My personal and loosely translated guide for Mental Step creation is thus:
- There are no answers, only questions
- Let go, trust your feelings, use The Force. -Obi-Wan Kenobi
- Free your mind and your ass will follow, the kingdom of Heaven is within; Freedom is free from the need to be free… -Funkadelic
- Realize your own creative potential as the path becomes the destination
- Innovation over imitation
Mental Step is whatever you want it to be… for me, based upon my humble experience thus far, Mental Step may be a blend of the following ideals:
- Primarily pulse wave bass with a slow attack envelope, the ultimate bass sound being the JoMoX X-Base09 bass drum sound, with long sustain, played back in reverse.
- Mostly 2 bar static, linear drum loops, derivative of early hip-hop, with an occasional fill.
- Step sequenced synthesis in the form of cross-rhythm with slowly evolving modulation, first realized with the ARP-2600 and ARPSequencer.
- Dreamy, ethereal synthesizer pads often coming from a Yamaha CS-80 or Korg Poly-6, which transcend one’s consciousness to another realm without the use of psychotropic substances, often but not always incorporating the pitch class set from Igor Stravinsky’s master work: Orpheus.
- An ambient backdrop which prompts the listener to ask how they got where they are, realize that it does not matter and arrive grounded in the present moment; usually captured from the environment of the outside world via micro-cassette or digital recorder and always paradoxically combined with the existing elements without much thought as to their relation in any other context.
- Groove; defined to me as repetition without monotony by Pete Zeldman.
Here is an example in my work The Turning Mind, available on the tube release Still Alive:
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