Adventures in Ableton - the Transforming Tide revisited

Brough Harbour, near Dunnet Head, where the audio samples were recorded.

Last year's post, The Transforming Tide , detailed my fascination with the geological sculpting of the Caithness coastline by the action of the sea. At that point in time, I had envisaged a concept for a composition which began with massive forces before gradually dwindling to nothing. The idea was left for another day, and, of course, then swiftly neglected ....
Fast-forward ten months or so, and the latest challenge of my Masters' course was to create and record a piece of music for my Music Recording and Production Module, using the digital workstation of my choice : I had a copy of Ableton Live loaded on to my laptop (with absolutely no idea what to do with it) and the Tide project serendipitously reappeared into my thoughts..
The choice of Ableton as a DAW was, intitially, an enormous challenge. My only previous use of recording software since completing my Bachelors' degree (at the end of last century!) had been cursory encounters with GarageBand when recording pieces for this blog, and certainly were not informed by any practical knowledge. As the module itself did not allow for individual tuition on our chosen workstations, I was very much left to work it out as I went along.. Many hours of online tutorials, YouTube videos and copious amounts of profanities later, I was able (excuse the pun) to produce my first effort in Ableton Live : Deep Time ( geological time, first described by James Hutton https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deep_time)-  an evocation of the enormous forces carving away at the Caithness sandstone over countless millennia.

The piece can be found here https://soundcloud.com/morag-currie-342215588/deep-time

It's undoubtedly not a fiddle piece!*  Layers of MIDI  synths and audio fiddle samples,mixed with field recordings of shore and birdsong made in Caithness and then interspersed with improvised multitracked viola.

I found the process of using Ableton both liberating and inspiring, as I attempt to grow and develop as a composer : the non-linear setup of the programme allows for free improvisation and recording in real time, which allowed me to work quickly and intuitively. I am not someone for whom staring at a blank sheet of manuscript, or gazing forlornly at the fiddle waiting for inspiration to strike is going to be an effective means of production : using Ableton felt rather like creating a repository of small ideas which quickly grew and developed in ways which I would never have considered otherwise. A highly-challenging, but, ultimately, game-changing couple of months of work for me.
Onwards and upwards!

[*I did, however, sneak in a fragment of Da Auld Swaara,  (see previous post, Loss) to give a sense of connection between the sea and those who live and work surrounded by it.]