Subharmonic Demolition of McLaren Automobiles

At the suggestion of John Chalmers I tried the subharmonic series - I gotta admit - I didn't "believe" in it before - but now I like it. Scored for brass, harp, percussion using GPO.

download
http://micro.soonlabel.com/subharmonic/IF20110129c-subharmonic-demolition-of-mclaren-automobiles.mp3

online play
http://improvfriday.ning.com/xn/detail/4162021:Comment:23827

Tuning:

! E:\Cakewalk\scales\12to30subharm12.scl
!
subharmonic 12 to 30 in 15
15
!
30/29
15/14
10/9
15/13
6/5
5/4
30/23
15/11
10/7
3/2
30/19
5/3
30/17
15/8
2/1

I like it. More so since you've used prolonged brass notes in the right registres.

Oz.

✩ ✩ ✩
www.ozanyarman.com

On Jan 30, 2011, at 3:47 AM, christopherv wrote:

> At the suggestion of John Chalmers I tried the subharmonic series - I gotta admit - I didn't "believe" in it before - but now I like it. Scored for brass, harp, percussion using GPO.
>
>
> download
> http://micro.soonlabel.com/subharmonic/IF20110129c-subharmonic-demolition-of-mclaren-automobiles.mp3
>
> online play
> http://improvfriday.ning.com/xn/detail/4162021:Comment:23827
>
> Tuning:
>
> ! E:\Cakewalk\scales\12to30subharm12.scl
> !
> subharmonic 12 to 30 in 15
> 15
> !
> 30/29
> 15/14
> 10/9
> 15/13
> 6/5
> 5/4
> 30/23
> 15/11
> 10/7
> 3/2
> 30/19
> 5/3
> 30/17
> 15/8
> 2/1
>

--- In MakeMicroMusic@yahoogroups.com, "christopherv" <chrisvaisvil@...> wrote:
>
> At the suggestion of John Chalmers I tried the subharmonic series - I gotta admit - I didn't "believe" in it before - but now I like it. Scored for brass, harp, percussion using GPO.

Why didn't you believe in it? It's more like an actual scale.

At the time I was discussing this - some 2 years ago - there was a
discussion on how instruments / scales / chords were derived from the
subharmonic series. I had a hard time believing people "heard" the
subharmonic series as a natural phenomenon on their own. I think I was
blinded by the fact that I can "hear" harmonics in a sense with the right
instrument - like a bright piano in the lower registers. I have
audio-visual synesthesia to a degree and the result is my hearing / vision
can be confused just like my color vision can be confused - I'm also
red-green deficient. So I discounted other ways the subharmonic series might
be generated and perceived. My fault being stuck inside tunnel vision.

Chris

On Sat, Jan 29, 2011 at 9:45 PM, genewardsmith
<genewardsmith@...>wrote:

>
>
>
>
> --- In MakeMicroMusic@yahoogroups.com <MakeMicroMusic%40yahoogroups.com>,
> "christopherv" <chrisvaisvil@...> wrote:
> >
> > At the suggestion of John Chalmers I tried the subharmonic series - I
> gotta admit - I didn't "believe" in it before - but now I like it. Scored
> for brass, harp, percussion using GPO.
>
> Why didn't you believe in it? It's more like an actual scale.
>
>
>

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

Thanks for the listen and comment!

I think I'm going to have to seriously read my copy of "Principals of
Orchestration" by Rimsky-Korsakov. My studies didn't get that far in college
and I've only skimmed through it. Of course I bought it before I had an
orchestra in my computer - so things has changed significantly.

Chris

On Sat, Jan 29, 2011 at 9:13 PM, Ozan Yarman <ozanyarman@...>wrote:

