“Chino Yoshio, a composer based quietly in Kyotanabe, Kyoto” has been working with sine waves in poetic, beautifully reflective ways.
I’m going to run today with the idea that sine waves need not be just neutral, the absence of harmonics — not just a technical description, like an oscillator. (There’s academic research expanding this definition.) But perhaps nothing embodies this notion quite like the work of Chino Yoshio.
There are layers here, unfolding like an onion, and I don’t want to give them all away — better to cue up the music and read the whole story:
“Do Not Cross This Bridge” means “Kono Hashi Wataru Bekarazu.” [essay on the making of the music]
Go ahead and spend the money on this; that conversion is like one dollar/Euro!
The sine wave recipe I will share here, as it’s so nicely simple. Of course, all sorts of things happen as you hear those sine waves — they ring delightfully in your ear. They take on a spirit of their own. They dance around inside your perception. There’s more to the sine wave than the sine wave, much like that mystery of Pi.
◾️”Sine Wave Marimba” Settings
Prepare a 440Hz Sine Wave and import it into the sampler (Root Key: A3)
Layer 1 (0dB)
Attack: 5ms, Hold: 0ms, Decay: 500ms, Sustain: -∞ (0dB), Release: 400ms
Layer 2 (-15dB)
Attack: 5ms, Hold: 0ms, Decay: 40ms, Sustain: -∞ (0dB), Release: 0ms
Oddly enough, I don’t think I’ve ever heard a duet for strings and pure sine waves — or trio here, technicaly, even if there are just two players. But you get that from Yoshio-san, too — and it’s really striking, here with a great player:
Violin & Viola performed by Miz, a versatile string player known for her work with GACKT and many other artists.
MIZ is a superstar — you just need Japanese Wikipedia to learn why if you’re not in the know.
And since spring is coming, have some cherry blossoms, too — oh, and do tell me if these sine waves still sound “neutral” to you(!) (They do sound somehow pink and white.)
Spring is coming, flowers will bloom, circles will live. Wishing you a good 3.14.