The Storm

A couple of weeks ago there was a storm. When I heard the first thunder, I was out in the garden, enjoying the sunshine. I set my phone to record, and sat in the shelter watching the rain.

The storm lasted just under half an hour, and I determined that I would use the recording on a tune. I’d intended to chop it into bits, and use them as intros and outros to a collection of tunes. Then I listened back to the storm, and decided instead to leave it in one piece, and just work around it with some synths.

I went through about 100 synths, playing around with notes, chords, arpeggiators, twiddly knobs, pedals, until I had about 15 that I either really liked, or thought would make interesting white noise, or that sounded like anything from Tron or Blade Runner.

I recorded random bits of melody, and odd chords, at various points throughout the storm, then gradually added bits in between. After some editing, which I found really methodical and soothing, I had something that was starting to sound coherent.

I will most likely end up adding more to it at some point, or playing about with the levels, but as a first draft, I think is ready.

I’ll warn you now though, it’s actually half an hour long, so, you know, I won’t be offended if it’s not for you.

P4