>
>
> I like it. More so since you've used prolonged brass notes in the right
> registres.
>
> Oz.
>
> ✩ ✩ ✩
> www.ozanyarman.com
>
>
> On Jan 30, 2011, at 3:47 AM, christopherv wrote:
>
> > At the suggestion of John Chalmers I tried the subharmonic series - I
> gotta admit - I didn't "believe" in it before - but now I like it. Scored
> for brass, harp, percussion using GPO.
> >
> >
> > download
> >
> http://micro.soonlabel.com/subharmonic/IF20110129c-subharmonic-demolition-of-mclaren-automobiles.mp3
> >
> > online play
> > http://improvfriday.ning.com/xn/detail/4162021:Comment:23827
> >
> > Tuning:
> >
> > ! E:\Cakewalk\scales\12to30subharm12.scl
> > !
> > subharmonic 12 to 30 in 15
> > 15
> > !
> > 30/29
> > 15/14
> > 10/9
> > 15/13
> > 6/5
> > 5/4
> > 30/23
> > 15/11
> > 10/7
> > 3/2
> > 30/19
> > 5/3
> > 30/17
> > 15/8
> > 2/1
> >
>
>
>

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

On Sat, Jan 29, 2011 at 10:02 PM, Chris Vaisvil <chrisvaisvil@...> wrote:
> At the time I was discussing this - some 2 years ago - there was a
> discussion on how instruments / scales / chords were derived from the
> subharmonic series. I had a hard time believing people "heard" the
> subharmonic series as a natural phenomenon on their own.

You were right. The reason they derived instruments from the
subharmonic series comes from acoustics, not psychoacoustics: if you
take a guitar, and you place linearly even frets - e.g. frets every
inch, rather than making them smaller as you go up - you get a
subharmonic series.

Nice piece, btw - GPO does sound really good after all!

-Mike

Hm, right registers... Unfortunately exactly this is the main problem
of using traditional orchestra in the contemporary music. If we use
it properly, by all rules of orchestration books by Berlioz,
Korsakov, Adler, Schönberg, Piston or Koechlin (that means in a way
instruments and their groups want, acoustically properly), there's
always a danger we'll finish somewhere near to "good" sound of Mahler
or Strauss... If we want more modern sound, it's difficult to get it
from orchestra without the forcing the performers what they don't
like. And usually "modern sound" often means "bad sound" somehow. Or
maybe just unusual? Are we all too much used to the "good sound"?

Good proof for this is Belkin's "Artistic orchestration" - all
examples of good instrumentation are from Beethoven to Strauss, only
one example from Prokofiev.

I have written four works for large symphonic orchestra, all were
performed successfully, and I have studied extensively on this, but
still I have a feeling I don't know anything about orchestra and
orchestration. But I'm more and more convinced I don't like to use
traditional orchestra for my works which was a reason I have started
with electronic instruments 35 years ago. Orchestra was satisfying
for Mahler 100 years ago. And rather unusable now without significant
changes in the orchestra setting - which is often done for the
purpose of film music. So in my opinion traditional orchestra is a
museum good only for performing of historical music.

Don't torture yourself too much with Korsakov if you don't want to
sound like Mahler or Ravel. It's good to know some rules, but to
forget them quickly and to do all our way... But harp against brass -
I would be more careful with balance. Otherwise interesting impro.

Daniel Forro

On 30 Jan 2011, at 12:20 PM, Chris Vaisvil wrote:

> Thanks for the listen and comment!
>
> I think I'm going to have to seriously read my copy of "Principals of
> Orchestration" by Rimsky-Korsakov. My studies didn't get that far
> in college
> and I've only skimmed through it. Of course I bought it before I
> had an
> orchestra in my computer - so things has changed significantly.
>
> Chris
>
> On Sat, Jan 29, 2011 at 9:13 PM, Ozan Yarman
> <ozanyarman@...>wrote:
>
>>
>>
>> I like it. More so since you've used prolonged brass notes in the
>> right
>> registres.
>>
>> Oz.

A sampler orchestra is just another synthesizer, as far as I'm concerned. The only reasons to use it are to get tuning accuracy with familiar timbres, and to do things like... a harp louder than a brass section. Familiar, even cliched, timbres are good if you want timbre to take a back seat in order to highlight other things, like new harmonies.

I also love drum machines, especially with "cheesey" sounds. But my main instrument is voice without microphone, so I don't give a hoot about "authenticity" in other instruments.

