Clockwork

When I first started developing this song, I wanted to explore the contradictions associated with the idea of time, which lead me to think about clocks. In a way, clocks are a thing of the past - we all can find the time on our cell phones, we generally don't wear watches anymore, and whatever clocks we do have are most likely electronic - there's no doubt that we look at time differently than we did thirty years ago. At the same time, an old school clock demands fine craftsmanship and attention to detail, otherwise the clock will loose track of the time; we always have full respect for that detail and hate to mess with the time. When we feel the pressure of time, we are drawn to clocks, looking at them with a fear of upcoming deadlines; when we are relaxing, we purposely avoid clocks, trying to extend the time that we have. There's no doubt that our relationship with clocks, and consequently time, is evolving, conflicted, and full of opposing viewpoints.

I wanted to recreate the way that many tiny pieces come together within a clock to create this force that has such an impact upon our lives. I did this with rhythmic displacement, having different interlocking synth lines emphasizing different points in the measure. At the beginning of the piece, this seems a bit random, but as more parts enter the picture the overall pulse begins to make sense. I tended to favor short percussive sounds, but tempered that rhythmic nature with some thicker, long melodies to display contrast. There's three specific parts to the piece that are all inter-related; each one has it's own distinct flavor that highlights the contradiction within the topic but ideas freely overlap, showing how the overall concept works together. Despite a variety of ideas and directions included within the piece, the hope is that it all comes together like "clockwork" - hence the title.

I put this piece together solely on my iPad, once again using NanoStuido as my main point of creation. I brought in a variety of synth sounds from some of my favorite apps, including Sunrizer Synth, Animoog, Arctic Keys, and Addictive Synth. The drums came from my current first call drum app, Stochastik Drum Machine.