ok... both of our pieces are sounding pretty much finished by now we think, and so we're getting to the pint where we're going to record both of them. we've decided on 11 in the smaller tech room. we're still not completely sure on how we're going to record it, but i think that the best way to do it would be to use four mic's and record each of us as we perform the pieces as a whole. other ideas have been floating around that we multi-track and seperately record, but i don't think that allows for the communication of an improvised performance.

secondly, we've been having a few more ideas about piece two which we could or could not incorperate. we had the idea of rolling a dice to decide on what would happen in the piece, and for the graphic score to have a net of the dice, saying what would happen at each throw of the dice. however, i think that the idea was abbandoned before we got a proper chance to try it, as the piece had a fairly set structure going on and was topping five minytes in length. even if we implemented the idea, it would have been original, but i don't think that it would have been as successful for this piece. it may be more implementable on other pieces which may or may not get written.

--------------------

successfulness
piece one
i think that the audio cues in piece one work very well for their use, however, some don;t fit too well into the overall feeling of the rest. for example, the final audio cue implemented by me was exactly the same as the first, which then fitted in, but diddent when it reappeared... i changed the XLine values but it still sounds a little but out of place. also i think the three sections are a little bit too 'stop and start' for how the piece flows.
i do think that the sounds that each of us are doing fit into what the piece is asking. the first section has it's overall ambient but tense sounding vibe, and then the next two are much more noise based. however, perhaps we have peaked far too early in the piece as we reach a 'wall of noise' at the end of section two, and then climax to to another smaller one in section three.

piece two
i feel this piece is much much more successful as a whole, maybe because it's based on a mode, and the majority of the group have come from a musical background. since being advised in lessons, our communication between members has improved, and it sounds liek a group participation.
the whole piece sounds a far cry from the noisy 'organised chaos' that the first piece brung, and it subdued and understated, right until several seconds from the end where everything is layered up and my improv on the scale synth becomes more frantic and higher pitched. and the rhythmic introcution and then extreme cuttof of everyone is a very successful ending.
--------------------
listening wise, check this guy out...
http://leafcutterjohn.com/
http://www.myspace.com/leafcutterjohn

i saw him live playing with jazz band 'polar bear' in the derby assembley rooms and he was great. his solo music is pretty good as well... even if he isn't such a good singer. i haven't got his latest album... but i have a couple.

just a few updates on things, for a start, our second piece...

this piece was based on a single modal scale (f dorian, F, G, Ab, Bb, C, D, Eb, F), but begins with noise. i used a sample of a bottle of shower gel opening and put it though the grain samples on sample scratcher (ixi) and it sounded like dogs barking (kind of) so i fade that in after a few seconds of the piece being in motion in the first section which is a noise based section.

the first hints of the f dorian are present when i fade a .blip wave drone which was posted here earlier. i then improvise exact notes of the drone around the f dorian scale while some more sample based (but still tuned) things are happening around me. one i make the drone into an F5 chord (F, C), then i open up scale synth in ixi and improvise around the dorian mode setting, using two of the vertical collumes heavily. once another member starts to bring in rhythmic and noise elements into the soundscape, i watch for a count down and then mute my speakers on '4' to end the tune.

here is the graphic score for what i do in this tune.


for some reason it's very small again, but never mind.

------------------------------------------

secondly... my tunes... just refresh the links when they don't work because they do...

http://d.furaffinity.net/art/joshdown/music/1224181293.joshdown_panthera_-_i_think_it_s_bea.mp3   a tune i wrote... but i solo'd my sax and some quiet droning pads in the background so there isn't too much synthesis here
http://d.furaffinity.net/art/joshdown/music/1220466275.joshdown_josh_down_-_magpie__fa_.mp3    one of the very few 'dance' tunes i ever did... it's not really impressive at all, just a few phased beats and some pad stabs here and there
http://d.furaffinity.net/art/joshdown/music/1220455887.joshdown_dectate__fa_version_.mp3     a drone ambient tune i made
http://d.furaffinity.net/art/joshdown/music/1219183451.joshdown_josh_down_-_silence.mp3     piece of music i made originaly wanting to sound a little bit like bjork - 'all is full of love' and failing

Current Mood: tired

first, i got the graphic score for my first piece, and since writing have been drafting out some ideas on paper for the second piece.

for some reason it's tiny here, but it should be much much bigger.

