2025-Mar-08 - Cumulonimbus
This week's randomly selected song Cumulonimbus is track #13 from disc #2 of my triple CD album It Was All Just a Dream.
Cumulonimbus first appeared on my 2017 album Juxtaposition, and again on my 2022 album Juxtaposition Reimagined. The final version of the song on It Was All Just A Dream features me on bass guitar (instead of the synthesizer bass from the original version), updated guitar parts, improved drums, and the overall mix is much more dialed in.
The Inspiration Behind the Song
Around the time that I was starting to write material for my Juxtaposition album, the observatory where I work had started a project that involved mounting a few high resolution cameras on our summit facility. These were put in place so that observers could control the telescope from our sea-level facility while still having "eyes" on the weather conditions. When you're trying to observe the universe, the LAST thing you want is water spots on your mirror!
With the help of some in-house software we would aggregate all of the night's long-exposure images into time lapse video clips. So every night we ended up with a collection of time lapse movies of the weather in every direction from the summit of Maunakea. This is the highest point in the entire Pacific Rim, so these videos were mesmerizing to watch.
The game changed once we had our first thunderstorms with these cameras in place. With a whole night in time lapse, in a matter of a few minutes, you could watch the storm all the way from its genesis as moisture convecting into towering cumulonimbus clouds through flashes and bolts of lightning all the way to the storm dissipating. I was hooked! Every night that there was any hint of a lightning flash or a rumble of thunder – or even a report of stormy weather from the other side of the island – I would eagerly dig through the videos the next morning to watch nature's fireworks under a canopy of stars traveling across the sky.
These videos along with my fascination with thunderstorms were the inspiration behind the song. The name “Cumulonimbus” is the meteorological term for a towering thunder cloud.
The Music Theory Behind the Song
Cumulonimbus relies pretty heavily on a scale called "Phrygian dominant", which is the 5th mode of the harmonic minor scale. This scale has a distinctly exotic sound that is often used to approximate or imitate a Middle Eastern sound. It's also a very common scale for heavier music, and that's the aspect of this scale that I leaned into.
The main opening riff and the verses use F# Phrygian dominant [ F# G A# B C# D E ] as the foundation for the chords and melodies.
But once the chorus arrives, the first chord is a D [ D F# A ] but there is no A in the F# Phrygian dominant scale. So every time there's a D, I switch the scale for the melody over to D major [ D E F# G A B C# ] which is only a single semitone different from F# Phrygian dominant (A vs A#). The final chord in the chorus is built from the F# Phrygian dominant scale and it is the incredibly tension-filled Em(add#11) [ E G A# B ]. The purpose in ending the chorus with such an obnoxious chord is to make the return to the riff in F# Phrygian dominant feel like a resolution, even if the tonality of this scale is already filled with tension.
The interlude that follows the 2nd chorus is mostly based on the F# tonic with some metal-flavored chromatic notes. The intensity builds up to the guitar solo, where the backing is the same as the chorus. The end of the solo features a deep bass BOOM! that is really best experienced on a sound system with a powerful subwoofer.
The song wraps up with one final chorus and a return to the intro riff.
Guitars and Amps
Rhythm Guitars:
 1999 Ibanez RG470 “swirly” |
 2014 Gibson Les Paul Standard |
Clean Guitars:
 2015 Ibanez RG8571 |
 2019 Charvel Pro-Mod DK24 “Purple Phaze” |
Lead Guitar:
 2014 Ibanez S5521 |
I used five guitars for Cumulonimbus. I played the chunky rhythm guitar parts on my Ibanez RG470 "swirly" and my Gibson Les Paul Standard, both through my Mesa Boogie Mark V:25 IIC+ voice. There are also some subtle sparkly clean-tone guitars on the song, and I played these parts on my Ibanez RG8571 J. Custom and my Charvel Pro-Mod DK24 "Purple Phaze", both through my Mesa Boogie Mark V:25 Fat voice. I played all of the lead parts on my Ibanez S5521 through my Synergy Soldano SLO red channel.
If you love what you hear and want to support the music I make, please consider purchasing It Was All Just a Dream on CD or digital download. I will gladly personalize and autograph your copy.
https://chrisstark.com/it-was-all-just-a-dream
Keep an eye out for next Saturday's song spotlight, and as always, thank you sincerely for all of your support!
Love, Aloha, and Rock!
❤️😎🎸