To hear me creating music with this, check out some of the mp3s at
http://www.rspearson.com/rsmusic.html. The song photomultiplier uses it, as do many others.

I’m very serious about creating this or using it once someone creates it. Thanks.

Robert

On Aug 24, 2008, at 3:33 PM, Robert Pearson wrote:

> although in a way this writing here is a type of copyright in case
> someone creates the application and charges a huge fee for it.

barry threw
Media Art and Technology

San Francisco, CA
Work: 857-544-3967
Email: bthrew (at) gmail (dot) com
Web: http://www.barrythrew.com

Write it down, then mail it to yourself recorded delivery and keep it. That’ll stand up much better than a post on this list. If it’s worth that much to you anyway.

Robert

First of all, you cannot copyright an idea.

Copyright covers the *concrete*expression* of an idea.

If you want to copyright an application, you have to write the application first.

Period.

Second, the “send yourself a sealed envelope” idea, though commonly promulgated, won’t stand up in court in most jurisdictions. It certainly won’t stand up in the US. Cf. < http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copyright#.22Poor_man.27s_copyright.22>

P.s. It was light hearted, if I actually thought a design was worth while I’d patent the damn thing. :)

It would certainly stand as a public disclosure. I don’t know about
the UK, but in the US public disclosure has consequences regarding the
patentability of an invention.

-C

Chris Muir
cbm@well.com

http://www.xfade.com

The main requirement for getting a patent is, that it wasn’t published
before. That is also a way to prevent patenting. I heard of one case
where a patent was refused, because that idea had been published in a
Donald Duck comic strip before…

This specific idea isn’t new either, and it would be pretty easy to
implement in Max. Any average Maxer could do it. Thus in itself it
wouldn’t be patentable, but the patch would be copyrightable…

It would be an ideal project to start learning Max. Its much easier and
much more fun than coding this sort of tool in a normal programming
language…

Stefan

–
Stefan Tiedje————x——-
–_____———–|————–
–(_|_ —-|—–|—–()——-
– _|_)—-|—–()————–
———-()——–www.ccmix.com

> OK, if you really understand what I’m describing, please
> point out an application or two that uses the ideas I’m
> discussing.

I have a section in my “Gyre” Max application that has many concepts
in common with your ideas, at least if I understand what you’re
talking about. For example sending 7 repeatedly would start ascending
the circle of fifths. Is this the sort of thing you mean?

In my application I have other ways to generate rests & rhythms other
than using 0 to mean rest, so I use 0 to mean “repeat previous note”.
I have several methods to determine what happens when the accumulated
notes exceed some selected range.

-C

I create sequences like this

12462002424210002642864100001624

(we’ll call this the loop)

and for each note I play on the keyboard, when the sequence
starts, it goes in a loop and assigns the 1 to the first key pressed down, the 2 to the second, and so on. If there are 9 different intervals all used in the loop, but only 3 keys held down the program will play the octaves of the notes, so that 123 would be abc, and 456 would be a’b'c’…and so on.

Additional information not in the email: you have to isolate everything I’m talking about to get the full algorithm and why it’s so interesting:

1) the full interval pattern 1-9, and then 0 for rests, is
looped — this creates a living pulsing sequencer
2) the fact that this loop is triggered by an accomplished
or just lucky person’s playing of the loop on the keyboard
3) the fact that the interval loop will do interesting things
if less than the number of original keys are held down that
are in the loop (the loop becomes “intelligent”).

There is something core about this concept, something
about it that relates to the nature of music…it’s like
working at a genetic understanding of what can be good music
structure. Those into “generative music” I think will be
very interested in this.

Yes, this explains much more what you’re after. It sounds very
interesting, and it is your personal way of composing in an improvising
context.
To create such a beast is very easy in Max, I’d say after you’ve gone
through the Max tutorials, it’s a day to implement it. You only need Max
in the beginning to create a Midi version…
You can easily finish a usable version within the 30-day demo period..

The big advantage of creating it yourself is, you can easily modify it
and implement variations on your algorithm. It’s literally a snap…

In can’t encourage you more to just do it. An alternative to Max would
eventually be Pd, the open source variant of Max and though not too
closely as powerful as Max, for that sort of task more than sufficient…

Stefan

–
Stefan Tiedje————x——-
–_____———–|————–
–(_|_ —-|—–|—–()——-
– _|_)—-|—–()————–
———-()——–www.ccmix.com