---

secondly... i got kinda stuck into looking at toplap over the past week, and the main point that i've been kind of focused on was the 'show us your screens' point that they mention. what kinda got me into this is that, if i got to give a gig somewhere whit my laptop, ( one, i wouldn't want to have to get a projector) and two, i don't see it as a huge issue that the audience cannot see what you're doing. if people want to show thier screens, it's fine by me, but if i was giving a gig, then i think it's be too much hastle. (also i know that toplap say that it's not an issue that the audience don;t understand the coding... but it still is, in a way that's very difficult to explain.)

so i started looking around for artists and musicians who didn't show their screen (or at least some alternatives to showing what coding your doing) and i came across a few good laptop musicians...

phonopahni for example has a fantastic alternative. http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=eOp_mbyjugY ... (i have added one of this guy's albums to my basket in amazon recently.)... if i was going to show anything at a laptop gig, i think it's be this kind of 'light show' in a way, reacting to the music. i think that phonophani is also controling this via laptop as well.

and also... http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=hFAh-pgxGyc&eurl=http://livecode.access-space.org/

this is an example of another live coding suite called ChucK, which is also freeware. at some point i will download and give it a try (if it is for mac that is, i haven't looked into it yet), but it provides a visual as well as audio. obviously this requires 'showing your screen', but it's something that the audience can understand more.

---------

i also heavily advise people to get into rune grammofon (maybe spelt wrong) as a label... they're a norweigan jazz label, and norweigan jazz is heavily electronic. supersilent, arve henriksen and skyphone are the best examples that i've found.

this is for piece two of our laptop group, and i've kinda invented my own way of doing it musicaly...

------

ProxySpace.push(s)

// frequencies of the notes of f dorian... evaluate all of these before evaluating the drone

f = 174.61
g = 196
a = 207.65
b = 233.08
c = 261.63
d = 293.66
e = 311.13

// i got myself a drone!! vv

~s= {Blip.ar ([f, g, c], 3, 0.5)}
~s.fadeTime = 10
~s.release
~s.play
~s.stop

---------

i looked up all of the frequencies of the notes of f dorian (for some reason, i could use a b as a flat sign so i just left it as one letter) and defined the frequency as the letter... then i use the letters as the frequencies. there's probably some ultra fast way of doing this that i shouldv'e done or something but i'm kinda proud of my little invention. i don;t think i've seen it done before.

Current Mood: happy

i have quite alot to say... anyway... after sound design lessons i felt obliged to at least go into supercollider and be even a little bit creative, so after going over what we did in the class, i came up with this...

----------------------------

// me being creative XDD

~a= {Blip.ar([7, 12.5], 1, 0.8)}
~a.fadeTime= 7;
~a.release
~a.play
~a.stop

//YES!!!!! i made a noise all by myself!!

~b= {SinOsc.ar([130, 200], 0, 0.2, 0)}
~b.fadeTime= 20;
~b.release
~b.play
~b.stop

// open with the sine wave and let it fade in and keep it as a drone. then fade in the .blip and edit/evaluate the numharm and the frequencies. fade out the .blip or reduce frequencies to zero, then fade out the drone.
-------------------------------

this was after defining all of the proxyspace things... (ProxySpace.push(s); i think??)

i'm starting to see how supercollider would be of some use, especialy in what i want to be doing. but i think that this kind of thing would be much much much better if you had some decent sounds to work with, cause right now i'm pretty much limited to the SinOsc, Saw, Blip, WhiteNoise, Dust, Pulse etc...i'd love to know how to define my own synths or use some from logic or something like that. there are still things that i need to learn and command to memory, or even at least write them down so that i can have them next to me when i'm doing it...

the most important thing now is that i can see how supercolider is of use to me as an alternative to logic. i'm sure that there is much much more
where that came from though.

Current Mood: rejuvenated

i was browsing through the supercollider demonstrations earlier today, and came across the 'modal space' one... if you can't find it, here's all the code...



(
// modal space
// mouse x controls discrete pitch in dorian mode
var scale, buffer;
scale = FloatArray[0, 2, 3.2, 5, 7, 9, 10]; // dorian scale
buffer = Buffer.alloc(s, scale.size,1, {|b| b.setnMsg(0, scale) });
{
    var mix;
    mix =
    // lead tone
    SinOsc.ar(
        (
            DegreeToKey.kr(
                buffer.bufnum,
                MouseX.kr(0,15),        // mouse indexes into scale
                12,                    // 12 notes per octave
                1,                    // mul = 1
                72                    // offset by 72 notes
            )
            + LFNoise1.kr([3,3], 0.04)    // add some low freq stereo detuning
        ).midicps,                        // convert midi notes to hertz
        0,
        0.1)
       
    // drone 5ths
    + RLPF.ar(LFPulse.ar([48,55].midicps, 0.15),
        SinOsc.kr(0.1, 0, 10, 72).midicps, 0.1, 0.1);
       
    // add some 70's euro-space-rock echo
    CombN.ar(mix, 0.31, 0.31, 2, 1, mix)
}.play
)


it's pretty simple, but really effective. i also like the, as it's put in the file '70's euro-space-rock echo. i have it on now so whenever i move the mouse the tone changes.

but maybe we could incorperate this with some stuff we've been learning in sound design... maybe having a couple of these modal drones going on while someone does something else over the top, then maybe fade a different mode in over a different root or something similar. i love modal shapes they sound fantastic.

