This piece started with a simple finger-picked line using my BOSS SY-1000, and took off from there via synth sounds from Roland Cloud, Logic and Fantom-6. Tension and release, harmony and dissonance set the moods for this mercurial soundscape.
ambientsynthfantomrolandcloudsy1000
This soundscape arose from the dreamy guitar phrase at the beginning of the piece. I was playing it over and over again...hoping for some inspiration to hit...when the word "mercurial" popped into my mind out of the blue. I kinda knew what it meant, but I wasn't sure how it could fit into a musical statement. So I looked it up and found "subject to sudden or unpredictable changes of mood or mind". I started playing the phrase again and just let my mind wander. My thoughts drifted to all sorts of things...loved ones and friends, pleasant and unpleasant memories, dreams and wishes, places I've been and even some thoughts I'd never thought before. I just let my mind run wherever it would go against the background of the mantra-like guitar phrase. It was amazing to me how many different "sudden or unpredictable changes of mood or mind" could happen in the brief span of just a couple minutes. At that point, I knew I should try to musically recreate my thought experiment. And that's how "Mercurial" happened.
