Ideas for School Music Assessment?

[Muzzzz]

ok so for my year 11 music assessment, i have to write and record a 3-5 minute piece of 'experimental' music... it needs to have at least 8 tracks too.

i've decided to do an avant-garde jazz / free-funk piece, and to make it all the more experimental (which will score me even higher), i'm going to add things like hitting the strings of the piano with a stick (which was approved by the teacher, strangely enough!) and use the pitch bend and/or delay effects with my Boss GT-8 for guitar, as well as playing behind the nut of the guitar, etc etc...

but i need more ideas of how to make weird, tripped-out noises for my piece!! any takers? :)

[maverickf1jockey]

Sample various body percussion noises and make a drum rhythm.
Do the same with a printer a la Mattias Eklundh.
If you have access to a program like HYPERSONIC use some vintage arpeggiator sounds (I did this on my As-level piece for film & television music and it sounds the mutts no matter what keys you hit).
Listen to Frank Zappa, especially Baby Snakes.
have somebody talk nonsense over your work (like on Dark Side of the Moon).
Use a ring modualtor.
Do it in 11/8.
Have large periods of silence.
Have somebody singing about a long-lost goldfish who was eaten by a pie inside a cannabis leaf being chased by a monkey with the golden touch.
Play the piano parts in the style of Les Dawson.

Will they do?

[gingataff]

If you have badly potted or microphonic pickups in your guitar, try shouting into them and recording it. This seems to work well on my DiMarzios but not on my BKPs for some reason  

edit: Another similar idea is record something, play it back through a speaker and put your guitar pickup infront of it and record that guitar signal for a very crude lo-fi sound.

[Muzzzz]

record me shouting into my pickups! thats AWESOME!!!! i cant wait!!  :)

i'm sooo stealing some of those ideas, my old les paul copy has STUPIDLY microphonic pickups, i'll definately use that, and have lots of fun shouting into them :)

maverick, thanks for ur fantastic suggestions. ring mods are so horrible that they might just work! and theres an arpeggiator on my gt-8 too, i'd forgotten about it tho... i was considering doing big chunks of the piece in weird time sigs, 11/8 is a good one, i find that the 7/8 "da da da d/da da da d" to be a little overused.

keep 'em coming! :)

[hunter]

I think the best effects are simple ones.

Like a stutter on a ringing powerchord, done with a killswitch, an extremely set tremolo, or even by cutting the audio files in your sequencer.

Another simple one is fade ins / fade outs - you could do something new with volume pedal, or you fade in/out the FX, that is always cool too. Like have an extremely reverberated sound that suddenly becomes dry (did someone mention the Solo of "Money"?)

Post your clip here when it's done!

[Mr Ed]

Use your avatar as inspiration, go for a Buckethead approach - he's about as varied as you can get!

[Muzzzz]

lol yeah buckethead is most certainly an influence... i was thinking about having it mainly in a funk groove, but maybe chucking in tritones and aug 5ths into the bassline while having really experimental leads and effects over the top.

kinda like praxis.

and thats where i can tie in the 'stuttering' killswitch effect. definitely using that one. also, if any of you remember Dream Theater's "Score" dvd, the middle section of Raise the Knife had some pretty tripped-out sounds just using wah and some weird harmony, might use that as well.

I just had another idea, for long sustained harmony i can rub the rims of wine glasses containing various amounts of water. its a pretty cool effect.

i'll post it up here when i'm done. thanks for ur ideas!

[Mr Ed]

If you want some weird background noise, put a thick, lush chorus on, add some delay, mute the strings completely at the neck and then rap your fingers on the strings near the bridge and you'll get a weird almost waterfall-esque sound.  :)

[gwEm]

surprised no one suggested an e-bow so far...

[Kilby]

surprised no one suggested an e-bow so far...

I didn't becasue it would cost money.

Any device with an electric motor (or a speaker) should be able to introduce a signal to the pickups, or encourage the strings to move a bit.

[Mr Ed]

Play some dodgy music off your phone and put it against your pickups, the sound transfers.  :D

[Will]

Ray gun !
can't think of anything of major use, but I would like to hear the end product

[Muzzzz]

lol yeah i'm gunna maybe write the music and set up a framework off which to build all these lovely soundscapes and such. i was bored on the bus home from school and had some manuscript paper in my bag so i penned a pretty cool/twisted funk bassline which i think i'll use...

now i need to find someway to add the 11/8 bit lol.. easier said than done!

[psy]

remote controls for tellys & what not all make different beeping noises when you hold them in front of guitar pick ups press the buttons.  Analog watches are also good for amplifying with the guitar pickups (sounds cool with lots of reverb).

[Woogie]

You can set your GT8 up to sound like a pod racer off Star Wars