Auturgy – Ray Toler

Three Hours Later

In the interest of preservation and self-teaching, I have left what I wrote in its original state below, but here’s an addendum.¹ After posting this entry, I had a cup of coffee and took Olive to the dog park for about an hour. I came back, had another coffee and listened to Auturgy again. It’s fine. Yes, it needs love and attention and, yes, all of the points I made below are valid, but it’s not anywhere near as dire as I felt it was when I woke up this morning.

The lesson here, and one that I keep forgetting, is that I often don’t like what I’ve done in the moment, but with even just a little space, I can hear its value, quality, or potential. There are even tracks that I’ve done that, listening back in future years, I can’t believe I made. I have no idea how I did it. I have no idea where the idea, or the creativity, or the technique came from. I have absolutely no idea how I would create that right now.

My guess, at least about this track, is that I’ve been on a streak so far this month, with nearly every day being somehow better than the last. I think my disappointment with this one was more about comparing it with what came before it than evaluating it on its own merits.

Don’t worry about reading the rest unless you’re just interested in a more raw look at my process.

The original post:

Signs from the Universe

The universe has a funny way of sending you messages. Or maybe it’s more accurate to say that our minds have a funny way of blaming the universe for our own realizations and consequences. I wrote yesterday that The Face of Adversity was destined to be a failure and turned into something really fun. Compounding that, I received some very nice compliments on my mixing from a couple of other participants.

And then today happened. This track is a failure. Maybe not in the exact way I expected or the way you might interpret the word “failure,” but it’s one of those things that just didn’t work out.

Auturgy Ray Toler 6:10

Is It Really That Bad?

I woke up with two stolen songs in my head this morning. That worked out pretty well last time,²,so I’m going to get to it and not talk a whole lot about today’s track, but I do want to document a couple of things for myself, explain what I think went wrong, and touch on how I might either fix it in the future or avoid the same mistakes.

First the good: I think this is a pretty theme and has a lot of really interesting elements that, by themselves, are pretty awesome. It’s very cinematic and was applying nicely to various image sequences³ I was imagining while listening to it. I love the opening ostinato and how it moves through the entire piece. The cello line is pretty, and the little tinkly pluck arpeggios in the background really give it some nice movement. When listening to it this morning, Mary said, “I like how it combines both old and new.” That’s a really nice way of encapsulating it.

But…

Ok… it’s… here’s the thing: it never really sets correctly. It’s like a cake where you didn’t completely mix in the flour. Actually, a better analogy is that this is like a novel where there are four different storylines going, none of them ever really connect with each other and, in fact, actually make each other more confusing. On their own, each would be a great character arc, but together they become an incomprehensible mess.

In fact, while in the shower after posting it, I had the realization that this is really two different pieces: a mostly electronic focus/systems music piece, and an orchestral cinematic theme. For about three seconds I actually thought about going back and splitting them into two, and reposting them as Auturgy I and Auturgy II. I’m low on sleep, though, and wasn’t in the right frame of mind for any of that, because I was still angry at it.

Fun, Fun, Fun!

The first and primary problem is that I never really had an idea for today. Well, I did, and even wrote an entire set of lyrics, but I’ve finally accepted that no matter how hard I try, I’m never going to be Trent Reznor. Not only was it lukewarm, but it would have taken more time to produce than I had. I faffed around with several things, getting more and more frustrated and stressed, and then remembered that all of this is supposed to be fun. Making music should be fun, even when it’s frustrating. I relaxed and decided that today was the day where I was going to not worry about structure or lyrics or bridges or pre-choruses and just play with sound.

I started with one of my go-tos: Cycles from Slate + Ash. I’ve talked about it many times before, but it deserves mention again. I found a preset that was in the ballpark of what I was feeling and then started digging in to tweak it into something of my own. That’s the ostinato. I mapped a couple of controls to increase the probability of octave jumps or going to a fifth, extended the note out to about six minutes, did a rough performance on the controls, then went in and cleaned it up.

It’s incredibly hypnotic and was, in fact, playing on an almost constant loop for several hours while I worked. It never annoyed Mary, so I think it’s in the right space.

I initially was going in a systems music direction and tried a felt piano playing different patterns in the same scale. It got busy. I tried using an orchestral systems library⁴ and that didn’t work either. I decided to slow the piano down and ended up with more or less the part you hear in the final track.

Then I added the distorted bass string sound. I improvised a couple of higher notes, that sounded quite cello-ish, then stumbled on the theme. I went back and put a “real” cello part in, then moved things around so they were harmonizing. The last bit was adding the plucky arpeggios.

Acoustically, it’s a huge mess. Everything’s talking over everything else. The low end is a muddy mess. In fact, I deleted the felt piano entirely and re-recorded the part with a brighter piano at the last minute. The arpeggio is distracting. The ostinato becomes annoying instead of hypnotic. The distorted strings are overwhelming. And the whole damn thing is too damned loud.

I don’t know that I’ll ever try to salvage this. It absolutely think it can be salvaged, and the theme is worth revisiting.

The primary problem with Auturgy is that I was pantsing⁵ the entire thing. More often than not, this works out really well and there’s a moment where it all comes together. This time, though, I was trying to throw a party where nobody really likes each other.

I know I said I wasn’t going to be as negative in the moment, and I’m probably sounding more down about this one than I am. I know it can be fixed – it’s a victim of the time crunch Song-A-Day imposes. This is a piece that needs incubation and development. Maybe some day…

Colophon

Instruments & Samples

Slate + Ash Cycles, Choreographs, and Landforms, Spitfire Sacconi Quartet

Effects, Mixing, & Mastering

FabFilter, Cinematic Rooms Pro, Gullfoss

Notes

1
Predendum?
2
See Set Who You Are
3
Moving through space, slow pans over ocean reefs, time-lapse photography of cities, a wordless reconciliation…
4
Spitfire Kepler. See Unregistered System from 2022
5
Writing by the seat of one’s pants. I use this term a lot, but this is the first time this year.