EMUSIC-L Digest Volume 48, Issue 06 This issue's topics: Philosophical questions A naive, pre-MIDI question (2 messages) Paperless composing (15 messages) Your EMUSIC-L Digest moderator is Joe McMahon . You may subscribe to EMUSIC-L by sending mail to listserv@american.edu with the line "SUB EMUSIC-L your name" as the text. The EMUSIC-L archive is a service of SunSite (sunsite.unc.edu) at the University of North Carolina. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Date: Tue, 5 Jan 1993 16:17:00 EST From: gtd1@NIOBBS1.EM.CDC.GOV Subject: A niave, elementary pre-MIDI question... I have a electronic keyboard (with a MIDI port) and a computer (a clone, I like running under Windows) I am thinking of buying a SoundBlaster Pro (the one about $180-200) Will I be able to connect them (will I need any more hardware?) What would I be able to do with the setup? ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 5 Jan 1993 16:29:06 -0500 From: "Joseph D. McMahon" Subject: A naive, pre-MIDI question Mmm, well, you have to understand that question is sort of like asking, "I have some free time, what should I do with it?" One would need to know a lot more, such as, have you much experience playing music? Do you intend this to be part of a studio-to-be? Is this just for fun, or do you want to make professional-level music? --- Joe M. ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 11 Jan 1993 15:58:46 EST From: Jon Crystal Subject: Compositional approaches A brief follow-up on the recent discussion of how we come up with compositional ideas. I came across the following quote in the preface to Wollner"s "Improvis ation in Music": " I sit down, I start to play, to improvise, depending upon whether my soul is sad or gay, serious or playful. If I succeed in catching an idea, then my endea vor is directed to an elaboration of the work according to the rules of the art ." Josef Haydn ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 25 Jan 1993 18:49:28 EST From: Eirikur Hallgrimsson 25-Jan-1993 1849 Subject: Re: your mail My music? Comes directly from the contemplation of things that shouldn't be contemplated, and shows it. Latest is a piece of FM (in more than one sense) metallic self-beating insanity. Then there's my more Tangerine Dream ('73, '74) mood. Eirikur ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 28 Jan 1993 09:27:41 EST From: Mark Simon Subject: Paperless composing Back in December we were having a big discussion/argument about philosophies of composition. One of the issues involved composing on paper vs. directly on the sequencer. Many were of the opinion that the former is obsolete. As a classically trained musician, I felt that notation was the more natural, dare I say it, intuitive way to go. Others on the list, though, were more fluent with their software and let me know that's legitimate too. After something like 25 years of reading music, and only two of playing with computers, I had to admit that my sequencing skills were lagging far behind my traditional music skills. They probably always will, too. However I was determined that, unlike an old dog, I might pick up some new tricks. So I resolved to create a piece without once resorting to notation. I decided to start from the ground up. I laid down a bass line several measures long using a string patched beefed up with a sine wave (let me tell you now that my rig is extremely modest, a Roland S-50 sampler, a Proteus/1 and a MacIIsi running Performer). I wanted to see what kind of stuff I could put on top of the bass line so I put it on infinite loop "temporarily" while I improvised over it. Well, silly me, before I knew it, that permanent loop was part of the piece. Okay, so now I've got a ground bass going. How about some percussion? I played a rhythmic pattern using only the lighter sounding drums in one of the Proteus' drum patches, and I looped it, but only for a few passes. Somewhere in the middle of the piece I copied the pattern and doubled its speed, and then looped that. More excitement, you know. I also had some samples, one of my friends talking like Donald Duck, and another friend saying her name, Carol Jean, which I fixed so that the end of it would sustain on one pitch. I brought in an electric guitar solo in a couple of places, and since it was Christmas Eve, "Oh Come oh come Emannuel" made an appearance. I made a volume console and faded the various elements in and out as I saw fit, and voila, I had 5 minutes worth of generic New Age music that sounded like 1000 other New Age pieces I've heard. Actually I had fun making it, my wife likes it, perhaps it would appeal to other New-Age-ophiles, but it sure doesn't hold a candle to anything I've been writing with pencil and paper. I think the difference is that, since I didn't have to think about each and every note, I didn't think about any of them, and the result sounds rather mindless. So the question is, how do you sequencer-based composers avoid the noodle syndrome? I suppose the first answer to this question is never use loops in your sequences. But besides that how does one get one's ideas to mesh together in an organic, logical whole in a manner analogous to the very notation-based creations of, for