Yahoo Tuning Groups Ultimate Backup makemicromusic isoserialism at work -- "souvlaki butt shake"

Hi all,

I've been fooling around with some simple Python frontends to create iso-serial pieces: pieces where the notes and rhythms, etc. are series. Not in the dodecaphonic sense of Schoenberg, but in the more free sense of "cycle through these pitches and rhythms and attacks and articulations; the cycles can be of differing lengths so the pattern can shift in subtle ways"...

The software is a frontend that produces text, which is put into a file read by my other custom software 'microcsound', which turns it into a Csound score that can be rendered by Csound with an appropriate orchestra file, etc. I have a synth bass, synth drums, and a Kanun sample here from the "Early Patches" soundfont set (1st version from a while back)

The tuning is a gypsy type tetrachordal scale in 53-edo:
0 3 19 22 31 34 50 53

It's short and sweet, not a stellar composition, short and pretty non-developmental, etc., but perhaps a demonstration of what's possible in a fun way with these kinds of tools....

http://www.akjmusic.com/audio/souvlaki_butt_shake.mp3

Enjoy! Comments positive and negative, (e.g. "this rocks", or "this would have totally bombed in the Un12 competition" ;), rants, lunatic philosophical discourses are all welcome. If you ass starts shaking even just a little, that makes me happy.

AKJ

🔗Graham Breed <gbreed@...>

🔗Ozan Yarman <ozanyarman@...>

Hey this is great! It has maqam airs all over it. Makes indeed the buttocks shake! Hah hah.

Oz.

✩ ✩ ✩
www.ozanyarman.com

On Jan 28, 2011, at 5:42 AM, akjmicro wrote:

> Hi all,
>
> I've been fooling around with some simple Python frontends to create iso-serial pieces: pieces where the notes and rhythms, etc. are series. Not in the dodecaphonic sense of Schoenberg, but in the more free sense of "cycle through these pitches and rhythms and attacks and articulations; the cycles can be of differing lengths so the pattern can shift in subtle ways"...
>
> The software is a frontend that produces text, which is put into a file read by my other custom software 'microcsound', which turns it into a Csound score that can be rendered by Csound with an appropriate orchestra file, etc. I have a synth bass, synth drums, and a Kanun sample here from the "Early Patches" soundfont set (1st version from a while back)
>
> The tuning is a gypsy type tetrachordal scale in 53-edo:
> 0 3 19 22 31 34 50 53
>
> It's short and sweet, not a stellar composition, short and pretty non-developmental, etc., but perhaps a demonstration of what's possible in a fun way with these kinds of tools....
>
> http://www.akjmusic.com/audio/souvlaki_butt_shake.mp3
>
> Enjoy! Comments positive and negative, (e.g. "this rocks", or "this would have totally bombed in the Un12 competition" ;), rants, lunatic philosophical discourses are all welcome. If you ass starts shaking even just a little, that makes me happy.
>
> AKJ
>
>
>
> ------------------------------------
>
> Yahoo! Groups Links
>
>
>

🔗genewardsmith <genewardsmith@...>

🔗akjmicro <aaron@...>

--- In MakeMicroMusic@yahoogroups.com, "genewardsmith" <genewardsmith@...> wrote:
>
>
>
> --- In MakeMicroMusic@yahoogroups.com, "akjmicro" <aaron@> wrote:
>
> > The software is a frontend that produces text, which is put into a file read by my other custom software 'microcsound', which turns it into a Csound score that can be rendered by Csound with an appropriate orchestra file, etc. I have a synth bass, synth drums, and a Kanun sample here from the "Early Patches" soundfont set (1st version from a while back)
>
> Do you have a url for microsound? Also, I understand that Michael Gogins has a Csound orchestra file, CsoundAC.csd, which uses a common pfield format. I'm wondering if you know where this or similar Csound orchestras with stanardized formats could be found.
>

Hey Gene,

You can get microcsound at http://www.akjmusic.com/packages/microcsound20101231.tgz

http://www.akjmusic.com/software/isoserial.py is where you can find the functions I use to generate a line. If you can read python, it shouldn't be to hard to understand, although it might help beforehand to understand something of microcsound syntax in order to fully understand it. http://www.akjmusic.com/microcsound_tutorial.html will help you there.

The format of a isoserial file is 4 Python arrays, separated by newlines, plus a fifth line containing a single number which is the number of total note events to generate. You can see an example at http://www.akjmusic.com/software/souvlaki_butt_shake.isoparams

I tried some examples with randomly generated arrays, and I was disappointed with the results. Too "random" :).... The "souvlaki" example does much better, I feel, because I have non-random patterns like scalar passages and little pitch motifs in their own arrays, and then used the Python random choose function to concatenate them together randomly, like a Stravinsky 'cut and paste'. A very simple, naive, way of getting both order and surprise. Baby steps. Next might be sophisticated Markov chains....