--- In MakeMicroMusic@yahoogroups.com, Daniel Forró <dan.for@...> wrote:
>
> Hm, right registers... Unfortunately exactly this is the main problem
> of using traditional orchestra in the contemporary music. If we use
> it properly, by all rules of orchestration books by Berlioz,
> Korsakov, Adler, Schönberg, Piston or Koechlin (that means in a way
> instruments and their groups want, acoustically properly), there's
> always a danger we'll finish somewhere near to "good" sound of Mahler
> or Strauss... If we want more modern sound, it's difficult to get it
> from orchestra without the forcing the performers what they don't
> like. And usually "modern sound" often means "bad sound" somehow. Or
> maybe just unusual? Are we all too much used to the "good sound"?
>
> Good proof for this is Belkin's "Artistic orchestration" - all
> examples of good instrumentation are from Beethoven to Strauss, only
> one example from Prokofiev.
>
> I have written four works for large symphonic orchestra, all were
> performed successfully, and I have studied extensively on this, but
> still I have a feeling I don't know anything about orchestra and
> orchestration. But I'm more and more convinced I don't like to use
> traditional orchestra for my works which was a reason I have started
> with electronic instruments 35 years ago. Orchestra was satisfying
> for Mahler 100 years ago. And rather unusable now without significant
> changes in the orchestra setting - which is often done for the
> purpose of film music. So in my opinion traditional orchestra is a
> museum good only for performing of historical music.
>
> Don't torture yourself too much with Korsakov if you don't want to
> sound like Mahler or Ravel. It's good to know some rules, but to
> forget them quickly and to do all our way... But harp against brass -
> I would be more careful with balance. Otherwise interesting impro.
>
> Daniel Forro
>
>
> On 30 Jan 2011, at 12:20 PM, Chris Vaisvil wrote:
>
> > Thanks for the listen and comment!
> >
> > I think I'm going to have to seriously read my copy of "Principals of
> > Orchestration" by Rimsky-Korsakov. My studies didn't get that far
> > in college
> > and I've only skimmed through it. Of course I bought it before I
> > had an
> > orchestra in my computer - so things has changed significantly.
> >
> > Chris
> >
> > On Sat, Jan 29, 2011 at 9:13 PM, Ozan Yarman
> > <ozanyarman@...>wrote:
> >
> >>
> >>
> >> I like it. More so since you've used prolonged brass notes in the
> >> right
> >> registres.
> >>
> >> Oz.
>

You are right, but when I mentioned electronic instruments I thought mainly their innovative electronic timbres, not emulations. For this I prefer physical modeling whenever possible. But sampling is good for percussive sounds, and allows experimenting with acoustic emulations, and gives us chance of using colors of historical, rare, unusual or ethnic instruments, in mix with electronic colors. That's good.

Daniel Forro

On 30 Jan 2011, at 8:58 PM, cameron wrote:

> A sampler orchestra is just another synthesizer, as far as I'm > concerned. The only reasons to use it are to get tuning accuracy > with familiar timbres, and to do things like... a harp louder than > a brass section. Familiar, even cliched, timbres are good if you > want timbre to take a back seat in order to highlight other things, > like new harmonies.
>
> I also love drum machines, especially with "cheesey" sounds. But my > main instrument is voice without microphone, so I don't give a hoot > about "authenticity" in other instruments.

Mike,

Thanks for the explanation - this makes me want to attempt to make or refret
a guitar into subharmonic series. I suppose how one does that it measure the
length of the string and then figure out the length for the smallest related
interval you want and proceed from there. I need to consul Doty's and
Foster's book as either or both probably has something to say about this. I
have a nice wine cask box, zither pins, and a piece of hardwood for the
zither pins and this sounds like a worthy project for that material.

I'm glad you liked the GPO piece. GPO can sound even better - its strength
is the ability to add lots of performance detail - but adding the detail is
time consuming - OTOH only the Vienna sample set software is fully
interpretative (last I looked) at that ability comes with a factor of 100
increase in cost.

Changing gears to DAWs

Supposedly Sibelius can interpret scores but I'm a bit miffed that I spent
a fair amount of money for it and they were not clear it is a 32 bit only
application - and the learning curve is quite steep despite many reviews
saying it is less steep than Finale. - But that is another subject entirely.
I'll learn it eventually.