instance, Haydn. I mention Haydn because someone on the list cited the quote from him where he says he gets all his ideas by improvising. Of course the improvising was only the first step. He then went and worked his ideas over until they presented a logical well thought out progression of ideas. Haydn never noodles. He gets right to the point, every note counts, and it's always just the right note. Do any of you set this same ideal for yourselves? Please write in and tell me what you do to acheive it. --Mark Simon tip@cornellc.cit.cornell.edu ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 28 Jan 1993 10:45:34 EST From: vantomme@SOUND.MUSIC.MCGILL.CA Subject: Re: Paperless composing I am in agreement with Mark Simon's thoughts on sequencer-based composing -- it seems as if sequencer-based compositions *sound* like they were done on a sequencer. This isn't always true mind you, but I especially agree with his comment: I think the difference is that, since I didn't have to think about each and every note, I didn't think about any of them, and the result sounds rather mindless. (How true.) An interesting aside from this whole topic is the question of algorithmic composition. What I like to do is to build algorithmic patches in MAX and see what they will crank out. From the initial output, I can tweak the algorithm until I get what I want. Unfortunately, this method of composition has a low hit ratio for what is usable material. (It sure is interesting though!) Jason Vantomme ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 28 Jan 1993 12:00:20 EST From: wbf@ALUX1.ATT.COM Subject: Re: Paperless composing Jason Vantomme wrote: > I am in agreement with Mark Simon's thoughts on sequencer-based > composing -- it seems as if sequencer-based compositions *sound* like > they were done on a sequencer. This isn't always true mind you, but I missed or glossed over Mark's posting. Mark or Jason: If you have the original, please send to me here at wbf@alux1.att.com. Thanks! Bill Fox 215-439-7217 | AT&T Bell Labs | Glub-blug dip woot-boof wammie, 555 Union Blvd. Rm. 1B-107 | hofr, horf, horf. Allentown, PA 18103 (USA) | Patrick Robinson wbf@alux1.att.com | ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 28 Jan 1993 13:19:41 -0500 From: "Joseph D. McMahon" Subject: Re: Paperless composing Mark Simon writes: > > ... So I resolved to create a piece without > once resorting to notation. > ... Well, silly me, before I knew it, that permanent loop > was part of the piece. I think this is possibly an artifact (and a common one) of the medium. It is indeed easier to write 2/4/8/16 bars and loop them. I try to reuse stuff, but not necessarily loop it. Doing so is acceptable as long as the other parts which go along with it *don't* replicate themselves. How much changes and when is a matter for The Composer's Taste. > Actually I had fun making it, my wife likes it, perhaps it would appeal > to other New-Age-ophiles, but it sure doesn't hold a candle to anything I've > been writing with pencil and paper. I think the difference is that, since I > didn't have to think about each and every note, I didn't think about any of > them, and the result sounds rather mindless. I get around this by working over each section until I find I can't improve it. All of the notes get thought about, usually over a period of days or weeks. > So the question is, how do you sequencer-based composers avoid the > noodle syndrome? Good improvisation overtop repeating motifs in differing contexts, changing orchestration, addition and subtraction of contrapuntal lines. Also, evolution of "the next thing implied" by a given motif. Thirdly, I try not to write 20 minutes of music if I only have 3 minutes of idea. --- Joe M. ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 28 Jan 1993 14:02:38 EST From: tjt@BLINK.ATT.COM Subject: Re: Paperless composing > From: vantomme@SOUND.MUSIC.MCGILL.CA > algorithmic composition. What I like to do is to build algorithmic > patches in MAX and see what they will crank out. From the initial > output, I can tweak the algorithm until I get what I want. > Unfortunately, this method of composition has a low hit ratio for > what is usable material. (It sure is interesting though!) Perhaps not unlike the ratio of usable (for composition) material people get when improvising? By working towards make it more trivial to vary the algorithm (or just try another take, if it's randomized), you can help overcome this. By trivial, I mean on the order of a couple of seconds. It should be just like doing another take on an improvised solo. Some people may get a long solo right the first time through, but others do it again and again and again until the magic clicks all the way through. Algorithmic efforts can benefit from the same kind of persistence. It's also fair game to cut out the good pieces of algorithmic stuff and paste them together (unless you're a purist, which is okay, too). ...Tim Thompson...tjt@blink.att.com... ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 28 Jan 1993 15:49:50 -0500 From: WSCOTT@ACS.WOOSTER.EDU Subject: Re: Paperless composing Here's a fun loopy thing to try. Along with your note loops, set up other tracks that contain only controller, program change, or sysex info and loop these on a different number of bars than the note tracks. You can create some fairly organic growing type thingies (compositions) this way that are nothing but loops (but nothing is repeated). Bill Scott ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 28 Jan 1993 15:09:58 PST From: metlay Subject: Re: Paperless composing >Mark Simon writes: >> >> ... So I resolved to create a piece without >> once resorting to notation. >> ... Well, silly me, before I knew it, that permanent loop >> was part of the piece. > >I think this is possibly an artifact (and a common one) of the medium ...and a common mistake of neophytes at paperless composing, alas. Just because certain types of data repetition are easy to form with a computer, the temptation to overuse the features of cloning existing data to excess is there. People ask me why I use Vision, when Performer has so much more looping power. My answer is that for me, looping power is like a cocaine habit-- you're never quite rid of it and you have to watch yourself every minute. Vision's looping capabilities are, in comparison to the rest of the program, moronically poor-- and I, for one, am grateful. >> Actually I had fun making it, my wife likes it, perhaps it would appeal >> to other New-Age-ophiles, but it sure doesn't hold a candle to anything I've >> been writing with pencil and paper. I think the difference is that, since I >> didn't have to think about each and every note, I didn't think about any of >> them, and the result sounds rather mindless. Another casualty of the computer mindset. It's a learning process, that's all. By contrast, I find that my pen-and-paper arangements are painfully sparse, because the process of creating each note hurts so much.... >> So the question is, how do you sequencer-based composers avoid the >> noodle syndrome? >Good improvisation overtop repeating motifs in differing contexts, changing >orchestration, addition and subtraction of contrapuntal lines. Also, >evolution of "the next thing implied" by a given motif. Thirdly, I try not >to write 20 minutes of music if I only have 3 minutes of idea. This last is vital. If a piece is best when it's 30 seconds long, so be it. But I can generalize what Joe suggested a bit: simply put, don't let yourself forget all of the many useful things you know from pen-and-paper arranging. If you can be as critical of your sequenced work as of your written arangements, you'll do fine. Now, deliberately USING a sequencer to create interesting music that would not be suggested by a pen-and-paper arrangement is a whole 'nuther topic, for a whole 'nuther letter.... -- mike metlay | "He must be listening to bagpipes, atomic city | because he looks like plaid." p. o. box 81175 | pittsburgh pa 15217-0675 | (b. jonell) metlay@netcom.com | ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 29 Jan 1993 09:36:09 GMT From: JOEL STERN Subject: SEQUENCERS AND GAS ENGINES On the subject of paperless composing, frankly I don't see THAT much difference between it and paperful composing. You have to be judicious with your resources in either case. As far as looping, I don't. I DO cut and paste a lot for repetitive passages, but this leaves the option of fine tuning each repetition so that the music continues to have variety in spite of the repeated patterns. The result is the saving of gobs of time over laborious copying with pencil and paper. For editing I work a lot in the "piano roll" view, which, with its fine timing resolution, I find much more flexible than traditional notation. But I think the overriding advantage of sequenced composing is the ability to listen to your music as you go, experimenting with voicings, dynamics, tempi, and effects at the click of a key or mouse button. (I just had a conversation with a colleague who laments our total domination by the cathode ray tube and the internal combustion engine. Hmm.) Joel Stern Library Of Congress stern@mail.loc.gov tel:301-588-8061 fax:301-585-7642 ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 29 Jan 1993 09:52:54 -0500 From: "Joseph D. McMahon" Subject: Re: SEQUENCERS AND GAS ENGINES "Sequencers and Gas Engines". Hmmm. Sounds like an album title to me. :-) --- Joe M. ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 29 Jan 1993 10:01:05 -0500 From: bgood@SUNDAGGER.LERC.NASA.GOV Subject: Mike Metlay writes: >People ask me why I use Vision, when Performer has so much more >looping power. My answer is that for me, looping power is like a cocaine >habit-- you're never quite rid of it and you have to watch yourself every >minute. Vision's looping capabilities are, in comparison to the rest of >the program, moronically poor-- and I, for one, am grateful. Yeah. I've long felt looping was the Spawn of the Devil, partly for the reason you mention--the temptation to get lazy can be too hard to resist. But another reason is that, for me, it often stifles the creative process while writing. Even if I'm planning on rewriting the looped part later without so much repetition, my tonal imagination gets so constrained by the presence of the looped part that the quality of the writing suffers. My normal mode now is *never* to use looping. If I want repetition, I