So my steps were:

1) open a python terminal and create some empty arrays for each parameter: pitch, duration, attack, articulation; and also an array of arrays, each being a 'motif' if you will.

2) call the Python 'random.choice' function in a loop on the master array of arrays. Each loop extends the blank array (adds values w/o having an additional array boundary, so I can cut n' paste later)

3) Cut and paste these into an 'isoparameter' file.

4) run the 'isoserial.py' script on the isoparameter file, piping the output of *that* into a microcsound text file.

5) edit the microcsound text file by defining instrument, track, and tuning parameters. Add some simple repeating drum track to frame a beat structure.

6) run microcsound to produce a wav file output.

It's algorithmic, so it won't be as rich as a human composer, but I think it's kind of a fun exercise to find algorithms that have a certain richness that can come close to human design, or be different than human design entirely, but have its own compelling sound.

Right now, this script is *very* naively monophonic--I haven't developed any such algorithm that extends into the harmonic domain, but I think with a *lot* more code, something might be developed. Right now, it's good enough for quasi-maqamish/ragaish stuff, like Ozan noticed. One could try devil-may-care counterpoint, see if you like it, and edit any clashes one doesn't like out....At that point, the amount of work involved probably exceeds by orders of magnitude the amount of work simply writing something in 3- or 4-part harmony, say, so I guess I wouldn't tend to want to do it....you might even say the work I went through to write something monophonic took longer than writing my own melody line. Probaby true, but if you ever write something that has a certain algorithmic design anyway, a script like this helps.

Cheers,
AKJ

🔗genewardsmith <genewardsmith@...>

🔗Chris Vaisvil <chrisvaisvil@...>

My take on this - interesting tuning. Since I think music should "say
something" I'm not sure where to put a naked algorithmic composition. Being
totally self centered - I would consider this to be an excellent background
to put a performed instrument over.

Over all - sound quality and tuning is really good and pretty coherent
considering it is an algorithmic composition.

Chris

On Thu, Jan 27, 2011 at 10:42 PM, akjmicro <aaron@...> wrote:

>
>
> Hi all,
>
> I've been fooling around with some simple Python frontends to create
> iso-serial pieces: pieces where the notes and rhythms, etc. are series. Not
> in the dodecaphonic sense of Schoenberg, but in the more free sense of
> "cycle through these pitches and rhythms and attacks and articulations; the
> cycles can be of differing lengths so the pattern can shift in subtle
> ways"...
>
> The software is a frontend that produces text, which is put into a file
> read by my other custom software 'microcsound', which turns it into a Csound
> score that can be rendered by Csound with an appropriate orchestra file,
> etc. I have a synth bass, synth drums, and a Kanun sample here from the
> "Early Patches" soundfont set (1st version from a while back)
>
> The tuning is a gypsy type tetrachordal scale in 53-edo:
> 0 3 19 22 31 34 50 53
>
> It's short and sweet, not a stellar composition, short and pretty
> non-developmental, etc., but perhaps a demonstration of what's possible in a
> fun way with these kinds of tools....
>
> http://www.akjmusic.com/audio/souvlaki_butt_shake.mp3
>
> Enjoy! Comments positive and negative, (e.g. "this rocks", or "this would
> have totally bombed in the Un12 competition" ;), rants, lunatic
> philosophical discourses are all welcome. If you ass starts shaking even
> just a little, that makes me happy.
>
> AKJ
>
>
>

[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

🔗akjmicro <aaron@...>

Algorithms have mixed results. I agree with you about music communicating, but I find it to be an interesting philosophical idea--what can be said that is unintentional? I also happen to be believe that algorithms and randomness are good for escaping our own, and general cliches. How successful a given algorithmic example is would of course dependent on the choice of parameters, the design of what parameters are effected and how, and the overall way in which the algorithm is designed...IOW, there are ways to make same procedure make more musical sense in the traditional sense provided we give some thought to the structure of traditional things, and make the algorithm reflect that structure.

Bad algorithmic music is typically lazily mapping the output of an equation in a raw way to pitch, etc.

