Why Bach? - Sound Design, Public Domain and Coltrane

As you can tell from my recent Patreon feed, I have my hands in J.S. Bach’s two-part inventions. I admit it’s a little odd to create electronic, Pico-8 arrangements of compositions originally written as keyboard exercises, but I have my reasons:

1) Pico-8’s New Instrument Editor

In late 2017, Lexaloffle released version 0.1.11 and among its new features was the instrument editor. The original seven instruments can now be combined and arranged to create NEW instruments. I was excited after playing with it for a few minutes. This was an exponential increase in complexity and expression and I wanted to learn how to use it. 

I find the best way to learn about new music tools, software and equipment is to take pressure off my composition muscles and focus more on workflow and technique. This is originally why I created the Zelda: A Link to the Past soundtrack in Pico-8 and the Stranger Things soundtrack in MilkyTracker. 

I’m no John Coltrane, but this reminds me of a story I read about his album Ballads (which is probably one of the most classic jazz albums of all time). Coltrane had been pushing the envelope in the 1960s, performing and recording music that was upsetting a lot of critics. Ballads, when it was released in 1963, was in stark contrast to the free and avant-garde jazz that he was exploring during that time - it’s a collection of jazz standards, performed and structured very traditionally. Many people speculated that Coltrane was “selling out” or was pressured to do it by the record company. When asked though, Coltrane said he was breaking in a new mouthpiece.

2) Bach’s Music and the Public Domain

I’ve received many messages asking where my soundtrack remakes can be purchased and downloaded (especially Stranger Things). I’d love to post these on BandCamp to make them more accessible, but that would require licenses, which would be expensive and/or difficult to get. Artists break these rules all the time, but I don’t want to be one of them.

My solution to this problem is to cover music that’s in the public domain. Anything written before 1923 is free for anyone to interpret, arrange, record etc. This includes Bach’s inventions (which were written in the 1720s). 

As it turns out, covering music in the public domain has issues too. YouTube’s Content ID system isn’t perfect and has a hard time differentiating between electronic/chiptune arrangements of Bach, and Glenn Gould playing Bach. 

Bach’s music is in the public domain, but Glenn Gould’s recordings of Bach's music are not. And if YouTube thinks you’re using material from one of those recordings, your video will be flagged and restricted. Restrictions can include monetization and access limits in certain regions. Considering the average view count of my videos, I’m not worried about either of these, as long as my account doesn’t get flagged, or worse, suspended. I’m confident my appeals will be successful though. 

I learned that this is actually a common problem in uploading classical music to YouTube. It’s pathetic that YouTube can’t differentiate between Pico-8 and the piano. You can image then, how good it must be at differentiating between two piano recordings of the same composition. I don’t plan on finding out, but I sympathize with creators who are dealing with this regularly. 

3) Sound Design Workflow

When you play the piano, the drums, or any other traditional instrument, it’s easy to take their sounds, capabilities and musical functions for granted. For example, you can’t change the volume curve of a piano’s attack.  When you play traditional instruments, these limitations are deeply imbedded into our practice. They inform how we play, listen and socially interact with other musicians, through music. 

Throw this all out the window with electronic music - each new composition is an opportunity to define a new orchestra. So where does sound design fit within a composition workflow? Do you design a sound first, and then write music? Or do you write music, and design the sound later? 

I had a very traditional music education. I became interested in electronic music in 2012, five years after I graduated from university. Sound design isn’t my strength, and so these were questions I wanted to answer for myself while working on the inventions. I know that designing sounds in Pico-8 isn’t nearly as complex as in say, Ableton Live, but the goal is to at least get more comfortable in this new ‘space.’ 

Furthermore, because of my music training, I’m fairly comfortable developing compositions melodically, harmonically, and rhythmically. But because you can’t adjust the attack curve of a piano, I’ve never practiced developing the actual sounds of instruments. 

This is another reason I chose the inventions: Arranging them is a great way to practice designing and developing sounds. Bach’s music is extremely linear. Since I’m using a tool that can create, change and develop instruments, the linearity in these compositions should also be reflected in the sound design. This is probably the biggest difference between my Pico-8 arrangements of Bach’s inventions and a traditional piano interpretation: As the melody, harmony and form unfold throughout the piece, so will the sounds of the instruments.

Thanks for reading, I'll write more about this project soon!