Emerson

I think the topic name wasn't suggesting the content, so I duplicated the link here:

a-composition-i-made-using-max

Thats really cool. I love the looney tunes effects which make quite a juxtaposition against the serious setting of the concert. You're piano playing exhibits a high level of skill and I love the surreal effects. I was wondering was there live interaction with max or was the max part prerecorded ?

http://soundcloud.com/schizobrainiac/ether-sundays

Thats really cool. I love the looney tunes effects which make quite a juxtaposition against the serious setting of the concert. You're piano playing exhibits a high level of skill and I love the surreal effects. I was wondering was there live interaction with max or was the max part prerecorded ?
I think you might like this guy :

http://soundcloud.com/schizobrainiac/ether-sundays


Thanks a lot for your comments and question. (btw, I'm not the pianist, I'm the composer of the piece; I'll tell him about your praise.) Also thank you for catching the spirit of the piece so well.

Yes, there was live interaction by means of javascript objects I programmed to recognize the pianist's position/action through the piece, which was the main point. No prerecorded music is used. Max is following -an abstraction of- the performance of the piece, recognizing either successions of chords or single notes, triggering extra events on the fly.

It can be observed from the video that, although the pianist takes the tempo very freely, there are no (and could not be any) temporal mismatches between his actions and the generated 'responses' by Max -be it an effect or added accompaniment parts. (Actually, the performance in this concert setting has been quite slower than the intended tempo, since the pianist fortunately didn't want to risk the 'premiere' of the piece.)

I'll be glad to have any further questions/suggestions.

No prerecorded music is used ? Then I really am impressed - I know how difficult interaction of this sort can be to execute.....

As you mentioned "...interaction of this sort...":

Have you worked on similar projects? I'd like to hear about them very much.

Have you worked on similar projects?  I'd like to hear about them very much.


Yes I am - I am using live granular synthesis and live looping for interaction with instruments- this is spatialised in up to 48 channels using vbap and ambisonics. Its a tricky art and requires a certain type of muician as well as a certain type of programing !

Looking forward to listening to a composition utilizing your system.

@Augustine Bannatyne - Leudar:
(Watched the video of your project now.)
Heavy work... Congratulations!
Looking forward to listening to a composition utilizing your system.

Hi Emerson - what is not displayed in the vid is that you can attach a radio mic and sing /play an instrument into it and then proceed to warp it/spatialise it round the room (it goes where you point)

Splendid features. I'm curious: why did you list your video under the category "Entertainment"?

I do a lot of soundart installations for public events - I like to be a bit of an audio freak show :

http://augustine.leudar.com/Goed_files/Installation.html

The technology will be leaving the academic arena and used in a variety of public performances. I like exposing experimental music in a way that apeals to a broad spectrum of people as my favourite artists did (eg Delia Derbyshire, Ligeti, Throbbing Gristle) - they were entertaining but they did not compromise either.

I have some shows coming up as part of the Belfast festival and we are going to use the wand for that (=;

The technology will be leaving the academic arena and used in a variety of public performances.  I like exposing experimental music in a way that apeals to a broad spectrum of people as my favourite artists did (eg Delia Derbyshire, Ligeti, Throbbing Gristle) - they were entertaining but they did not compromise either.
I have some shows coming up as part of the Belfast festival and we are going to use the wand for that (=;


Thanks for the explanation, that for sure is one way to approach the 'area'.

What I tried to accomplish in my piece, on the other hand, is to demonstrate to pure traditional musicians that adding technology and experiment in reasonable ways to music which is otherwise adequate by itself (i.e., before the tech components are added), can lead to only better results.

The composition, even if Max's contributions (coming from a collection of algorithms built of a total of 697 objects, with AI methods for tracking the performance) were excluded, can be described as stylistic variations between episodes constructed by elaborations of three simple motifs (first occurrences of which are at 00:05, 00:08, and 00:33 on the video). Even the climax of the piece (arriving at 02:00) which consists of superimposition of two of these motifs, is -by chance- a passage without any tech add-on.

Although generating crazy sounds could indeed be very fun (and I plan to use many in other compositions), the subtlety in this piece is that all the sounds produced are either pure or transformed samples of the same piano; thus enabling to focus on the fantasies, the illusion of enhancing an acoustic piano.

Some examples and corresponding positions on the video are:

Glissando and cross-glissando (00:42, 01:07) (it can be noticed that these are not ordinary pitch-bend effects which, depending on a single pitch, would fail to obtain the desired sonority); transposed echoes (01:48, 02:22), notes far above and below the range of the instrument (02:22, 03:14-03:20), the increasing dynamics ("crescendo") effect in sustaining chords (01:33-01:44), which makes the performer rather satisfied, since its absence is a major downside, comparing to (arco) strings or wind section. The most emphasized interaction is during the dialogue between the pianist's chords and Max's very fast sweeping chords (02:44-03:20).

During the stage of preparation for the concert, I was lucky to work with my pianist friend, who possesses both qualities of an experienced serious musician and an engineer-like thinking. After watching the performance on the video, many of the traditionalist musicians told that they would like to participate in future interactive performances with Max.

I think this can be a working way (adding technology to music which can already "stand alone") to introduce modern tools like Max to conservative musicians, winning their support, instead of leaving them out. This was one primary motive for this composition.

The composition, even if Max's contributions (coming from a collection of algorithms built of a total of  697 objects, with AI methods for tracking the performance) were excluded, can be described as stylistic variations between episodes constructed by elaborations of three simple motifs (first occurrences of which are at 00:05, 00:08, and 00:33 on the video). Even the climax of the piece (arriving at 02:00) which consists of superimposition of two of these motifs, is -by chance- a passage without any tech add-on.

I think this can be a working way (adding technology to music which can already "stand alone") to introduce modern tools like Max to conservative musicians, winning their support, instead of leaving them out. This was one primary motive for this composition.


just a quick quesion about this sentance :

" transposed echoes (01:48, 02:22), notes far above and below the range of the instrument (02:22, 03:14-03:20)" - how did you (or the ai) decide upon which ratios to use for the harmonisation - is it random or within tightly controlled parameters ?

It's not random. I decided the ratios according to what kind of harmony I wished to be produced, and formulated into the patches, for the notes to be generated one by one during the performance.

(The numbers in the parantheses show at what times on the video those events occur, you know)

It's not random. I decided the ratios according to what kind of harmony I wished to be produced, and formulated into the patches, for the notes to be generated one by one during the performance.
Is that what you asked?
(The numbers in the parantheses show at what times on the video those events occur, you know)


Hi yes - that makes sense - did you use whole number ratios for the harmonies or stick with in the equal/mean tempered scale ?

The result of an experiment affecting the tuning and the intensity of harmonics to obtain a very bright and percussive timbre can be heard in the passage between 01:09 and 01:18. Outside this interval, everything should sound in equally tempered tuning.

A composition I made using Max