Archive for the 'Music' Category
Algorithmic hymn of the week
Monday, November 13th, 2006bubble sort by x3j11, something like alvin lucier’s I am sitting in a room but backwards and with a sorting algorithm instead of feedback. Genius.
tags:algorithmic music alvin lucier bubble sort x3j11Software politics: Itunes
Wednesday, November 8th, 2006I don’t mind listening to Steve Reich after Stereolab. Ornette Coleman is not bad after Odd Nosdam. Beans and Beastie Boys are a good couple too… but I can’t stand Daft punk after Daedelus, nor Dizzee Rascal after Dinosaur Jr; and I just hate listening to Cat Power everytime I finish listening to Caribou.
Definitely, I don’t like listening to music alphabetically ordered as Itunes wants me to.
tags:alphabetical order itunes music software politicsMore branches, objects, sounds and empty rooms.
Tuesday, November 7th, 2006Chelpa ferro is a brazillian collective of visual, video and audio artists.
As with Jessica Rylan, I don’t really know how their installations sound like, but I love them.
On ChucK, Terry Riley, Jim Bumgardner and emulating old masters through code
Saturday, November 4th, 2006So this morning I found that someone had already done an idea which I had been thinking of for some time (probably since I did the Steve Reich’s Clapping Music version in ChucK):
Source code for “In C” by Terry Riley in ChucK
No problem. With the amount of information we have a few clicks away, it’s impossible to maintain the naive belief that our ideas are original.
Having a look at the programmer’s website (ah, curiosity) I’ve discovered why the url sounded so familiar: He’s also the man behind whitney music box, a well known series of animations inspired by the work of john whitney, as described in his book Digital Harmony: On the Complementarity of Music and Visual Art. The post explaining the work is worth a look.
(on a deeper look, I’ve found more gems, such as the article Processing as a first language, as compared to flash, his processing gallery or the JSyd Java Synth)
Anyway, what I find particularly interesting is the exercise of trying to emulate in code art works which weren’t originally conceived for that. We know the construction rules (the score and/or the composer’s instructions) and the final result (the recording), so I see them as ideal programming practice problems.
Because of its main focus on processes rather than final products, I’d say that some art of the 60’s and 70’s is specially suitable for this task. We’ve talked about minimal composers (reich, glass, riley), but I’m also thinking of process art (see Casey Reas implementations of instructions by Sol Lewitt) or even John Cage (whom most famous work has been also versioned by Jim Bumgardner in justone line of chuck code: (4*60+33)::second => now) .
A couple of other examples:
- Piano phase after Steve Reich with source code in JMusic (Java)
- PD Repertory Project: Some live electronic music repertoire pieces in Pure Data (including works by Pierre Boulez, Steve Reich, Stockhausen and others)
- (Update) The Riley-o-matic by Daniel Iglesia, more In C (implemented in, well, C)
Do you know of more examples? Let me know in the comments.
tags:chuck jim bumgardner minimalism process art processing.org terry riley whitney music boxDaedelus played live in barcelona
Monday, October 16th, 2006Chuck jedit edit mode updated for 1.2.0.7
Sunday, October 1st, 2006ChucK has gone through some api changes and tasty additions (low, band, high and stop pass filters…) in its last revision. I’ve just updated the edit mode which I did for JEdit. You can get it from here:
Chuck jedit mode updated for 1.2.0.7
For instructions on how to install, have a look at the previous post: JEdit for ChucK
Update: Thomas Friese has sent me a corrected version (mainly with removed duplicates) and has added some missing properties and methods. Now it is the “official” download. Thanks Tasmo!
tags:chuck jedit