AKJ

--- In MakeMicroMusic@yahoogroups.com, Chris Vaisvil <chrisvaisvil@...> wrote:
>
> My take on this - interesting tuning. Since I think music should "say
> something" I'm not sure where to put a naked algorithmic composition. Being

> totally self centered - I would consider this to be an excellent background
> to put a performed instrument over.
>
> Over all - sound quality and tuning is really good and pretty coherent
> considering it is an algorithmic composition.
>
> Chris
>
> On Thu, Jan 27, 2011 at 10:42 PM, akjmicro <aaron@...> wrote:
>
> >
> >
> > Hi all,
> >
> > I've been fooling around with some simple Python frontends to create
> > iso-serial pieces: pieces where the notes and rhythms, etc. are series. Not
> > in the dodecaphonic sense of Schoenberg, but in the more free sense of
> > "cycle through these pitches and rhythms and attacks and articulations; the
> > cycles can be of differing lengths so the pattern can shift in subtle
> > ways"...
> >
> > The software is a frontend that produces text, which is put into a file
> > read by my other custom software 'microcsound', which turns it into a Csound
> > score that can be rendered by Csound with an appropriate orchestra file,
> > etc. I have a synth bass, synth drums, and a Kanun sample here from the
> > "Early Patches" soundfont set (1st version from a while back)
> >
> > The tuning is a gypsy type tetrachordal scale in 53-edo:
> > 0 3 19 22 31 34 50 53
> >
> > It's short and sweet, not a stellar composition, short and pretty
> > non-developmental, etc., but perhaps a demonstration of what's possible in a
> > fun way with these kinds of tools....
> >
> > http://www.akjmusic.com/audio/souvlaki_butt_shake.mp3
> >
> > Enjoy! Comments positive and negative, (e.g. "this rocks", or "this would
> > have totally bombed in the Un12 competition" ;), rants, lunatic
> > philosophical discourses are all welcome. If you ass starts shaking even
> > just a little, that makes me happy.
> >
> > AKJ
> >
> >
> >
>
>
> [Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
>

🔗Carl Lumma <carl@...>

🔗Michael <djtrancendance@...>

🔗genewardsmith <genewardsmith@...>

🔗Carl Lumma <carl@...>

At 10:58 AM 1/28/2011, you wrote:
>--- In MakeMicroMusic@yahoogroups.com, Carl Lumma <carl@...> wrote:
>>
>> I think it's pretty good for an algo oneoff. I like the fidelity.
>> I would love to hear what Gene could do with Csound. Maybe your
>> microsound tool will be a good lever there... -Carl
>
>I'm allergic to that kind of score file,

To answer your question for Aaron, he developed the microsound
format specifically because he didn't like seq format. I can't
find the message just now, but I agree that seq's vertical
orientation is annoying.

>Csound needs
>to be ungeekified, and it seems progress has been made. Less has been
>made on the un-nixing front; windows is still sitting in the back of
>the Csound bus.

I agree. Prent is getting the best results I've heard.
I've seen a few tips on his blog...

-Carl

🔗akjmicro <aaron@...>

Bad algorithmic music is typically lazily mapping the output of an equation in a raw way to pitch, etc.

AKJ

🔗akjmicro <aaron@...>

OTOH, Michael, I find that if one voice or track, if you will, is a bit more complex (towards randomness), then 'grounding' it with a 'four on the floor' or straight kcik on 1&3, snare on 2&4 or some such more complex but still straight ahead beat is just what the doctor ordered.

This of course assumes 4/4 time, etc. which I confess I'm often avoiding in favor of richer signatures akin to Eastern European traditional ethnic styles...

AKJ

--- In MakeMicroMusic@yahoogroups.com, Michael <djtrancendance@...> wrote:
>
> >"I also happen to be believe that algorithms and randomness are good for
> >escaping our own, and general cliches."
>
> Agreed. For example I have an algorithm which actually ensures no drum hits
> on the same beat relative to the beginning of each measure for at least two
> measures...thus avoiding having even one drum hit on the beat (like the snare
> and/or kick do in virtually all music). Actually, virtually any breakbeat song
> I made uses this rhythmic trick...
> Indeed, algorithms can actually help "force" you not to obey conventions...
>
> [Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
>

🔗Chris Vaisvil <chrisvaisvil@...>

And humans are quite capable of making bad music without computers :-)

This becomes a "modern art" question really. At what point does the
technique get so far removed from the human being that it is no longer
art - which in my case I use the definition "art is that which
communicates".

There is are a great deal of examples in static visual art (paintings
and sculptures, etc. ) Is Duchamp's "Fountian" art because he signed
his name on a urinal?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marcel_Duchamp

Musically that is 12 tone serialism - or randomized computer
composition (included here random sequencers) - or just because it
"sounds like Bach or Mozart" does that make David Cope's music art or
is it just wallpaper with a pretty pattern.

This is, in my opinion, a conversation the 20th century started and
the soul searching hasn't ended. And isn't this, besides the rise of
mass communication, one of the basic reasons for stagnation of
"classical" art with respect to public consumption.

I personally like to think the 20th and now 21st century's classical
artists are developing techniques that will, in the future, be used to
make astounding art. And one of these techniques is the ability, now,
finally, to use practically any tuning we wish (on an instrument!!!!)
with greater ease than ever before in history. - Of course the human
voice never had such limitations in tuning.

Chris

On Fri, Jan 28, 2011 at 4:19 PM, akjmicro <aaron@...> wrote:
>
>
>
> Algorithms have mixed results. I agree with you about music communicating, but I find it to be an interesting philosophical idea--what can be said that is unintentional? I also happen to be believe that algorithms and randomness are good for escaping our own, and general cliches. How successful a given algorithmic example is would of course dependent on the choice of parameters, the design of what parameters are effected and how, and the overall way in which the algorithm is designed...IOW, there are ways to make same procedure make more musical sense in the traditional sense provided we give some thought to the structure of traditional things, and make the algorithm reflect that structure.
>
> Bad algorithmic music is typically lazily mapping the output of an equation in a raw way to pitch, etc.
>
> AKJ

🔗akjmicro <aaron@...>

Carl is correct. Scala 'seq' format was utterly unsuiable for large projects with harmony and esp. counterpoint, b/c it's vertical, and you can't see how things line up in time. So I developed 'et_compose' which became 'microcomposer' which became 'microcsound' when I pretty much dropped MIDI functionality. When I use MIDI, I tend to stick with tuning tables anymore, so if it's text based, I prefer Csound for it's generality and flexibility. It's nice to not have to work around pitch bends, but on the other hand, you are giving up on a certain immediacy by not having MIDI keyboard expression when you go a text/algorithm route. Fortunately, Csound has both options, as its MIDI functionality is all-encompassing. You have to squeeze and experiment with certain parameters to get decent RT performance, though, and some instruments, esp. physical modelling ones, will cause buffer under-runs when used RT with too much polyphony.

Prent gets great results from Csound, agreed. He pretty much limits it's use to a general purpose sample-engine; in that regard a lot of what you may like is both what he does compositionally, and how well he's put together the whole sample system. I think he's really refined it slowly over the years so it's dependably excellent sounding.

Getting good+ results form Csound means knowing something about synthesis from the ground-up, and taking the time to polish your library of instruments.

AKJ

--- In MakeMicroMusic@yahoogroups.com, Carl Lumma <carl@...> wrote:
>
> At 10:58 AM 1/28/2011, you wrote:
> >--- In MakeMicroMusic@yahoogroups.com, Carl Lumma <carl@> wrote:
> >>
> >> I think it's pretty good for an algo oneoff. I like the fidelity.
> >> I would love to hear what Gene could do with Csound. Maybe your
> >> microsound tool will be a good lever there... -Carl
> >
> >I'm allergic to that kind of score file,
>
> To answer your question for Aaron, he developed the microsound
> format specifically because he didn't like seq format. I can't
> find the message just now, but I agree that seq's vertical
> orientation is annoying.
>
> >Csound needs
> >to be ungeekified, and it seems progress has been made. Less has been
> >made on the un-nixing front; windows is still sitting in the back of
> >the Csound bus.
>
> I agree. Prent is getting the best results I've heard.
> I've seen a few tips on his blog...
>
> -Carl
>

🔗akjmicro <aaron@...>

What the human voice doesn't lack in expression, it often lacks in accuracy! :)

I think one can be fooled by algorithmic music if it's high enough quality. David Cope's work is unsurpassed in this regard---if you didn't know better, you'd swear his fake Mozart was real.

Douglas Hofstader had a test once where a computer created some 'faux' Piet Mondrian paintings. Human subjects actually preferred, by a slightly larger percent, the fake Mondrians to the real one, in the sense that they picked the fake one when asked "which one is real?"

Interesting subject....I'd be fascinated by how far one could go with a relatively simple algorithmic procedure to make something quite expressive. David Cope's work relies heavily on statistical analysis of pre-existing music by way of Markov chains. Since I've not heard more convincing results, that seems to be an extremely promising route to explore.

AKJ

--- In MakeMicroMusic@yahoogroups.com, Chris Vaisvil <chrisvaisvil@...> wrote:
>
> And humans are quite capable of making bad music without computers :-)
>
> This becomes a "modern art" question really. At what point does the
> technique get so far removed from the human being that it is no longer
> art - which in my case I use the definition "art is that which
> communicates".
>
> There is are a great deal of examples in static visual art (paintings
> and sculptures, etc. ) Is Duchamp's "Fountian" art because he signed
> his name on a urinal?
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marcel_Duchamp
>
> Musically that is 12 tone serialism - or randomized computer
> composition (included here random sequencers) - or just because it
> "sounds like Bach or Mozart" does that make David Cope's music art or
> is it just wallpaper with a pretty pattern.
>
> This is, in my opinion, a conversation the 20th century started and
> the soul searching hasn't ended. And isn't this, besides the rise of
> mass communication, one of the basic reasons for stagnation of
> "classical" art with respect to public consumption.
>
> I personally like to think the 20th and now 21st century's classical
> artists are developing techniques that will, in the future, be used to
> make astounding art. And one of these techniques is the ability, now,
> finally, to use practically any tuning we wish (on an instrument!!!!)
> with greater ease than ever before in history. - Of course the human
> voice never had such limitations in tuning.
>
> Chris
>
> On Fri, Jan 28, 2011 at 4:19 PM, akjmicro <aaron@...> wrote:
> >
> >
> >
> > Algorithms have mixed results. I agree with you about music communicating, but I find it to be an interesting philosophical idea--what can be said that is unintentional? I also happen to be believe that algorithms and randomness are good for escaping our own, and general cliches. How successful a given algorithmic example is would of course dependent on the choice of parameters, the design of what parameters are effected and how, and the overall way in which the algorithm is designed...IOW, there are ways to make same procedure make more musical sense in the traditional sense provided we give some thought to the structure of traditional things, and make the algorithm reflect that structure.
> >
> > Bad algorithmic music is typically lazily mapping the output of an equation in a raw way to pitch, etc.
> >
> > AKJ
>

🔗Michael <djtrancendance@...>

>"OTOH, Michael, I find that if one voice or track, if you will, is a bit more
>complex (towards randomness), then 'grounding' it with a 'four on the floor' or
>straight kcik on 1&3, snare on 2&4 or some such more complex but still straight
>ahead beat is just what the doctor ordered.
This of course assumes 4/4 time, etc. which I confess I'm often avoiding in
favor of richer signatures akin to Eastern European traditional ethnic
styles..."

Scary fact...the beat is 4/4 but, like you said, completely avoids the
straight kick and snare. Thank you for your faith in it :-)...hey, perhaps it
can't be that crazy if you said it's "still (a) straight ahead beat ". Of
course, I use the technique in that track a whole lot...so if you like it,
you'll be sure to find it in virtually any future breakbeat-style composition I
make. Though (following up on your suggestion) maybe I should up it another
notch by making it in 5/4 or some other bizarre (in a good way!) meter timing...

________________________________
From: akjmicro <aaron@...>
To: MakeMicroMusic@yahoogroups.com
Sent: Fri, January 28, 2011 3:33:07 PM
Subject: Re: [MMM] isoserialism at work -- "souvlaki butt shake"

OTOH, Michael, I find that if one voice or track, if you will, is a bit more
complex (towards randomness), then 'grounding' it with a 'four on the floor' or
straight kcik on 1&3, snare on 2&4 or some such more complex but still straight
ahead beat is just what the doctor ordered.

This of course assumes 4/4 time, etc. which I confess I'm often avoiding in
favor of richer signatures akin to Eastern European traditional ethnic styles...

AKJ

> on the same beat relative to the beginning of each measure for at least two
> measures...thus avoiding having even one drum hit on the beat (like the snare
> and/or kick do in virtually all music). Actually, virtually any breakbeat song
>
> I made uses this rhythmic trick...
> Indeed, algorithms can actually help "force" you not to obey
conventions...
>
> [Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
>

[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

🔗Chris Vaisvil <chrisvaisvil@...>

🔗genewardsmith <genewardsmith@...>

🔗Michael <djtrancendance@...>

I think the one issue with Cope's method is it bases itself on fairly long
sections things that have already been done.

Now how about an algorithm that generates great, highly original music.
I think possibly the "simplest" algorithm would
A) Compile a list of combinations of two chords that move toward tension

B) Compile a list of combinations of two chords that move toward resolve
C) Use an average statistic for how often and at what points tension changes to
resolve or vice versa (say...in the Beatles music) and try to use different
combinations of chords to attain that "flow"

A2-C2) Do the same process...but for motifs IE what type of 2-3 motifs create
what amount of tension and resolve...and then chain those to make solos that
follow the basic tension/release patterns of popular songs.

The key would be a huge database of short chord and motif progressions (that
would include information like how much the phrasing of the motif changes
tension). That way what was "copied" would be limited to 2-3 note or chord
sequences...rather than much larger sections of music.

________________________________
From: Chris Vaisvil <chrisvaisvil@...>
To: MakeMicroMusic@yahoogroups.com
Sent: Fri, January 28, 2011 4:00:02 PM
Subject: Re: [MMM] isoserialism at work -- "souvlaki butt shake"

"I'd be fascinated by how far one could go with a relatively simple
algorithmic procedure to make something quite expressive."

Apply Cope's methods to blues lead guitar or harmonica?

On Fri, Jan 28, 2011 at 4:48 PM, akjmicro <aaron@...> wrote:

Interesting subject....I'd be fascinated by how far one could go with
a relatively simple algorithmic procedure to make something quite
expressive. David Cope's work relies heavily on statistical analysis
of pre-existing music by way of Markov chains. Since I've not heard
more convincing results, that seems to be an extremely promising route
to explore.

[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

🔗genewardsmith <genewardsmith@...>

--- In MakeMicroMusic@yahoogroups.com, "akjmicro" <aaron@...> wrote:
>
> Carl is correct. Scala 'seq' format was utterly unsuiable for large projects with harmony and esp. counterpoint, b/c it's vertical, and you can't see how things line up in time.

So that's why you don't compose using it. This argument simply misses the whole point--it's a score file, not a composition aid. You don;t compose in it!

So I developed 'et_compose' which became 'microcomposer' which became 'microcsound' when I pretty much dropped MIDI functionality. When I use MIDI, I tend to stick with tuning tables anymore, so if it's text based, I prefer Csound for it's generality and flexibility. It's nice to not have to work around pitch bends, but on the other hand, you are giving up on a certain immediacy by not having MIDI keyboard expression when you go a text/algorithm route.

Midi doesn't actually need to use pitch bends, it's just that unfortunately there is very little support for the midi tuning standard. MTS is quite adequate; in fact, it's a better system than what Csound uses if you translate it into floats.

>Fortunately, Csound has both options, as its MIDI functionality is all-encompassing.

I don't have much use for keyboards, as I am a one-finger "artist". And does this "all-encompassing" functionality support midi files using MTS? If so, color me interested. So far I've installed a new version of Csound with a different frontend than I am used to, and I don't know how to get it to work and shall need to see if the manual will help, which Csound manuals don't always do.

> Getting good+ results form Csound means knowing something about synthesis from the ground-up, and taking the time to polish your library of instruments.

In other words, it's irredeemably geekified and will never be of much use outside of a small geek/nix subculture. I hope that's not true.

🔗genewardsmith <genewardsmith@...>

🔗Chris Vaisvil <chrisvaisvil@...>

🔗genewardsmith <genewardsmith@...>

🔗Chris Vaisvil <chrisvaisvil@...>

it shouldn't be too hard to write a program that transforms one set of
notation to another since all we are talking about are text files with
more or less flexible format.

If I still had Quick Basic I could do this. I used to write that sort
of stuff for visual work as a hobbyist - but have not needed to since
the 90's. I know there is a free Basic out there that fills that void.
And no, I really don't like OOP or C-ish languages.

On Fri, Jan 28, 2011 at 5:42 PM, genewardsmith
<genewardsmith@...> wrote:
>
>
>
> --- In MakeMicroMusic@yahoogroups.com, Chris Vaisvil <chrisvaisvil@...> wrote:
> >
> > did you know you can use pitch class notation microtonally in cSound?
> >
> > So..... 4.05 is a middle C quarter sharp
>
> That's 4 sharpened by a syntonic comma. Yeah, you can write frequency ratios in Csould notation, but in general I prefer logarithmic notation.
>

🔗cameron <misterbobro@...>

The new Qute Csound was a headache for me, so I'm back on WinXsound 2.3. I insist on using orc and sco files, the .csd unified score is makes work harder, not easier, for me, and if it ain't broke, don't fix it. The endless updating of software has got to be one of the greatest enemies of making music ever invented.

And I love the dorkiness of Csound. It's the perfect compliment to visceral acoustic performance, yin yang.

--- In MakeMicroMusic@yahoogroups.com, "genewardsmith" <genewardsmith@...> wrote:

> I don't have much use for keyboards, as I am a one-finger "artist". And does this "all-encompassing" functionality support midi files using MTS? If so, color me interested. So far I've installed a new version of Csound with a different frontend than I am used to, and I don't know how to get it to work and shall need to see if the manual will help, which Csound manuals don't always do.
>
>AKJ: > Getting good+ results form Csound means knowing something about synthesis from the ground-up, and taking the time to polish your library of instruments.
>
> GWS:In other words, it's irredeemably geekified and will never be of much use outside of a small geek/nix subculture. I hope that's not true.
>

🔗Graham Breed <gbreed@...>

On 29 January 2011 02:47, Chris Vaisvil <chrisvaisvil@...> wrote:
> it shouldn't be too hard to write a program that transforms one set of
> notation to another since all we are talking about are text files with
> more or less flexible format.

It wouldn't be that hard to add different outputs to Microcsound, but
it looks like nobody wants to do it.

Converting Csound to MIDI can be a problem. Csound has a neat way of
handling legato that you lose in MIDI. If you're using the extra
pfields, you've got to work out where to put them in MIDI. Csound
scores are the ideal output format for geeky composition tools because
they're so flexible. But they're only as good as the orchestras they
reference, of course. If anybody wants to put work into this, I
suggest building a good standard Csound orchestra instead of trying to
cram everything into a MIDI-driven hole.

Graham

🔗Graham Breed <gbreed@...>

On 28 January 2011 22:58, genewardsmith <genewardsmith@...> wrote:

> I'm allergic to that kind of score file, but I am interested in Csound frontends with standarized inputs to a good collection of instruments. Something which took a Scala seq file and a collection of Csound instruments and outputted a wav file would be marvelous. Csound needs to be ungeekified, and it seems progress has been made. Less has been made on the un-nixing front; windows is still sitting in the back of the Csound bus.

You're a geek, Gene. Face it. It's not something to be ashamed of
these days. You make geeky music with geeky tools (a computer algebra
system last I remember) according to geeky theories. It's a shame you
have this strange aversion to Csound that stops you bending it to your
geeky needs.

Graham

🔗Graham Breed <gbreed@...>

On 29 January 2011 02:06, genewardsmith <genewardsmith@...> wrote:
>
>
> --- In MakeMicroMusic@yahoogroups.com, Carl Lumma <carl@...> wrote:
>
>> To answer your question for Aaron, he developed the microsound
>> format specifically because he didn't like seq format. I can't
>> find the message just now, but I agree that seq's vertical
>> orientation is annoying.
>
> Not as annoying as using a truckload of special symbols rather than numbers. You don't compose in seq file format anyway, and I sure as hell wouldn't want to compose using weird unicode symbols. It's a score file, close on one hand to a midi file, with some of the idiocy of midi removed, and on the other hand to a much more regular and sane version of a Csound sco file.

For those not following, these "weird unicode symbols" seem to be a
couple of punctuation marks from Spanish that Microcsound uses for
accidentals. It's a format that otherwise looks close to LilyPond.
That's about as good as you can get with ASCII input although I did
have a go at a jianpu pre-processor once.

(Hint to Aaron:
http://tlt.its.psu.edu/suggestions/international/web/tips/declare.html)

Graham

🔗genewardsmith <genewardsmith@...>

🔗akjmicro <aaron@...>

Any algorithm that ignores larger scale form will sound like it ignores larger scale form. Music is more than statistical surface relationships. Such algorithms as you describe have been done; they sound interesting for a few seconds, but quickly degenerate into aimless meandering. 99% of algorithmic music sounds this way, b/c few think about large scale structures and how the surface relates to them. What is needed is something that builds pieces from the top down mentality.

BTW, what's "Carl's AIXI" ?

AKJ

--- In MakeMicroMusic@yahoogroups.com, Michael <djtrancendance@...> wrote:
>
> I think the one issue with Cope's method is it bases itself on fairly long
> sections things that have already been done.
>
> Now how about an algorithm that generates great, highly original music.
> I think possibly the "simplest" algorithm would
> A) Compile a list of combinations of two chords that move toward tension
>
> B) Compile a list of combinations of two chords that move toward resolve
> C) Use an average statistic for how often and at what points tension changes to
> resolve or vice versa (say...in the Beatles music) and try to use different
> combinations of chords to attain that "flow"
>
> A2-C2) Do the same process...but for motifs IE what type of 2-3 motifs create
> what amount of tension and resolve...and then chain those to make solos that
> follow the basic tension/release patterns of popular songs.
>
> The key would be a huge database of short chord and motif progressions (that
> would include information like how much the phrasing of the motif changes
> tension). That way what was "copied" would be limited to 2-3 note or chord
> sequences...rather than much larger sections of music.
>
>
>
>
>
> ________________________________
> From: Chris Vaisvil <chrisvaisvil@...>
> To: MakeMicroMusic@yahoogroups.com
> Sent: Fri, January 28, 2011 4:00:02 PM
> Subject: Re: [MMM] isoserialism at work -- "souvlaki butt shake"
>
>
> "I'd be fascinated by how far one could go with a relatively simple
> algorithmic procedure to make something quite expressive."
>
> Apply Cope's methods to blues lead guitar or harmonica?
>
> On Fri, Jan 28, 2011 at 4:48 PM, akjmicro <aaron@...> wrote:
>
> Interesting subject....I'd be fascinated by how far one could go with
> a relatively simple algorithmic procedure to make something quite
> expressive. David Cope's work relies heavily on statistical analysis
> of pre-existing music by way of Markov chains. Since I've not heard
> more convincing results, that seems to be an extremely promising route
> to explore.
>
>
>
> [Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
>

