Tathagata

The base-chords and note progression that forms Tathagata is something that must have been going through Fredrik Thordendal’s head for some time.  This progression is something that has emerged at least 3 times in both Meshuggah and Fredrik’s solo work, and can be heard as the basis of Tathagata (Sol Niger Within, 1997; Sol Niger Within version 3.33, 1999), the close [3:50] of Sublevels (Destroy Erase Improve, 1995) and the outro [9:06] of Fredrik’s Secrets of the Unknown demo.

Tathagata is a beautiful track that seems to will the listener into innately feeling or predicting the next series of notes.  I was wondering why I felt this way about the track, until I sat down and started to score out the notes.  What emerged was a pattern, or a recursive, self-pitch-clipping algorithm.  (While it is a progression that continues to spiral upward, it has octave subtraction protection to stop it going on infinitely upward).  This is a very cool progression that, while it isn’t an auditory illusion, for some reason makes me think of a Shepard-Risset glissando, Risset’s rhythmic accelerando auditory illusion, or Autechre’s Fold4,Wrap5 (LP5, 1998).

At first, I thought the track progressed in measures of 5, with the notes being played on the 1, 2 and 3. Sarah argues that each measure is divided into 16ths with stresses on 1, 4 and 7, which I now think is actually correct.

In lay terms, the track can be represented as such:

The pattern progresses in a count of 16.

The ‘root’ note starts at MIDI pitch 56, and adds 5 semitones after each loop.  If ‘root’ exceeds 62 (or the initial ‘root’ value + 6), then subtract 12.

‘root’ plays a chord (root, root + 7, root + 12 [they are transposed down an octave in the code below]) on the 1 that rings out over the course of the measure.

‘note[1-3]’ is the melodic progression of the plucked parts.  They play on positions 1, 4, and 7 respectively of the measure.

note[1] = root + 2

note[2] = root + 3

note[3] = root + 11

One possible implementation of Tathagata for JS in Max

 

// Simple representation of pitches and key modulation in Fredrik Thordendal's Tathagata.
// Tathagata.js by Alex Mesker / alex@x37v.com / www.x37v.com
// Save as Tathagata.js and put it in your Max search path.
outlets = 2;
setoutletassist(0, "Melodic progression (MIDI pitch)");
setoutletassist(1, "Root chord note/s (MIDI pitch)");
var root = 56;
var cutoff = root + 6;
function msg_int(i) {
if (i==1) {
outlet(1, root-12);
outlet(1, root-5);
outlet(1, root);
outlet(0, root+14);
} else if (i==4) {
outlet(0, root+15);
} else if (i==7) {
outlet(0, root+23);
root += 5;
if (root > cutoff) {
root -= 12;
}
}
}

Save the above JavaScript as Tathagata.js and put it in your Max search path.

A Max patch that uses it can be downloaded here:

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5PsB
-----------end_max5_patcher-----------