This clip is the outline or “seed” of a composition I’m working on.  The seed is nothing but a sequence of ascending and descending scales over a fixed bass, arranged in a cycle that returns to the starting point. I arrived at it through a fairly theoretical process (see my other posts with geometric diagrams of the octave to get a sense for the kind of stuff I’ve been up to). But for me, it’s one of those cases where an essentially mathematical idea, translated into sound, produces something that’s eerily compelling. For my ear this pattern is prism-like: it seems to unlock a whole spectrum of colors and moods, and at times it has held me in a trance. I’m posting it here for two reasons: first, even though it’s just a bare pattern, I hope you might find it interesting to listen to as a sort of musical meditation. Second, I’ve found that in many of my creative projects, when I get excited about an idea, I form great ambitions around it and keep it to myself until I feel I’ve done it justice. This has led to many cases in my life where I’ve poured effort and passion into a project but never released it because my goals were too big for me. So I’m trying a different approach, which is to share things early, especially when I come upon something that strikes me as a gem–something that I might otherwise get lost in polishing endlessly. So here is “Charupriya Cycle,” played on my steel string guitar a few hours after the idea came together the other day: