Yahoo Tuning Groups Ultimate Backup makemicromusic New Microtonal Piece at mp3.com

Fellow composers,

For those interested, I've posted a new piece on MP3.com. See
http://www.mp3.com/PrentRodgers and look for "Chain of Flowers". A
short description follows:

This is a piece that uses more material from the Partch Tonality
Diamond. The title is taken from the web page of the Museum of
Jurassic Technology, the work of David Wilson. Mr. Wilson recently
won a MacArthur Foundation grant to continue the work of his museum.
On his web page is a quote from Charles Willson Peale, "...guided
along as it were a chain of flowers into the mysteries of life." This
refers to the technique of guiding visitors to a museum along a path
towards what you want them to learn by entertaining them along the
way, like a path of flowers. Mr. Peale's museum was one of the first
American museums in the early 19th century. He would lead visitors
from familiar objects toward the unfamiliar, sometimes horrific in
his exhibits. I use a technique of repetition to highlight the unique
sounds of the tonality diamond, kind of like a chain of flowers. Each
flower is made up of petals, which are made up of smaller parts, and
built into a complete structure. The musical material consists of
chords and arpeggios using the otonality, moving to other chords by
steps in the utonality. For example, if C major is 1:1, the chord for
C major consists of 4:5:6:7:9:11, called C : E : G : A++ : D+ : F++
in the score. This moves to an Ab major with the intervals
4:5:6:7:9:11 as Ab : C : E-- : F# : Bb : D- . Then to F major as F :
A- : C : D# : G : B- , then to D++, A#, and G-- major. This C major,
Ab major, F major, D++ major, A# major, G-- major is the basis of the
piece. I also use the sub-minor variant of each. I call the 6:7:9
chord the sub-minor: G : A++ : D+ . Each of the major chords has a
subminor complement. G complements C, E-- sub-minor complements Ab
major, and so on. There is a great deal of indeterminacy in the
piece. The specific chords in the key are chosen more or less at
random, within a list of allowable choices. Limitations on the order
of choice contribute to consistency. Sort of. A second version of the
piece, realized a few minutes after this one, will also be available
on this web site as soon as they approve it.

Set the Riff-mobile to "Triademonium".

I use Csound to generate this piece. Samples were taken from the
McGill University Master Samples CD-ROM. I created a program in
Pascal that is kind of a macro pre-processor for the Csound input
files. The preprocessor takes a text file as input and creates a .csd
file that Csound processes. More details, including source code, is
available on my web site at http://members.home.net/prodgers13/ .

Descriptions of Mr. Wilson's Museum is at http://www.mjt.org/ . For
discussions of tuning systems, see the Tuning List at
/tuning (registration required). For
discussions of the Csound program used to generate the piece, see
http://www.csounds.com/ and other Csound sites found in Google.

I recently bought a CD burner, and have been hard at work creating
high quality CD's of my latest 11 songs. 74 minutes long. All were
made using Samples and Csound. I'll ship a copy off to the first 20
who ask, no charge. Just promise me you will listen to some of the
songs and place a note somewhere with what you thought of the music.
Like maybe here, or the tuning group, or the New York Times....

Prent Rodgers
Mercer Island, WA

Home Page: http://home.attbi.com/~prodgers13/
MP3 Examples: http://www.mp3.com/PrentRodgers

"It's cold, but it's a damp cold."

🔗Jonathan M. Szanto <JSZANTO@...>

Prent!

Yah! Prent lives!

{you wrote...}
>Fellow composers

Optimist...

>For those interested, I've posted a new piece on MP3.com. See
>http://www.mp3.com/PrentRodgers and look for "Chain of Flowers".

Starting download now while I type...

>The title is taken from the web page of the Museum of Jurassic Technology, >the work of David Wilson.

Spectacular that this is an inspiration - I've loved MJT for a looong time now...

>Mr. Wilson recently won a MacArthur Foundation grant to continue the work >of his museum.

...and THAT is awesome.

>There is a great deal of indeterminacy in the piece. The specific chords >in the key are chosen more or less at random, within a list of allowable >choices.

