is also some other stuff but I’ll come to that in a minute.)
Over the course of the loop, which is about a minute and a half long, the three ticks are more-or-less in time with each other at three points – beginning, middle, and end. In between those points where they’re together they very gradually and very irritatingly slide more and more out of time with each other, creating lots of rhythmic patterns that are shifting and changing and battling with each other until they slide back into place again when the ticks come back in time.
I said in my last video that I was going to see if I could pick out some of the rhythms and make them into something on the loop, but the results were pretty shocking so I deleted all of that and moved swiftly on. What I’ve done instead is used harmonies – basically two or more notes played at the same time – and as the rhythmic patterns become more complex, the harmonic ones do too. (This is the bit my mum won’t like.)
When the ticks are really out of time with each other the harmonies are really clashing and uncomfortable, and as the ticks come back together the harmonies gradually shift back together as well.
My brain finds all of this terribly interesting and there’s lots more I want to say but it might get boring, so I think I’ll do it in another post so it’s easier to skip if you want.