Chris

On Sat, Jan 29, 2011 at 10:40 PM, Mike Battaglia <battaglia01@...>wrote:

>
>
> On Sat, Jan 29, 2011 at 10:02 PM, Chris Vaisvil <chrisvaisvil@gmail.com<chrisvaisvil%40gmail.com>>
> wrote:
> > At the time I was discussing this - some 2 years ago - there was a
> > discussion on how instruments / scales / chords were derived from the
> > subharmonic series. I had a hard time believing people "heard" the
> > subharmonic series as a natural phenomenon on their own.
>
> You were right. The reason they derived instruments from the
> subharmonic series comes from acoustics, not psychoacoustics: if you
> take a guitar, and you place linearly even frets - e.g. frets every
> inch, rather than making them smaller as you go up - you get a
> subharmonic series.
>
> Nice piece, btw - GPO does sound really good after all!
>
> -Mike
>
>

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

Hi Daniel,

Thank you for the listen, advice, and comment!

My choice would be to sound more like Stravinsky or Shostakovich in
orchestral arrangements with more advant guard and percussive
leanings.

It would be great to write music that had the sound palate of George
Crumb and other such ensembles - but how can you unless you actually
get a group of superior performers together? And especially the
vocalizations?
There is a great amount of new sounds developed from acoustic
instruments over the past century (as you know) that are essentially
inaccessible to anyone not being performed by virtuoso performers.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FXm0NrP40DI
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cr8o-bcOAQ0&feature=related

Though listening to this again I do have more of this available to me
now. "Free Sue" is an example of me pushing in that direction.

http://chrisvaisvil.com/?p=360

So much music and so little time....

Chris

On Sat, Jan 29, 2011 at 11:53 PM, Daniel Forró <dan.for@...> wrote:

>
> Don't torture yourself too much with Korsakov if you don't want to
> sound like Mahler or Ravel. It's good to know some rules, but to
> forget them quickly and to do all our way... But harp against brass -
> I would be more careful with balance. Otherwise interesting impro.
>
> Daniel Forro
>

On Sun, Jan 30, 2011 at 5:25 PM, Chris Vaisvil <chrisvaisvil@...> wrote:
>
> Mike,
>
> Thanks for the explanation - this makes me want to attempt to make or refret
> a guitar into subharmonic series. I suppose how one does that it measure the
> length of the string and then figure out the length for the smallest related
> interval you want and proceed from there. I need to consul Doty's and
> Foster's book as either or both probably has something to say about this. I
> have a nice wine cask box, zither pins, and a piece of hardwood for the
> zither pins and this sounds like a worthy project for that material.

Let's say that theoretically, you have a fretboard that goes all the
way across the length of the string to the end, so you can put frets
even right up next to the bridge.

Now let's say that you place 7 frets equally along the length of the
string, so your string looks like this:

nut -->| | | | | | |
| |<-- bridge

So since there are 7 frets, there are 8 positions, since the nut
counts as a fret in and of itself. Anyway, if you finger the highest
fret, you end up with a frequency that we'll call 1/1. The second
highest fret means that you're playing a string with length twice as
long as at the first highest fret, so since the length gets multiplied
by 2, the frequency goes down by to. So now our pitches are

1/1 1/2

The next fret down is 3 * the length and 1/3 the frequency, etc. So
you end up with pitches, by the end of this, corresponding to 1/1 1/2
1/3 1/4 1/5 1/6 1/7 1/8. If you just choose to put frets only up to
the halfway point of the string, you end up with just the bottom ones,
so 1/4 1/5 1/6 1/7 1/8 only, relative to a 1/1 that you can't actually
play.

One tuning you could do is to put 16 linearly equal divisions of the
length of the string, and then just take the ones on the lower half
that go up to the halfway point of the string. You'd end up with the
following series:

1/16 1/15 1/14 1/13 1/12 1/11 1/10 1/9 1/8

Or you could do the same with 32 equal divisions, which would give you
a 16-note subharmonic scale from 1/16 -> 1/32, etc.

> Supposedly Sibelius can interpret scores but I'm a bit miffed that  I spent
> a fair amount of  money for it and they were not clear it is a 32 bit only
> application - and the learning curve is quite steep despite many reviews
> saying it is less steep than Finale. - But that is another subject entirely.
> I'll learn it eventually.