explicitly cut and paste, and maybe add some randomization to velocities or whatever. With Vision's capabilities in those areas, it's not an enormous burden, and I'm more likely to use repetition for musical reasons, as opposed to convenience. (So, of course, after all this pious blather (repetition BAD!!!), the thing I'm most likely to submit to Sean's archive has about four minutes' worth of ostinato. At least it's not looped.) ...and later: >Now, deliberately USING a sequencer to create interesting music that would >not be suggested by a pen-and-paper arrangement is a whole 'nuther topic, >for a whole 'nuther letter.... ...and one worthy of a lot of net traffic. What do you have in mind, besides the obvious (e.g. heroic sixteenth-note runs with quarter note = 4000)? Hocketing with wild abandon? Pan and mix under MIDI control? Sequences generated algorithmically from your own material? Unnotatable timbral variation? Most of the non-traditional stuff I write doesn't map well onto a sequencer--I think MAX will be the tool of choice when I have time to really learn it. brian good bgood@sundagger.lerc.nasa.gov ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 29 Jan 1993 19:11:47 +0000 From: Nick Rothwell Subject: Re: Paperless composing > So the question is, how do you sequencer-based composers avoid the >noodle syndrome? I suppose the first answer to this question is never use >loops in your sequences. Well, I do use loops in the sequences, but I never leave them running while noodling over them; that never works. >But besides that how does one get one's ideas to >mesh together in an organic, logical whole in a manner analogous to the >very notation-based creations of, for instance, Haydn. "Logical whole" is a subjective term here. My music is currently quite sequential, which is to an extent a reflection on the tools I'm using which let me lay out sections of music by bar, move them around, and so on. I tend to work in 3-5 minute chunks of music and then glue them together with transition sections. >Haydn never noodles. He gets right >to the point, every note counts, and it's always just the right note. Do >any of you set this same ideal for yourselves? Yes, but never achieve it. Making Every Note Count is very, very difficult, although truly sublime if/when achieved. (For EMUSIC people, substitute "Sound" for "Note".) I think the way to do it is work up: start with not very many notes. I want to start moving away from the sequencer as a composition tool, and start building my own composition/performance systems in MAX. That is going to severely curtail some of the compositional aids that I currently take for granted, so I'll have to keep the musical structure simple at first. It's going to be interesting... Nick Rothwell | cassiel@cassiel.demon.co.uk CASSIEL Contemporary Music/Dance | cassiel@cix.compulink.co.uk ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 30 Jan 1993 09:02:40 +0000 From: Nick Rothwell Subject: Looping... Actually, there's an argument here that powerful looping is better than dumb looping. In Performer I'll often loop three or four tracks, with different loop lengths, then ride in some continuous controller to change the timbre of one or two of the loops, or something. I'll often nest the loops, so that an inner loop repeats N times followed by some difference, all inside an enclosing loop. What I need ideally is randomisation. Given that few of my synths really know about randomness (apart, surprisingly, from the Peavey DPM-SP), I'm going to have to do it in MAX. RSN I'm going to network the two PowerBooks and have Performer on one and MAX in the other; then I can start moving sequence information from Performer into more organic, algorithmic, objects. RSN? In fact, it had better be done this weekend; I'm three weeks away from the live performance... Nick Rothwell | cassiel@cassiel.demon.co.uk CASSIEL Contemporary Music/Dance | cassiel@cix.compulink.co.uk ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 31 Jan 1993 17:38:05 PST From: metlay Subject: Re: your mail >>Now, deliberately USING a sequencer to create interesting music that would >>not be suggested by a pen-and-paper arrangement is a whole 'nuther topic, >>for a whole 'nuther letter.... > >...and one worthy of a lot of net traffic. What do you have in mind, >besides the obvious (e.g. heroic sixteenth-note runs with quarter >note = 4000)? Hocketing with wild abandon? Pan and mix under MIDI >control? Sequences generated algorithmically from your own material? >Unnotatable timbral variation? All of that and more, my son. Even loops. |-> What I like to do is to build up interesting polyrhythms with loops of odd lengths running at the same time. The trick is to create from this only as much material as can be supported by the ideas inherent in the parts. You COULD let ssuch a polyloop go for several minutes, but if it's only interesting for twenty seconds, use twenty seconds of it and let that be that. -- mike metlay | "He must be listening to bagpipes, atomic city | because he looks like plaid." p. o. box 81175 | pittsburgh pa 15217-0675 | (b. jonell) metlay@netcom.com | ------------------------------ End of the EMUSIC-L Digest ******************************