Courtesy UCSD? :)

>I use Csound to generate this piece. Samples were taken from the McGill >University Master Samples CD-ROM.

Is this series still commercially available? (I don't believe it is cheap, right?)

>Descriptions of Mr. Wilson's Museum is at http://www.mjt.org/ .

Thanks for the link; those who like to "go outside" will enjoy this.

>I recently bought a CD burner, and have been hard at work creating high >quality CD's of my latest 11 songs. 74 minutes long. All were made using >Samples and Csound. I'll ship a copy off to the first 20 who ask, no >charge. Just promise me you will listen to some of the songs and place a >note somewhere with what you thought of the music. Like maybe here, or the >tuning group, or the New York Times....

Well, since I've asked for this in the past, I'm happy (hopefully) to be pre-registered 1 of the 20 (sort of like "6 of 9"?). But with one caveat: I'll contribute to the effort, certainly in terms of materials and postage. Offlist communication is probably best, unless you want to advertise. And I'll put notice of it on the Partch site, with so much material drawn from the diamond and whatnot.

Prent, it is *so* good to have you share occasionally, thanks!

Cheers,
Jon

🔗jonszanto <JSZANTO@...>

Tuba and piccolo.
Tuba and piccolo.

It doesn't get any better than this.

OK, Prent, forget about the challenge of learning Csound; forget
about intriguing 'orchestration'; forget about internalizing the 43-
tone JI system; forget about writing helper apps to do all this.

What I want to know is this: how can you write such godammed perky
music in a place where it rains a million days a year???

It's *gotta* be the coffee...

Big cheers,
Jon
(who, in fact, really enjoys Seattle, and esp Mercer Island, and the
salmon and chips and local brews and the Palace Kitchen and...)

🔗prentrodgers <prentrodgers@...>

--- In MakeMicroMusic@y..., "Jonathan M. Szanto" <JSZANTO@A...> wrote:
> >There is a great deal of indeterminacy in the piece.
> Courtesy UCSD? :)

I picked up the random number generator from Turbo Pascal. Cage and
lots of others too.

> Samples were taken from the McGill
> University Master Samples CD-ROM.
>
> Is this series still commercially available?

McGill University Master Samples CD-ROM was around $150. Then I had
to buy a $50 program to read the AKAI samples into a form that my PC
could read.

So far 7 requests for the CD offer. Get me your postal mailing
address.

Prent Rodgers

🔗prentrodgers <prentrodgers@...>

--- In MakeMicroMusic@y..., "jacky_ligon" <jacky_ligon@y...> wrote:
> Can you do true "mono-legato mode" with CSound?? What I mean is be
> able to do trills like on a woodwind instrument, without re-
> triggering the attack of the sound.
>
> Jacky

Csound can do just about anything that a persistant person can think
of. For trills, I pass the orchestra the number of a function table
that contains a set of ratios for the two notes in the trill. For
example, pass function table #361 to multiply by the frequency of the
base note like this:

; the score
; trill up & down ratio 35:36
f361 0 256 -7 1 32 1 0 1.02857143 32 1.02857143 0 1 32 1 0 1.02857143
32 1.02857143 0 1 32 1 0 1.02857143 32 1.02857143 0 1 32 1 0
1.02857143 32 1.02857143

; orchestra fragment
kcpsm oscili 1, 1/p3, i10 ; create an set of shift multiplicands
kcps2 = kcps * kcpsm ; shift the frequency by trill table
a1,a2 loscil kamp, kcps2, ifno, ibascps; read a sampled instrument
outs a1 * kpanl ,a2 * kpanr ; send it to output

This function table says that it has 256 points, and don't rescale
itself. The first point is 1, stay there for 32/256th of the note.
Then at point 32, multiply the base note times 1.02857143 (35:36).
Stay there for 32/256th of the note. Then 32/256 later switch back to
1. Result is a trill of the base note and a note 35:36 above with 4
up and down trills per note. Swap out the 32 with 16, and increase
the points to 8 trills per note for a little variety. You can of
course make the trill go to different places each trill, like
increase from 35:36 to 2:1 if you like. Or decrease it. I use an
octave trill on the piano sample in La Cuenta Por Favor, and a legato
move up and down 8:9:10:11:12:14:16.