That's awful news. I like Sibelius way better than Finale, and I was
going to switch to 64-bit soon. Damn.

-Mike

The application will run on a 64 bit Vista or Win 7 install - but it
doesn't support 64 bit VSTi

There is an application called "jbridge" that handles translating 64
bit VSTi to 32 bit Sibelius but I haven't been able to get that to
work yet.
I was really disappointed seeing how a sample set like Hollywood
strings *really* could use the address space of 64 bit and they had
not caught up with the real world.
Reminds me of M-Audio and their poor support and extremely slow
development of 64 bit drivers for their interfaces. A parent company
called Avid owns both. They must not pay their programmer squat.
Roland is a completely different and much better story - but the
scores in Sonar are laughable for use in real performance.
Incidentally Sonar comes with a 64 <=> 32 bridging application built
in.

Chris

That's awful news. I like Sibelius way better than Finale, and I was
going to switch to 64-bit soon. Damn.

-Mike

Hey all,

As I said in an earlier post, my PC has bitten the big one recently. I
browsed thru the Dell website today, pricing a new PC that would serve
as a better DAW than my laptop, which uses Vista 32-bit & is about 5
years old. However, all the PCs I saw online come with Windows 7 64-bit.

My question: will the programs I use on my laptop work correctly on a
new PC with Windows 7 64-bit? I realize I'm abysmally ignorant of such
things, so any advice/help on this subject -- before I shell out several
hundred $$ on a new machine I can't use -- would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks,
jls

--- In MakeMicroMusic@yahoogroups.com, Chris Vaisvil <chrisvaisvil@...>
wrote:
>
> The application will run on a 64 bit Vista or Win 7 install - but it
> doesn't support 64 bit VSTi
>
> There is an application called "jbridge" that handles translating 64
> bit VSTi to 32 bit Sibelius but I haven't been able to get that to
> work yet.
> I was really disappointed seeing how a sample set like Hollywood
> strings *really* could use the address space of 64 bit and they had
> not caught up with the real world.
> Reminds me of M-Audio and their poor support and extremely slow
> development of 64 bit drivers for their interfaces. A parent company
> called Avid owns both. They must not pay their programmer squat.
> Roland is a completely different and much better story - but the
> scores in Sonar are laughable for use in real performance.
> Incidentally Sonar comes with a 64 <=> 32 bridging application built
> in.
>
>
> Chris
>
>
> That's awful news. I like Sibelius way better than Finale, and I was
> going to switch to 64-bit soon. Damn.
>
> -Mike
>

Don't even think about Vista, Jon. If you can afford it, go with a Macbook Pro running any Windows version of your choice under Parallels Desktop. I use an XP virtual machine to run older proprietary software and do all the heavy chores on the Mac side. Mac has better audio processing capabilities. Windows is itchy and buggy in comparison.

Oz.

✩ ✩ ✩
www.ozanyarman.com

On Jan 31, 2011, at 7:10 AM, jsmith9624@sbcglobal.net wrote:

> Hey all,
>
> As I said in an earlier post, my PC has bitten the big one recently. I
> browsed thru the Dell website today, pricing a new PC that would serve
> as a better DAW than my laptop, which uses Vista 32-bit & is about 5
> years old. However, all the PCs I saw online come with Windows 7 64-bit.
>
> My question: will the programs I use on my laptop work correctly on a
> new PC with Windows 7 64-bit? I realize I'm abysmally ignorant of such
> things, so any advice/help on this subject -- before I shell out several
> hundred $$ on a new machine I can't use -- would be greatly appreciated.
>
> Thanks,
> jls
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> --- In MakeMicroMusic@yahoogroups.com, Chris Vaisvil <chrisvaisvil@...>
> wrote:
>>
>> The application will run on a 64 bit Vista or Win 7 install - but it
>> doesn't support 64 bit VSTi
>>
>> There is an application called "jbridge" that handles translating 64
>> bit VSTi to 32 bit Sibelius but I haven't been able to get that to
>> work yet.
>> I was really disappointed seeing how a sample set like Hollywood
>> strings *really* could use the address space of 64 bit and they had
>> not caught up with the real world.
>> Reminds me of M-Audio and their poor support and extremely slow
>> development of 64 bit drivers for their interfaces. A parent company
>> called Avid owns both. They must not pay their programmer squat.
>> Roland is a completely different and much better story - but the
>> scores in Sonar are laughable for use in real performance.
>> Incidentally Sonar comes with a 64 <=> 32 bridging application built
>> in.
>>
>>
>> Chris
>>
>>
>> That's awful news. I like Sibelius way better than Finale, and I was
>> going to switch to 64-bit soon. Damn.
>>
>> -Mike
>>
>
>
>
>
> ------------------------------------
>
> Yahoo! Groups Links
>
>
>

