# Ice Meltwater v3a — Thaw (the flowing channel, faithful)

`ice-meltwater-v3a` — levels: `calm.mp3` · `activity1.mp3` · `activity2.mp3` · `danger1.mp3` · `danger2.mp3`

Take A is the FAITHFUL realization of the row's flowing-melodic-house assignment: the catalog's most continuous line, a running pluck in flowing eighths with downhill momentum, over a bright D-major bed whose own trickle is PITCHED bubbleBlip (the design note's 'moving water audible even at rest' rendered as pitched drops, never a water/noise bed). Style: flowing melodic house, D major, 92 BPM. Motif: HORIZON — its core (rises 1-2-3 to a crest on the 5, brushes the 6, falls open on the 2) is the SPINE of the running eighth-note line, with diatonic passing tones filling the eighths between the core onsets so the melody runs continuously downhill; stated recognizably in phrase A, then fragmented/recontextualized in the later phrases. Means momentum — the horizon underfoot, downhill. BED (ch0-3): bright softPads (root + a high voice) + a soft sub on the root + the pitched bubbleBlip trickle scattered on the offbeats — complete standing-still music, the channel already running. ACTIVITY L1 (ch4-5): the running pluck (the filled-out HORIZON spine) + a soft-pluck echo a few rows behind — the current you've stepped into. ACTIVITY L2 (ch6-7) ADDS NEW MATERIAL, not volume: a slower counter-pluck a third/sixth below answering in longer notes AND a rolling chord arpeggio — the single channel braids into a wider stream. DANGER L1 (ch8-9): the flood approaching, the flowing tune gone apprehensive — a slow kick surge-pulse on the downbeats under a rising PITCHED swell (a pad sweeping UP through the chord, the 'rising band' rendered pitched, NOT noise) with one sparse low boom; the player feels the water level rising (felt, not foleyed). DANGER L2 (ch10-11): the surge — a GENUINE intensity jump at a FASTER danger tempo (120 BPM vs the calm 92), the kit arriving: driving kick surge-hits doubling/filling the pulse, an urgent shaker on the eighths, hatTick motion. The water is through the passage and this is the run — new rhythmic material and higher density, NOT danger1 with the fader up. Dread is abstract: the same flowing world, sped up and pressurized (register, density, the pulse becoming a run), never a literal flood foley and never chromatic darkening. FULLY DIATONIC D MAJOR throughout; no chromatic intent.
