GAVONYX — "RESTRUCTURE"
Restructure is the title of the album that contains my main work during the years of 2018 and 2019. In my opinion this is when I got past the awkward I-have-no-idea-what-im-doing phase into actually making good music. So I find every piece on the album to be worth a listen, and for the last piece to be worth multiple. At this time I was still using the application "Auxy" to compose and create my music. And around this time, Auxy had a period where new synth instruments were made available to non subscription users. Then they got rid of all the OG sounds and had only a few new sounds. For this reason the album feels very cohesive.
My previous works on the albums of "Oldies" and the B-side "Moldies" all seem to fit the same form. Intro, Groove 1, Break, Groove 2, Groove 1+2, End. This trend is something I was unaware of and only recently realized. Restructure is where I break this trend and explore new and more vague forms.
Restructure also features a few pieces created with the help of my co-composer, MattC. Specifically Rooster feet and Counterplay. He gets a cut of the money for these pieces. They both are quite unique.
I noticed an interesting phenomenon occur at this time. My compositions seem to come in pairs. So this album, Restructure, is ordered to reflect these 'song sibling' relationships. They are not ordered in terms of creation date, and to be honest, I doubt any of my albums will be ordered in that way.
9-Bit Electric
The first piece on my album also turns out to be one of the oldest on the album. I experimented with shifting the time and achieved a smooth transition by use of poly rhythm. On Auxy this was rather difficult because of the limitations on changing the tempo. As in, it's impossible to change the tempo. Overall a nice quaint piece with a great intro.
Rooster Feet
This is the first collab piece with MattC (Matt) on the album. He came up with the main riff. This piece actually went through many many iterations as we figured out exactly how weird we wanted it to be.
Counterplay
This is the second collab piece with Matt. We worked on this piece very closely for a long while. He came up with the beginning and sent the project to me. I worked on it for a bit, sent it back, he worked on it, sent it back, I worked on it, etc. Somewhere along the line I forgot I had sent it back to him so I worked on it again while he worked on it. That cycle we both came up with a lot of ideas and then the two project files had become very different. The main differences begin at about 48 seconds in. I really enjoy this piece mainly because it's so different from the kind of music I had been making up to this point. I will also add that the main bass line is technically from the song "clean" by "big data." My publishing administrator contacted them and got approval for its use.
Stardisc
Stardisc is the second piece I really sat down and flushed out a normal chord progression for. This piece is also the youngest on the album. I had only completed it mid 2020 but I decided to put it in this album, Restructure, because I used Auxy to make it. For about 90% of the piece I was the mastermind but I got help from Matt and a great musician studying to become a music educator and conductor at a prestigious music college. I would also like to say that for the intro, I used the lydian mode. It produced an interesting sound as the 1 chord is major and the 2 chord is also major. Quickly after the intro however, I transition to the Aeolian (minor) mode, and the piece stays there.
Jealous Yesigator
I really enjoy this piece. It along with its song sibling, Lazy Tiger. They were the first pieces I made after Auxy added the new sounds to its available tones. It's just a fun little tune with a clear direction and an interesting riff that goes right from the start. There's a modulation near the beginning. Now with modulations, most go up because it adds a little boost of energy. I appreciate going down in modulations. I think because it adds a little bit of a challenge to try and keep the energy going. I feel I was able to accomplish that in this piece. Oh yeah, and the title is complete gobbledygook. The generated title was jealous aligator but somehwere along the lines it got changed to yesigator. Not sure how, but I liked it enough to keep it.
Lazy Tiger
The sibling song to Jealous Yesigator, another great tune with a short intro that sets the main riff. This piece feels more sad to me but I can't put my finger on why. If you've seen my other pages on my previous albums, you'll notice this piece loosely follows my structure of intro, groove, break, groove 2, end. Of course that's because this piece is very old. But this is one of the last pieces of my main work that follows that form. This album in fact is where my music broke that old structure I used, and it is part of why the album is called "restructure."
Poppy Party
I actually made this piece out of . . . spite? Discontent? I kind of said to myself, "man, pop sucks. I bet I could make a pop-type song and I bet it would be waaaay better than any crap on the radio." So I made this. And then I added a bunch of bit-crush or redux to it. So I came up with a melody and a simple chord progression that never actually progresses. It actually turned in to a pretty good piece. Aaaand of course to tie it all together I even have a riser.
Nerv
This is the sibling song to poppy party. My favorite part of the whole piece is actually the drums. They turned out fantastic with the bit crush. For the most part this is a great piece, but my least liked part is actually the end with the riser. I couldn't figure out a good way to end the piece other than just making it loud. So this piece is also "pop like." But less so in my opinion compared to Poppy party.
Green
I really enjoy the aesthetic of this piece. If I'm remembering correctly the beginning of this piece uses quartal chords and stacks of 5ths. Somewhere along the creation process this piece went from incredibly dark to a brighter, happier chord progression. While that wasn't necessarily my original intent with the piece, I enjoy how it turned out. This piece is actually a sibling song with the next piece on the album.
Wunderer Almost
I really enjoy this piece. MattC came up with the bass tone, called it super bass. So props to him cause it sounds great. I think the melodic line is rather retro sounding and bouncy. The transition to the darker section of the piece is well executed as well. I think around this piece I realized I really like making faster paced pieces with a sort of dark or minor feel to them. And I've since realized this is because of the various influences on my music. I will create a page that describes these influences eventually.
Cougar Boi
I love cougar boi. From the speed to the compositional technique to the chord progression to the tone. The way I composed this was I came up with a four bar melody and then took each of the 4 measures and expanded on them into 4 more measures. So the main bulk of ideas came from the riff on measures 4-7. This idea of using only a small amount of ideas to create an entire piece is fantastic. It's called the recycling of material. I highly recommend every composer do this. It can lengthen a piece or song by an incredible amount. You just take an idea you have already made or played, and change it or develop it.
Ru
In my opinion this piece is the the most meaningful piece I had created up to this point. I created the gist of it one day when I was feeling particularly sad and lonely. I sat down at the piano and came up with the main ideas and put them into Auxy soon after. The result is one that still moves me to this day. It was the closest I had gotten to writing in music the feelings I was experiencing. It is Art. And I love that about the piece. My favorite moment in the whole thing is the piano solo at around 2 minutes in. I revisited the piece later to continue the story it tells. The project was started sometime during 2018 but wasn't completely finished until 2020 as I developed the piece on and off for two years. So as it is the crowning piece of the album I have it last.
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This page is a list of all pieces on the album and comments on those pieces are written by me, GavOnyx, the composer/producer, with the exception of "Counterplay," "Rooster Feet," and "Stardisc." The first twowere co written by Matt. "Stardisc" was created by me, GavOnyx, and Matt was an artistic consultant. He is being compensated for his work.
