High Ash by Morris Masuda
This album is inspired by running around High Ash Farm, Caistor St Edmund. It's a great place for running (and walking) just outside Norwich, opposite the remains of the Roman town, Venta Icenorum. It has gentle slopes, trees and wildlife. There are some great views over the city. I have been going there to run lot recently. I tried to create a piece of music that reminded me of this and place and would also work as a running aid; controlling my speed and helping me to get into a trance.
I matched the tempo to half the speed of my steps per minute so I can listen to it and sync my running speed to it. I got this by running round the garden and recording myself counting steps. 76.33 bpm. This means my footsteps will be 8th notes. I usually run about a 10 minute mile so this will work for a 40 minute run. I wanted to create something of a constant tempo that flowed and matched my speed as I usually feel distracted by listening to music when running because I'm out of sync with it. Basically I wanted to make my run part of the music and also use it to keep my speed under control. If I run at this speed I know I'm not going too fast or slow. (I like 10 minutes a mile, you've got time to take things in, it's less punishing and also it's easy to work out how far you've gone!)
All the sounds were made by putting a recording device inside a piano and playing individual chords from Hendrix's '1983 a Merman I Should Be'. (I recorded them one at a time, stopping and starting record each time cos I don't know piano chords.) It was nice to have all the sounds coming from one source.
I wanted to create an piece of music where the sound of my feet hitting the ground and my breathing and the rustling of my clothing are a complimentary part of the sound. I thought it'd be fun to do something with acoustic sounds that was open and ambient but pulsing.
Waking up randomly at 4 in the morning I had a slightly spaced out headphone session chopping up the recordings and realised I preferred the sound after the attack of each chord and the little clicks of me pressing record on the device. I then made three channels of samples and looped them, changing the length of the loops and passing them through filters and reverbs as I recorded. I was thinking about the hills at the farm and the length of my in and out breaths, everything rising and falling. I then had another session chopping up what I had recorded. Finally I chopped it down again from 60 mins to 40 mins.
