Sunday 17 February 2013

The Door

Album - "Quantum Nature"




After becoming somewhat more familiar with the digital recording process and software, I could start to think even more about the conceptual and lyrical content of music. I have always been interested in science and physics. In fact, I now work for a company that makes scientific instruments. Reading a couple of books about string theory and dimensionality started me on the road to subtly adopting some of the concepts in my lyrics.

One book was Elegant Universe by Brian Greene which is a decent primer to Newtonian and relativistic physics. Mr. Greene nicely transitions into the issue of the need for a unified field theory. This leads to a discussion of string theory and its dimensional implications.

Flatland is a Victorian-era novel written by Edwin Abbott Abbott in which a society that exists in only two dimensions is visited by a three dimensional being. Mr. Abbott's excellent development of this analogy helps the reader to visualize higher-dimension phenomena, which is a requirement of string theory.

As I mention in the blog introduction, I have always arranged my songs into collections.

  1. Superheroes and Thank You, I Love You were from the first 'CD' which was called For Good.
  2. Measure of Success, Entrance Me You Do, and A305 on Wednesday were from a second CD I called Measure of Success.
  3. The third collection of songs was called Quantum Nature.
  4. (There are several more CDs after these. Later.)

The title of the third CD obviously reflects influences from the above-mentioned books and from science in general.

The Door was the first track on the CD and was intended as a kind of introduction to the over-all theme.

“I wish there was a door that lead to other places. A passage to a realm revealing hidden spaces.”

Understanding the rest of the CD required the listener to 'step through a door' in a manner of speaking. I was still pretty young at the time and was trying to be deep. But many of the ideas are still interesting to me.



The general sound of this track will remind most listeners of Rush. I was a huge fan for many years. I sort of studied their music and it eventually became like a kind of language to me. Without intending it, some of my tracks have perhaps ended up sounding like rip-offs. I'm out of touch with the band now. A few years ago, I started wanting more variety and a wider dynamic range in music. And Peart was getting a bit too preachy for me. I notice they are getting back into sci-fi. Maybe it's time I give them another listen.


http://sb635.mystarband.net/m16_st10_xcm.htm
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