The happy accidents thread

So, I was just listening to a track of mine which I'm gonna modify soon and thought about that little accident that happens in rhythm at a certain point of the track, and which is just lovely, and figured out that it would be cool to make a thread for all these little accidents.

A thread where we could point each others things that happened accidentally in our songs and explaining how they happened.

Here is my actual example :

http://soundcloud.com/antape/junpeis-sandbugs

at 2:43, we can hear a little jump in a pad synth in the right of the stereo. It happens just at the start of a bar, with the kick, and then got repeated in rhythm by a delay. This jump is my finger accidentally stopping to press the Monotron ribbon. It's really nothing actually but it's a little detail that I'm proud of.

Now I'm waiting for yours

After the distorted guitar section ends in my track Jeff Graff:

http://rooftopaccess...rack/jeff-graff

Not sure of the time but just around the part where the spoken word part comes back in, it sounds like there are two piano notes playing a harmony to the guitar part--there is no piano in the song and I can't seem to isolate where those two notes came from. Must be some kind of addition of waves or implied frequencies or something.

@antape I need an album of that kind of stuff. :) Really nice!

  On 10/19/2011 at 4:11 AM, modey said:

After the distorted guitar section ends in my track Jeff Graff:

http://rooftopaccess...rack/jeff-graff

Not sure of the time but just around the part where the spoken word part comes back in, it sounds like there are two piano notes playing a harmony to the guitar part--there is no piano in the song and I can't seem to isolate where those two notes came from. Must be some kind of addition of waves or implied frequencies or something.

Indeed that note (I just heard one) really sounds like a piano. Nice!

  On 10/19/2011 at 9:41 AM, slightlydrybeans said:

@antape I need an album of that kind of stuff. :) Really nice!

thanks for the kind words ! I'm actually working on my first EP and that track will be the melancholic one. In a slightly enhanced version !

My entire musical career depends on these accidents.

accidents are the only legitimate form of music, anything planned is unlegit

  On 10/19/2011 at 2:53 PM, chimera slot mom said:

My entire musical career depends on these accidents.

  On 10/19/2011 at 3:28 PM, hardcode said:

accidents are the only legitimate form of music, anything planned is unlegit

yeah but I suppose there's a difference between the accidents happening because you're searching for them and the ones happening completely out of your control.

controlled chaos is an invaluable approach to exploring new ground

I reckon it's how Autechre come up with 75% of their material

A lot of my music's accidental. After mucking around for a while and finding some pleasing chord progressions, I'll sometimes try to play them and remember them incorrectly, and come up with something that to my ears sounds even better, although I don't even know if they're meant to be real chords or not, let alone what key they're in... Sometimes I draw on notes for a broken chord synth arpeggio, and when trying to transcribe the rhythm in my head I'll draw it incorrectly, and again, that sometimes sounds better. I think a big part of being a good musician is being able to let go of your ego enough to embrace things you do by mistake that sound better than what you were trying to do on purpose.

This entire track (both melody and chord progression) was a result of mistakes I made from transcribing a piece I came up with on the piano scribbed hastily onto paper then mistyped in to the tracker I was using:

EDIT: Man, I just noticed that this track is over 10 years old - where the hell does the time go ?!

Kaoss Pad + Bus Channel = Happy accidents

I accidentally dropped my Waldorf 4-Pole filter back in 1996. I thought it was broken but it turned out it produced interesting glitchy sounds.

Ooh, I almost forgot: This whole thing was a result of a slip-up with my mouse clicking - http://forum.watmm.com/topic/54059-save-state-bending/

The transition right around 2:20 in my track Contraption was an accident that happened when I was trying to copy a portion of the Live set over again and accidentally shifted all the MIDI/Audio tracks down one channel in session view.

http://soundcloud.com/hautlle/contraption

:sup:

I just change numbers arbitrarily in Supercollider until a cool sound comes out.

  On 10/25/2011 at 2:37 PM, hautlle said:

The transition right around 2:20 in my track Contraption was an accident that happened when I was trying to copy a portion of the Live set over again and accidentally shifted all the MIDI/Audio tracks down one channel in session view.

 

http://soundcloud.com/hautlle/contraption

awesome!

I actually have one of these now

http://soundcloud.com/cryptowen/woodsong

The guitar bassline was just part of a long freestyle riff I did. Was planning to sample a single note of it to make a bass but it just so happened it fit the tempo pretty well as-is.