Depends on what are the programs you use.

In general Windows 7 64 bit, even Vista 64 bit, hasn't been trouble itself.
It is a matter of getting 64 bit drivers for the hardware that can be
vexing. For instance, I bought a midiman USB midisport 4x4 midi interface a
bit back. The thing is built like a tank with a heavy metal case - it is
meant to last. Seriously, I can use it to smash car windows and it would
still would work. The problem was it took M-Audio over 2 years to write 64
bit drivers for it.Without the 64bit drivers I couldn't use it and had to by
another hardware midi interface in the interim. Now I got drivers for it -
and 3 interfaces :-( But that is on Avid / M-Audio

The only programs that I have that will not run because of the programs
itself are some old 16 bit programs. If you have some of these then there
are two routes you can use to get the to run for free:

dosbox which is amazing http://www.dosbox.com/
or virtualbox which is also amazing http://www.virtualbox.org/

In fact I am typing to you in a virtual XP machine running inside my vista
64 bit install using a USB wireless interface. My vista 64 quad core music
computer don't go on the internet itself.

What I mention about Sibelius (now owned by Avid) is a matter of their poor
programming. Pretty much all commercial VSTi come in 64 bit as well as 32
bit now and with a sample set like Hollywood strings one instrument sample
can require a gigabyte of ram. (the library is over 385 gig!) So after
buying more ram to go to 8 gig and support hollywood strings finding out
Sibelius couldn't take advantage of it, and that this fact was not readily
apparent to me on their website, was a big disappointment. But that is not
the fault of 64 bit windows. In fact Windows 7 64 bit is great - we have it
on 2 machines here and it runs wonderfully.

Chris

On Mon, Jan 31, 2011 at 12:10 AM, jsmith9624@... <
jsmith9624@...> wrote:

>
>
> Hey all,
>
> As I said in an earlier post, my PC has bitten the big one recently. I
> browsed thru the Dell website today, pricing a new PC that would serve
> as a better DAW than my laptop, which uses Vista 32-bit & is about 5
> years old. However, all the PCs I saw online come with Windows 7 64-bit.
>
> My question: will the programs I use on my laptop work correctly on a
> new PC with Windows 7 64-bit? I realize I'm abysmally ignorant of such
> things, so any advice/help on this subject -- before I shell out several
> hundred $$ on a new machine I can't use -- would be greatly appreciated.
>
> Thanks,
> jls
>
> --- In MakeMicroMusic@yahoogroups.com <MakeMicroMusic%40yahoogroups.com>,
> Chris Vaisvil <chrisvaisvil@...>
> wrote:
>
> >
> > The application will run on a 64 bit Vista or Win 7 install - but it
> > doesn't support 64 bit VSTi
> >
> > There is an application called "jbridge" that handles translating 64
> > bit VSTi to 32 bit Sibelius but I haven't been able to get that to
> > work yet.
> > I was really disappointed seeing how a sample set like Hollywood
> > strings *really* could use the address space of 64 bit and they had
> > not caught up with the real world.
> > Reminds me of M-Audio and their poor support and extremely slow
> > development of 64 bit drivers for their interfaces. A parent company
> > called Avid owns both. They must not pay their programmer squat.
> > Roland is a completely different and much better story - but the
> > scores in Sonar are laughable for use in real performance.
> > Incidentally Sonar comes with a 64 <=> 32 bridging application built
> > in.
> >
> >
> > Chris
> >
> >
> > That's awful news. I like Sibelius way better than Finale, and I was
> > going to switch to 64-bit soon. Damn.
> >
> > -Mike
> >
>
>
>

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