🔗Carl Lumma <carl@...>

🔗Graham Breed <gbreed@...>

On 29 January 2011 15:09, genewardsmith <genewardsmith@...> wrote:

> That's where I started out. I heard there were such things, and named one. But it's part of the obsessive insular geekiness of Csound culture to make it hard to find such things, ad doubly hard for Windows users.

This is CsoundAC.csd? I didn't know about it, but found it on my
laptop, in the Csound "examples" folder where a web search led me to
expect it to be. That shows you something about the Csound
community's communication skills, but no matter, I know about it now.
So are you saying it isn't in the Windows distribution of Csound or
that the Windows "Search For Files or Folders" fails to find it and
you blame Csound for this? Either way, I have it, and if you really
can't find it I can forward it to you.

Some comments from a quick look through:

The Fluid and Pianoteq encapsulations don't seem to be doing anything
with pitch bends. You could add that easily, but not the
channel-switching to get it to work polyphonically, so beware.
Otherwise, pitches are specified as fractional-MIDI, which you should
be happy with.

The physical models seem to be designed for ksamps=1. They probably
won't work well in real time. I've re-written the Clarinet example to
use a delay line and can elaborate on this. Also, note that the
tuning of physical models may not be reliable.

Graham

🔗genewardsmith <genewardsmith@...>

--- In MakeMicroMusic@yahoogroups.com, Graham Breed <gbreed@...> wrote:

> This is CsoundAC.csd? I didn't know about it, but found it on my
> laptop, in the Csound "examples" folder where a web search led me to
> expect it to be.

Yeah, I have it too but when I first found it mentioned it required some 'nix geekery with a nix program you would need to install and run on your computer which obviously must be running Linux or BSD Unix or something simply to get it. This made me grumpy.

> The physical models seem to be designed for ksamps=1. They probably
> won't work well in real time. I've re-written the Clarinet example to
> use a delay line and can elaborate on this. Also, note that the
> tuning of physical models may not be reliable.

It depresses me to hear that you have such tuning problems with Csound of all things, but it encourages me to find you've got some Csound cred. Have you posted Csound generated music which I missed?

If you or someone could make a for-dummies explanation of what a sco file for some standard orchestra like CsoundAC entails that would be a start. What do you use as a frontend?

🔗Graham Breed <gbreed@...>

On 30 January 2011 14:47, genewardsmith <genewardsmith@...> wrote:
>
> --- In MakeMicroMusic@yahoogroups.com, Graham Breed <gbreed@...> wrote:
>
>> This is CsoundAC.csd? I didn't know about it, but found it on my
>> laptop, in the Csound "examples" folder where a web search led me to
>> expect it to be.
>
> Yeah, I have it too but when I first found it mentioned it required some 'nix geekery with a nix program you would need to install and run on your computer which obviously must be running Linux or BSD Unix or something simply to get it. This made me grumpy.

The one I've got supports VST plugins with Windows paths.

>> The physical models seem to be designed for ksamps=1. They probably
>> won't work well in real time. I've re-written the Clarinet example to
>> use a delay line and can elaborate on this. Also, note that the
>> tuning of physical models may not be reliable.
>
> It depresses me to hear that you have such tuning problems with Csound of all things, but it encourages me to find you've got some Csound cred. Have you posted Csound generated music which I missed?

Physical modeling always has problems with tuning. The closer you get
to an acoustic instrument, the more the problems look like those of an
acoustic instrument. It's difficult to predict the frequency of a
resonator when it's got filters in the middle. What I did with the
clarinet was measure the pitch for different notes and add corrections
until it worked well enough.

My MMM-Day piece is Csound.

> If you or someone could make a for-dummies explanation of what a sco file for some standard orchestra like CsoundAC entails that would be a start. What do you use as a frontend?

There are tutorials out there. I used the toots, which are way out of
date. I've never seen CsoundAC before. I used Vim and Bash as a
front end, and also the Windows command line at one point.

Graham