(gentle music)
- I got rear-ended,
and I couldn't use my right hand for anything intricate.
("Re:Member" by Ólafur Arnalds)
It wasn't really until I started finding these ways
to work around it that I got my passion back
and my positivity back for music.
It's such a unique thing to hear a software
controlling something so physical.
People think that there might be a ghost playing that.
My name is Ólafur Arnalds.
I am a producer, songwriter, composer from Iceland.
I approach my music like an electronic producer.
I work in the computer with a lot of synthesizers
and drum machines, but I'm using classical instruments
like strings and piano.
I do like to bring all these traditional sounds
of strings, of woodwinds, physical instruments
that are so expressive, so emotive,
into an environment that is a little bit more accessible
for most people.
The STRATUS is a software that I created with my friend
and this software creates generative algorithms
that are meant to control these two self-playing pianos.
(gentle piano music)
These self-playing pianos have been around for ages.
I always thought there's a beautiful piece
of technology there that is only being used
to play back music, but not necessarily being used
very much to create music.
I insert notes and the software reads those notes,
so it knows what chord I'm playing.
So each note of the chord gets its own rhythm,
tempo, time signature, and everything.
If you give each note just a very like kind of random number
not in any sort of four four type of signature,
that's when you get these things that sounds totally random
but actually they're not.
They're just very complex mathematics.
There's a lot of accidental patterns
that happen along the way, which I then listen to
and grab onto if I hear something interesting
and then I can build the song
from those accidental patterns.
This is my song "Unfold" from my new album Remember.
("Unfold" by Ólafur Arnalds)
This song started with me just kind of improvising
and playing around with this STRATUS software
and seeing what randomized elements the software
is throwing at me and grabbing onto some of those ideas.
("Unfold" by Ólafur Arnalds)
I decided to put staccato strings as kind of the main
other element in the first half of the song.
And then the woodwinds bring the tension to it.
I think what provides a very interesting contrast here,
I asked these string players to play as robotically
as they could, but on the other hand we have this element,
which is made by a software and that element
actually becomes more human than what the humans
are playing on the strings and that provides the
kind of emotional aspect of the song.
("Unfold" by Ólafur Arnalds)
(heavy rock music)
So when I was younger I was in a band called Fighting Shit.
We were like trash punk band.
I played drums.
We went at it pretty hard.
(yelling rock music)
We made a lot of records and kind of made a little career
out of that.
("Ekki Hugsa" by Ólafur Arnalds)
I become interested in classical music
mostly through my grandparents who were very big
classical music listeners, but it wasn't really until I
discovered film scores that I wanted to make it.
Not really having the musical education to back it up,
my creations became kind of very simplistic,
loopy, versions of that, that are actually more related
to modern punk music.
I think the result is what become neoclassical music
is basically people trying to make classical music
but not really knowing how to.
The most important thing I took from punk music
was the DIY ethos of everything.
Nothing was relying on management or labels.
We really believed in doing things ourselves.
So then when I started doing classical music,
I kept that ethos.
You know, I was doing completely different kind of music
suddenly, but nothing in my head actually changed.
I kept booking the same kind of venues I was touring
with my punk bands, but just bringing a string quartet
and a small electric keyboard.
("Unfold" by Ólafur Arnalds)
So once I had this idea which is the piano,
the staccato strings, and then the woodwinds supporting it,
that's when I started adding more complimentary things
like the bass line,
which is actually a polyphonic Korg keyboard.
There's a melody that kind of alternates between
a piano that I actually play, not an automatic piano,
and then some legato parts in the woodwinds.
("Unfold" by Ólafur Arnalds)
And that was kind of enough to have that very simple melody
to kind of give the song a little bit of meaning.
Because of how the rhythms of the pianos
are kind of unpredictable,
I filled a empty toilet paper roll with a bunch of rice
and hit it with a drumstick and that kind of helps
the pianos define their rhythm a little bit.
Yeah, it's a little bit ironic
that your complimenting very expensive,
nice, real instruments with a roll of toilet paper.
(laughing)
I got rear-ended.
Something that happens all the time, but it
was by a big semi truck, so it was a bit harsh.
After that, I suffered some nerve damage in my spine,
and I couldn't use my right hand for anything intricate
for like a year, or a year and a half.
I couldn't play piano.
It was heartbreaking to me.
It was really difficult.
I felt horribly depressed, to be honest.
And that ended up really setting this idea completely
in stone to use these self-playing pianos.
I could play chords, but I couldn't play any scales
or like individual notes,
so that influenced how we programmed STRATUS to react to
me entering chords and turning them
into textures and rhythms.
It gave me a little bit of a purpose
to be creating something without having
to use my hands that much.
That whole thing brought life back to me.
("Unfold" by Ólafur Arnalds)
Instead of building to a traditional peak,
it actually builds up and then suddenly drops down.
I came up with this idea of adding a traditional hip-hop
808 bass drum into it,
which you don't hear very often in classical music.
(laughing)
So at the same time as this big fat hip-hop kick drum
comes in, the pianos become so soft.
("Unfold" by Ólafur Arnalds)
My friend the singer songwriter SOHN,
he came over and I showed him the very early demo
of this song and he just started singing
and this like beautiful angelic choir arrangement came out
totally on the spot.
("Unfold" by Ólafur Arnalds)
For me, the creative process,
you can, you can look at it like at the circle of life.
It's not just one thing that finishes.
There's always a continuation of it.
So this song is very much about that circle.
Birth and the rebirth of creativity.
("Unfold" by Ólafur Arnalds)
STRATUS and this whole idea is just a tool
that gives me another sound that I wouldn't be able
to make otherwise.
It's not supposed to replace humans in any way
'cause music is about saying something.
It's about expressing something,
and the computer isn't trying to say anything.
And music without meaning is nothing.