The Mijor Triad
Sep 30, 2004 myMusic
When I used to play the guitar (in my teenage years), I was intrigued by the psychological perception of pitch. If I play a C, and I tune the E string a little flat, it still sounds like a major third. But if I keep turning the peg, eventually it’s no longer a flat E, it’s a sharp E-flat, and it sounds like a minor third. So what happens perceptually in a listener trained on an equal-tempered scale (basically, anyone in the Western hemisphere at this point) when the note is right smack on the middle?
Picture me sitting in my room, head cocked to one side, trying to turn this peg back and forth as minutely as possible until it was exactly precisely in the middle. Clearly a fool’s errand.
But 10 years later, Csound has shown me the way. So for anyone who has ever wondered what happens to such the listener in such a case?
It just makes you nauseous.
Behold, The Mijor Triad.
All Night Long
Sep 25, 2004 musicByOthers
Wow, I’ve never posted so much in one day before, but…um…
“Prince Radio Marathon, Saturday Night
Pardon the silence around here, I am currently in an undisclosed location working feverishly on an undisclosed project. But I must take a moment to let you know we’re doing another Prince special on Saturday Night from 12-6 AM, on WBAI 99.5 FM, and online here. I’m not at liberty to discuss the playlist, but chances are you’ve never heard any of this stuff on the radio.. “
[via hip hop music]
BlueCube
Sep 20, 2004 audioBlog
So I’ve been talking about CSound a lot recently. A sound synthesis programming environment, allowing you to do basically anything from the ground up. From FM synthesis to sampling to filters, panning, effects, etc – all completely controllable in long lines of obfuscated code.
Sounds great, huh? Well, to make it clearer why a person would want do such a thing to himself, I will bring Kim Cascone into the picture.
Kim Cascone is a self-described “ambient music composer” whom I happened to stumble across on the Internet the other day. He is also the author of “Recontextualizing Ambient Music with CSound,” chapter 32 of the famed CSound Book, and has a piece on the accompanying CD-ROM entitled “Blue Cube.”
Right at the top of the chapter, there is a link to the Csound score and orchestra files that make up the piece. I’ve taken the liberty of compiling them for you.
Think about the sounds you generally hear in modern music – think about how they’re made. It’s a process of choosing from patches or instruments, like choosing a meal from a menu. And think about the process – the sheer number of cables, patchbays, inputs and outputs, plugins, DAC converters, ADC converters these sounds might go through before they reach your ears.
And when you listen to Blue Cube, think about the process of sound here. Cooked to exact specification from raw ingredients, the sound is above all things pure. Purer than perhaps any sound I can think of. Clean, beautiful, architectural music.
A Warning Shot
Sep 18, 2004 greatThingsThatPeopleDo
Just a reminder that tomorrow is a very special day. Now last year, we did alright, but things got a little confused, Soce got into the grog, and well, let’s just say it got a little crazy from there.
What I’m trying to say is that tomorrow is like the best holiday ever, so, um, like don’t fuck it up.
Are You Moving?
Sep 17, 2004 Keepers
“If you have a New York State driver license, learner permit or non-driver ID card, or a registration for a vehicle, boat or snowmobile, you are required by law to notify DMV within 10 days of any permanent address change.”
Eep.
Tags: Waiting
Am I Doomed?
Sep 10, 2004 myMusic
About four days ago, I started learning Csound, basically a programming language for sound synthesis. Two days ago, I ordered Producing In The Home Studio with Pro Tools on half.com. Later in the day, I put in a call to a guitarist I found on Craigslist who was supposed to give me guitar lessons in exchange for piano. This morning, I picked up Grout and Palisca’s A History of Western Music and thunked it into my backpack.
I’m not trying to pat myself on the back here – far from it. I’m taking a look at what underlies this behavior. Now, some of you may know that I fancy myself a musician of some sort. I sang in choirs all my life, I majored in music in college, I play piano in Freestyle Love Supreme, I put down some hip-hop classics with Lin-Manuel, I try to play jazz, I try to write songs, sometimes I try to make drum and bass, I gush about the musical flavor of the season (it’s Prince right now, in case you hadn’t noticed), I sing R&B style nonsense hooks, I identify with pretty much everyone and everybody.
And what the hell do you do with that? The first time I played with Freestyle Love Supreme, I had to be coerced because I said, You know Lin, I’m not really a piano player. But I went down there, and I did it, and you know what, 9 months later, I’m still not a piano player. But I’m getting pretty decent at whatever it is I do down there.
That first night, before I walked onto the stage, Two-Touch took one look at me and said “Arthur the Geniuses,” a name that has stuck with me ever since. But I tend to view it as a sort of ironic name. As a sort of mockery of itself. Not that it was by any means intended this way, but to me it signifies my status as a musical jack-of-all-trades, master-of-none.
Here’s what it boils down to for me: common wisdom dictates that when you have a natural talent for something that you really enjoy doing, you should do it. I’m on board so far. Doin’ the music thing, somehow someway. But what happens when that thing forks off into a thousand different roads? How the hell do you know which way to go? If on Monday, I want to be Keith Jarrett, Tuesday I want to be Squarepusher, Wednesday I want to be Prince, Thursday Rufus Wainwright, and Friday Gustav fucking Mahler, when I get up in the morning on Saturday and sit down to make music, where on earth do I start? When in the afternoon I decide it’s time to practice, well, what the hell do I practice? Where does one begin?
How do you make these decisions? How do people know, when faced with many viable options, which one to choose? Or do you just take them all?
I mentioned to Carlos the other day that, at the rate I’m going, it would have to be at least a good 5 years before I’d have enough of an understanding of all the things I’d like to understand musically to be truly proud of the music I’m making. Rationally, I suppose I can accept that. Emotionally, I absolutely cannot. So what does a person do? Choose one – pigeonhole oneself into an instrument or a category and focus on that to the exclusion of all else? Continue spidering and just never really feel ownership of anything? I just find it hard to envision a day when someone says “So what kind of music do you make?,” and I’ll actually be able to give them an answer. I suppose I’d prefer to give them a CD. But how will I know what to put on it?
Now before you all say, just quit your whining and do it, whatever needs to comes out will come out, or other such stuff, I have to say that it’s just not that easy. Sometimes what wants to come out is a string quartet – once I hit a musical wall, I’ve got to work on my string-writing; or if I hit a technical wall, I’ve got to learn more about my sampler. Sometimes it’s a series of beeps, drum noises, and whistling sounds. Gotta figure out how to make those. More and more often recently, it’s been very guitar-oriented stuff – gotta learn to play the guitar better, at least well enough to play the lines I want to get down. Et cetera, et cetera, et cetera.
Something is clearly wrong-headed in my thinking here. But what? Anyone have brilliant advice to tear down everything I’ve just said? Anyone?
What!
Sep 6, 2004 musicByOthers
WHY THE FUCK DIDN’T ANYONE EVER TELL ME ABOUT THE FUCKING FLECKTONES?
I thought you people were supposed to be my friends!
Oh, and Pink Floyd too.
Bastards.