Current Mood: mellow

but i might be wrong


these following links are to pieces of music i've created using a laptop (and ocasionaly saxophone as a solo instrument)... some are ambient/meditation music kinda thing... but from what we were told, i suppose i should let anyone who reads this know about it.

http://d.furaffinity.net/art/joshdown/music/1224150740.joshdown_panthera_-_cloudserf.mp3
http://d.furaffinity.net/art/joshdown/music/1223226497.joshdown_sands_-_every_third_blink.mp3
http://d.furaffinity.net/art/joshdown/music/1223157305.joshdown_output_1-2.mp3
http://d.furaffinity.net/art/joshdown/music/1210718290.joshdown_sands_-_the_dragon_glade.mp3

the first one is a kinda electro-modal-jazz tune from an album that i've been working on for what feels like years now, and i suppose laptop speaking the only piece of flare is the synthesis.

the other three are droney ambient pieces, the final of which i did well over a year ago.

Current Mood: rejuvenated

maybe i should note down what i've been doing in the laptop musicianship piece and kinda explain it a little more...

well, the first section is a kinda eno'y, meditation style ambient(ish) kinda thing, where is create some of the overall ambient with a worm in ixiquarks's sound scratcher, using an ambient(ish) tune that i made some time ago. (you can find that tune here: http://d.furaffinity.net/art/joshdown/music/1212140791.joshdown_sands_-_so_serene.mp3) there is reverb and chorus added as well as this, and when i hear the cue for the next section of the piece (a pulse) then i turn down the sound scratchers volume and open up supercolider.

this next section of the piece is based in SC, around a C drone. however, from what i listened to in the recording, i don;t hear anything really constantly defining that note. maybe, when i become more fluent in SC then i could provide something to fill that kind of gap. However, when i feel that the piece has reached a climax, i bring in a piece of code that scott from our group wrote which signals the start of the next part...

VV

at this point i turn off the server to stop the sound, and then bring it back up.

i bring back the worm ambience and open up ixi's mushrooms... i take a sample of my jingling some keys and play it backwards, very slowly. for some reason the reverb and chorus wasn't included... maybe because it was applied before i opened up mushrooms, but it's good like that. it sounds better without the washy reverb. i bring in the same line of code once i feel that the piece has reached a climax again, and the final chords of the tune are heard, and then i cut the server and turn my speakers down.

SC is starting to make more sense now, and sound-design lessons are helping lots too. but i'm still not really seeing it's creative side as of yet, outside live audio. my guess is it'll come in time and learning.

Current Music: clifford brown - wail bait

so that we could all get a general idea of what the tune sounded like as a whole instead of our own contribution, and to help us get a good idea of scoring the tune, we did a recording. levels were terrible, but you can hear it...



that's a picture of the recording, how it looked in logic.

me learning supercollider is going pretty well... i'm taking one of julio's online tutorials a day and slowly getting to grips with it all.

ok, i've just finished about half an hour's worth of ixiquarts improvising and i'm really enjoying using it. there are still some areas of it that i'm confused about but i think i can iron most of them out. what i was doing was using a combination of the various different samples that i have recorded for fundamentals of electronic music, and some ambient/drone based tunes that i've written and produced in logic. i'm certain that there is a way to record what's going on when i'm doing it (without placing a mic by my speakers), but i haven't worked one out yet.

i can see how it fits into what i would like to be doing though. i can imagine doing things like this while other musicians are playing or improvising, like what goes on in bands like tunng, or even in the completely improvised realm of supersilent and stuff like that. i suppose if i could record other musicians who;re playing at that moment live and then use what they have just played in ixiquarts it would expand the horizons even further, but with the kinda of noises that i'd be making in the background (which would by recorded by spill) i'm not sure how that would work.

oh, and supercollider? it all seems like just a mystery to me still. i think it needs heavily explaining and practicing before i can start to properly use it. but then again, so do musical instruments, and i learnt to play one of them.