REVERSE MUSIC / can it work? / original music

Yes, it can! Although reverse music is the complete opposite of what music is by its very own definition in physics, technology has enabled us to make it a reality. Reverse music isn't a new thing. One of the earliest examples of reverse ''music'' are the Beatles who loved to experiment so they used a lot of reverse sounds in their songs and I think the guitar solo on ''I'm Only Sleeping'' is the very first reverse guitar solo in the history of music! Back in the day, the reverse sound had to be achieved by running the tape backwards. Nowadays, reverse music is just a click away.

When I first got into synths (it was around the time I purchased my first MIDI controler), I wanted to explore everything a synth sound can do. I would spend hours on end trying to modulate the synth sounds in as many different ways as possible. A great thing about a MIDI controler and MIDI synths is that it works instantly, you just plug it and play and you can get really nice MIDI synths online, free of charge. Another great thing is that you can sync the synths with your metronome so you are always in tempo and you can just copy/paste bits and pieces of what you played anywhere in your project and it all works fine. So, back to the reverse thing. When I was recording my second album as Bubblegum, I wanted to have at least one reverse song on there but before I could do that, I had to find out a thing or two about how sound works.

(my trusty old keystation mini 32 MIDI controler)

WHAT IS A SOUND WAVE?

A sound wave is the pattern of disturbance caused by the movement of energy traveling through a medium (such as air, water, or any other liquid or solid matter) as it propagates away from the source of the sound. (http://whatis.techtarget.com/definition/sound-wave) or in other words, a sound wave is a vibration that has its own frequency and since it's an energy and it moves through a medium (here we are talking about air), it pushes the air. This process is EGRESSIVE which means the sound is created by pushing the air outwards, away from the source of the sound. When we are talking about music, we are talking about egressive sound waves. These sound waves are the ones you usually see when recording a piece of music.

You can see here how the sound wave quickly ascends, rises to its peak and then descends again slowly. This is an egressive sound wave.

This is an INGRESSIVE sound wave and it's the complete opposite of an egressive wave. Here, the sound starts from what would be the egressive sound wave's end so it ascends very slowly before it hits its peak and descends almost instantly.
It is very important to take this in account when trying to create reverse music because as the name would suggest, everything is REVERSE so you have to sort of THINK IN REVERSE.

CREATING REVERSE SONGS

When I was composing songs for my album as Bubblegum, I wanted to make two separate songs that were actually the same song, reversed and not reversed. I recorded the notr reversed song first. The song featured a modulated synth loop, a drum beat and some vocals on top of it. Nothing was reversed. For the reverse song, I used the elements from the first song but in reverse. I deleted the percussion (because percussion, due to its nature in physics cannot really work in reverse because the sound wave is too short) and I reversed the modulated synth loop. The reverse effect changed the harmonies of the loop since it was now backwards so the notes created a different atmosphere and a different sound. Then I reversed the backing vocals from the first song and also played them in a loop on top of the reverse synth. The harmonies were also different so I ended up with an entirely different song which was really the exact same one. I put a different not reversed vocal melody and backing vocals on top of it and came up with a reverse song that doesn't feel reversed. Here are he two songs - not reversed and then reversed.

NOT REVERSED VERSION:

REVERSED VERSION:

Of course, this is just level 1 of what you can do with reversed sound waves. You can also reverse sounds to make them sound like an entirely different instrument, you can reverse cymbals to make them sound like a synth etc. but more about that some other time.