My project takes on the task of sampling from different pieces of post rock music. What is "post rock"?, you might ask. This is an excellent question since post rock is a rather unheard of musical genre and often defies strict descriptors.
Post rock emerged in the late 20th century within the indie and underground music scene. The genre is quite experimental, defying conventional song structure and often using a wide range of musical elements such as synths, melodic melodies, and crazy drum beats. Simon Reynolds coined the term, using it to describe music which "uses rock instrumentation for non-rock purposes, using guitars as facilitators of timbre and textures rather than riffs and power chords" read more here. Typically, post-rock pieces are lengthy, between 12-30 minutes in length, and take the listener on a journey through the space the song creates. Popular post rock bands include:
- Talk Talk
- Slint
- Bark Psychosis
- Swans
- Godspeed You! Black Emperor
- Stars of the Lid
When I think of music to relax to, I think of post rock. I discovered the genre when I was having problems falling and staying asleep in high school and was simultaneously trying to expand my music taste. While post-rock may sound abrasive to the new listener, with a good pair of headphones and open ears, one will surely find it to be an engaging listening experience! Post rock doesn't immediately sound relaxing, but I find that it does help me fall asleep at night!
For my piece, I decided to sample from existing post-rock songs to create a new song! I also layered on top additional chords to add to the song and get practice with some music theory (which I've never done before!). I called my piece A Long Season of Swans as it combines all my inspiration. The songs I sampled from are (all credit goes to the artists!)
- A Piece of the Sky by Swans I mainly used the crackling sounds in the beginning and a few parts in the middle that get more intense. This song is ~20 minutes long so I only used a few sections!
- Green Arrow by Yo La Tengo I absolutely love the bird chirping in this song, so I used that in the intro and outro!
- Storm by Godspeed You! Black Emperor This is one of the most breathtaking pieces of music I have ever listened to. I used the more melodic parts in the intro and outro and then also added one of the more intense sections in the middle of the song.
- Long Season by Fishmans This one is a bit strange, but beautiful nonetheless. I used the middle section with lots of synths in the build up of my piece.
- Svefn-g-englar by Sigur Ros Also one of the most beautiful songs ever in my opinion, I used one section in the middle of the piece. I layered on top some ambient synths and chords based on the songs to add some dynamics!
All credits to these songs goes to the artists! I do own most of theses records on vinyl and have downloaded them to my computer from my turntable; those I do not have on vinyl I downloaded from the internet. I want the music of these artists to be remembered despite the fact that post rock is a genre which is pretty unheard of. Therefore, I want to support each artist by buying their music and ensuring that all credit is given!
- Sonic Pi tutorial, here
- Chord Progressions
- Begginer's Guide to Post Rock
GitHub told me my song was too big to upload (72 mb), so I added it to my OneDrive folder, which I shared with you!