Akkording To Maya

A few years ago, I started exploring the endless possibilities of Reaktor and I evaluated all of the many included ensembles in the Reaktor Factory Library: Effects, Grooveboxes, Samplers, Sequenced Synthesizers, Sound Generators and Synthesizers.  When I first played around with Akkord, one of the Reaktor Sequenced Synthesizers, I imagined composing a piece for my talented daughter Maya to play one day called, “Akkording To Maya,” for Akkord and Viola.  For Maya’s 16th birthday (6/13/21), I finally got around to doing it.

Since Akkord has a unique sequencer that plays chords, I sent Maya a list of almost every possible chord in every key and asked her to choose 16 of them, no matter which ones.  I assembled a musical form using the chords that Maya chose in the order that she sent them.  The first 5 chords were used in the A section, the second 5 chords were used in the B section and the last 6 chords were used in the C section:

• Dmaj7, G, Em, Am, Cmaj7#11
• Dm9, Dsus4, E7, Fm, A6
• Bsus4, A9, Ddim, F#+, Dm13, Bm

With the chords planned out I created a number of Akkord sequences and designed some original sounds.  In addition, I used one of the snapshots that came with Akkord, as is (Noise HH).  Maya chose a tempo of 90 bpm.

Once the Pro Tools track with the Akkord parts was complete, I quickly composed a Viola melody part and a Violin harmony part; Maya plays Violin too, and Harmony is her middle name!  I printed the parts using Finale Music Notation software and recorded Maya playing them.  The Viola and Violin were recorded with an Avantone CR-14 ribbon microphone through a Focusrite Clarett 8PreX.  The mix features effects from Focusrite, Native Instruments and Waves.