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Surreal Musical Instrument and Computer

Morning of September 7, 2013. Saturday.

Just when I thought I have had almost every dream possible about variation in how sound presents itself, along comes something more complex and interesting in seeing, hearing, and feeling it (with the potential of even smell and taste, supposedly).

In this dream, my wife and I are living back at Clayfield, the second place we lived in real life since we were married.

There is a large, long device that is used in arranging music and it is all based on modules and nodes that fit into various fairly narrow compartments (the potential width of each adjustable section seems to relate to the note length), almost like the physical manifestation of a DAW. Recently, in real life, I had been working on a fairly new concept, even mentally in a precise way when falling asleep - of integrating sound in three-dimensional continuity in the sense of frequency bands mixing seamlessly.

In my dream, my “machine” is almost like a piano in concept and does have a type of smaller keyboard (but used only for testing the overall sound or “hit” of an individual compartment in a sequence of a measure - from left to right - a completely different concept than a spread of potential usable notes on a piano), but the main focus is on the compartments, each almost like a miniature breadbox. Each and every sonic totality of a particular instrument is a special module, about the size of a paperback novel - each with its own interesting properties. Each module fits in each adjustable area as part of a particular rendered measure (again, from left to right). It is somehow rendered to another machine (a smaller one on the other side of the room) before its final form (or master) in the form of a strong “ribbon” (which the sound is recorded on).

I feel a great interest in the different parts and how they fit. One part, about seven or eight compartments from the left, is part of a conga fill, I think, or at least one module of a conga drum, and perhaps a tom or two of different tones (which is a bit “off” as it is only the first measure of the song and would not have a fill unless that measure was a short intro, which actually may be the case in my dream, though it does seem more like a verse. Most of these pieces are somewhat rectangular and everything seems to be made of mostly wood, with some metal and perhaps other materials here and there, such as a miniature drum membrane set inside a compartment within another compartment at a forty-five degree angle and sliding doors within other sliding sections at times. I eventually notice that some of these things have aspects of other notes from other instruments somehow physically inside them, and can be set (almost like a mousetrap) to work in different ways when the machine uses the particular setup.

I see very clearly, the different parts, almost as if the snare drum and conga sounds (as well as the implied organ or synthesizer parts I have in the machine) are aspects of a “giant harmonica” within the machine. I focus on how the snare and conga modules have different types of holes in the front and relate that in the same way you would relate differences in harmonica or accordion reeds. Even though all the modules look basically the same in size, other than how they are narrower with shorter notes, I become focused and highly interested in the different, more subtle structures, and other compartments inside those.

Another strange technical aspect is how my mind somehow combined the idea of the black keys and white keys of a piano (or any other keyboard) with the idea of the size orientation and placement of the measure parts, which really does not make any sense, almost comparable to only being able to play a guitar by using one string at a time, and only being able to go downwards exactly one string at a time for each note or event. Also, regarding my dream perception itself, the width of a key on a piano has nothing to do with how long the note has to be held. I guess it is an example of how dreams combine completely different ideas into one in a very unusual way.

After time, I do start to wonder how a more complex mix (say of eight tracks, or several individual bands or ranges) can be designed. The small wooden modules of the brass notes may even be club-shaped (rather than more rectangular) and slide in at an angle above the organ sections. If the brass has two notes on the hit, it is a club within a club that is attached internally by a wire perhaps, and slides inside the machine, each internal compartment within another compartment being perhaps two-thirds the size of the previous. There is also a vague awareness of the actual coil of a real spring reverb of a real amp (but miniaturized) in one of the compartments. There may also be velvety heart-shaped modules, like a miniature box of candy (but without the candy itself) and resonating with a flute-like lilt.

I really do not complete a project; I mostly only dwell on the one measure and its potential, which still seems like a great deal of complexity to ponder. This also reminds me, in parts, of the childhood “obsession” I had with being more interested in the smaller cardboard container (and its mysterious “hidden” sections) of the chocolate Easter bunny than the chocolate itself.

At any rate, this machine would not be feasible in reality, as it would take up far too much space for even a two-minute song, and where would you get all the potentially endless modules and nodes and where on Earth would you store them? - you would need something close in size to an entire town or at least a several-block area, or a few really tall buildings - imagine if all the DVD movies you had took up the space implied by the sets in them, even solely within the range of where the main focus was on the actors. This is also somewhat akin to dreaming about computer games being an actual physical device (such as a large and complex three-dimensional board game with robotic tokens) than a computer screen.

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