Prent Rodgers
Mercer Island, WA

🔗paulerlich <paul@...>

--- In MakeMicroMusic@y..., "Jonathan M. Szanto" <JSZANTO@A...> wrote:

> >I recently bought a CD burner, and have been hard at work creating
high
> >quality CD's of my latest 11 songs. 74 minutes long. All were made
using
> >Samples and Csound. I'll ship a copy off to the first 20 who ask,
no
> >charge.

I'm asking!!! I'll have this CD in heavy rotation for my friends to
be bombarded with, I promise!

> Just promise me you will listen to some of the songs and place a
> >note somewhere with what you thought of the music. Like maybe
here, or the
> >tuning group,

I promise! I promise!

🔗clumma <carl@...>

🔗jpehrson2 <jpehrson@...>

--- In MakeMicroMusic@y..., "prentrodgers" <prentrodgers@a...> wrote:

/makemicromusic/topicId_1359.html#1359

> Fellow composers,
>
> For those interested, I've posted a new piece on MP3.com. See
> http://www.mp3.com/PrentRodgers and look for "Chain of Flowers". A
> short description follows:
>

This is, of course, a wonderful new piece by one of my *very*
favorite CSOUND composers, Prent Rodgers...

I detect a certain "expansiveness" of register and timbre that goes
beyond many of the other Rodgers works...

Am I really to believe the Webpage about the "Jurassic Technology
Museum" after some of the other stretchers??

Anyway, congrats, many! I have a couple of minor (well, actually
*sub-minor*) theory questions that are best addressed on the "main"
list...

Joseph Pehrson

🔗jpehrson2 <jpehrson@...>

--- In MakeMicroMusic@y..., "prentrodgers" <prentrodgers@a...> wrote:

/makemicromusic/topicId_1359.html#1367

> --- In MakeMicroMusic@y..., "jacky_ligon" <jacky_ligon@y...> wrote:
> > Can you do true "mono-legato mode" with CSound?? What I mean is
be
> > able to do trills like on a woodwind instrument, without re-
> > triggering the attack of the sound.
> >
> > Jacky
>
> Csound can do just about anything that a persistant person can
think
> of. For trills, I pass the orchestra the number of a function table
> that contains a set of ratios for the two notes in the trill. For
> example, pass function table #361 to multiply by the frequency of
the
> base note like this:
>
> ; the score
> ; trill up & down ratio 35:36
> f361 0 256 -7 1 32 1 0 1.02857143 32 1.02857143 0 1 32 1 0
1.02857143
> 32 1.02857143 0 1 32 1 0 1.02857143 32 1.02857143 0 1 32 1 0
> 1.02857143 32 1.02857143
>
> ; orchestra fragment
> kcpsm oscili 1, 1/p3, i10 ; create an set of shift
multiplicands
> kcps2 = kcps * kcpsm ; shift the frequency by trill
table
> a1,a2 loscil kamp, kcps2, ifno, ibascps; read a sampled
instrument
> outs a1 * kpanl ,a2 * kpanr ; send it to output
>
> This function table says that it has 256 points, and don't rescale
> itself. The first point is 1, stay there for 32/256th of the note.
> Then at point 32, multiply the base note times 1.02857143 (35:36).
> Stay there for 32/256th of the note. Then 32/256 later switch back
to
> 1. Result is a trill of the base note and a note 35:36 above with 4
> up and down trills per note. Swap out the 32 with 16, and increase
> the points to 8 trills per note for a little variety. You can of
> course make the trill go to different places each trill, like
> increase from 35:36 to 2:1 if you like. Or decrease it. I use an
> octave trill on the piano sample in La Cuenta Por Favor, and a
legato
> move up and down 8:9:10:11:12:14:16.
>
> Prent Rodgers
> Mercer Island, WA

Wow... trills are a *lot* harder than using your fingers! :)