composed by Tom Sanderson

Many pieces of music come in fragments from serendipitous ideas when my mind finally reaches a relaxed (parasympathetic) state. This was not one of those times. In lieu of the magic sparks and actually finding a calm moment, sometimes I just have to start playing to see if I can find ideas. Occasionally I find an interesting musical phrase after playing for an hour or a few minutes. Or sometimes no ideas come.

In December, 2022, I was menu-diving through the FA-06 patches in the “synth seq/pop” folder and I happened upon the staccato patch that starts this piece. After finding a suitable phrase, I found another patch that reminded me of a new-age fusion band’s work from the 1980’s. I found a pentatonic melody that fit well with the staccato from the first patch. As has previously been the case for me, I unconsciously associated certain “sounds” with the works I remember them from (e.g. the original frame of reference). The choice of the first few patches on this piece steered this composition deep into the 1980’s again, calling to reference action comedy soundtracks and new age fusion. I made an “A” and “B” segment with a couple of variations and layered patches, including synth bass, pads and percussion.

After making good progress with this one, I forgot about it for nearly two years until revisiting a few unfinished sequences this fall. My brother Brian thought that this one had potential and so I decided to finish it. My main task was to create a “C” section (or one could call it the bridge) at a full step modulation. Then I added more percussion, replacing the initial drum layer. I exported the project to individual WAV files and decided to render separate files for the synth bass with different patches for variety. I used one of these variations that transposed the line by an octave continuously as a sub-bass layer to give the bass added dimension. Mixing was a fairly straight-forward process with only minor level adjustments, some delay and reverb effects.

Musically, I consider this recording to be akin or related to “Tropical Speedway,” though not as an intended sequel. If I ever create a small length album (an “E.P.”) with similar types of music, I imagine these two being in the same movie theater, just on a different weekend.

Sequenced (Roland FA-06 synthesizer workstation) December, 2022 + October to November, 2024. Mixed November 2024 (studio one 4) and mastered November 2024 (cool edit pro 2.0)

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Tom Sanderson