Re: Hexany

Hi Paul,

Yes I've heard David's Dekany - really enjoy it.

With this method of doing it you need to record each
chord, diad and triad individually, so you need new
recordings of at least some of the triads for each model.

One idea I have is to do e.g. the 1 3 5 7 9 or
1 3 5 7 11 dekany - but lead up to it with a
whole lot of applets for its constituent hexanies,
so by the time the web page visitor gets to the dekany
page you have already downloaded all the clips you need
by then to hear it.

But, need to test to see if Blaxxun works like that
and if you can use the clips for one applet in another
like that. Probably I'll just try uploading a few and
see what happens.

Other ideas to explore but that may be the most promising
right now. Another idea is to have a single audio clip
for each note - means with just 10 clips you can do
the dekany and all its constitutents. Doesn't work in
Java, just in Cortona that way - because then the
idea is to play a triad by simultaneously playing the
clips for its three constituent notes.

The thing is you can get artefacts, mainly clicks, when
you do that, and the timing isn't that good - well
all the chords become broken chords. Okay if one thinks
of them like taht. I may uploadd one of those too and
see what everyone makes of it and see how many are able to
play it without artefacts - maybe those with brand new
computers will be able to.

Robert

--- In MakeMicroMusic@y..., "Robert Walker" <robertwalker@n...> wrote:
> Hi Paul,
>
> Yes I've heard David's Dekany - really enjoy it.
>
> With this method of doing it you need to record each
> chord, diad and triad individually, so you need new
> recordings of at least some of the triads for each model.
>
> One idea I have is to do e.g. the 1 3 5 7 9 or
> 1 3 5 7 11 dekany - but lead up to it with a
> whole lot of applets for its constituent hexanies,
> so by the time the web page visitor gets to the dekany
> page you have already downloaded all the clips you need
> by then to hear it.
>
> But, need to test to see if Blaxxun works like that
> and if you can use the clips for one applet in another
> like that. Probably I'll just try uploading a few and
> see what happens.
>
> Other ideas to explore but that may be the most promising
> right now. Another idea is to have a single audio clip
> for each note - means with just 10 clips you can do
> the dekany and all its constitutents. Doesn't work in
> Java, just in Cortona that way - because then the
> idea is to play a triad by simultaneously playing the
> clips for its three constituent notes.
>
> The thing is you can get artefacts, mainly clicks, when
> you do that, and the timing isn't that good - well
> all the chords become broken chords. Okay if one thinks
> of them like taht. I may uploadd one of those too and
> see what everyone makes of it and see how many are able to
> play it without artefacts - maybe those with brand new
> computers will be able to.
>
> Robert

i guess i was just hoping you'd provide a few alternatives for the
factors, for example

1 3 5 7
2 3 5 7
3 4 5 7
4 5 6 7
5 6 7 8
6 7 8 9
6 7 8 10
6 7 8 11
7 8 9 10
7 8 9 11
8 9 10 11

HI Paul,

I wondered a bit about the powers of 2 in your list - I reduce
everything to the octave, so they will all end up as same effect
as putting a 1 there. Or would you reduce to another interval?

Anyway, it would take a lot of web space to do all those.
However you can easily make them yourself - why not give it a go?

Easiest if you have Cortona installed, or another VRML client that can play waveform audio
or midi clips.

Install Virtual Flower from http://virtualflower.co.uk, go to Output | Musical Geometry,
choose the Hexany from the drop list of templates. Select .wav as the type
of clip to make.

Start up FTS, use File | New and then select the voice you want to play
it on from the Voice menu.

In Virtual Flower, click the button to make the clips and the model.
Then a message will pop up in FTS asking if you want to record all
the clips - say yes, and then wait while it plays all the notes and
records them.

Now in Virtual Flower again, click the button to show the model, and
there it is, the 1 3 5 7 hexany.

It's explained also in the help for Virtual Flower but that's it
basically.

To make any of the other models, just change the list of factors first,
then click the button to make the model and the clips as before.

So once one has done it the first time, it's then just two clicks
for each model + wait for FTS to make
all the clips + change the name of the save folder for
each one.

It's faster to do them in Midi instead of waveform audio,
and if you have an old version of Cortona
or have Cosmo player you can do it that way too, but you can't make
these models in midi in the latest version of Cortona because of a
newly introduced bug in it (which they know about and I hope they
fix it soon).

If you want to make the java applets, that's all explained in
Virtual Flower | Help | Applets and also
Virtual Flower | Help | Other Options | Musical Geometry
- you need to save the clips in the Java type Sun Au format
and so also need to install SOX for FTS to use to do that as
explained in FTS | Help | FAQ | How do I convert audio formats....

Anyway once that is set up it is just the same as before,
a couple of clicks of the button plus you also need to start
up the Blaxxun wizard to convert your hexany into a
format suitable for the java applet, but that is also
very easy and straightforward to use.

I could put them all up easily if I could do them in Midi
but unfortunately at the moment Cortona won't show them in midi
correctly with the current version 4.0, so they have to be put up
as audio clips, which takes a fair amount of space for each
model, so one can only put up so many of them.

However, if you or anyone esle is particularly interested
in some of the models, you could easily make them
and them up yourself somewhere. The more the merrier :-).
I'll be delighted to help if anything else needs to be explained
for anyone who wants to do that.

Robert

Hi there,

Thought I'd explain why I posted the hexany here.

I know its not a composition in the conventional sense. However
I think of these models as a kind of musical sculpture - without
the time element of a musical piece - the time part comes in from
the viewer interactively playing with the model by clicking on the
notes, diads and triads.

The maths of it is suitable to discuss over in tuning, but I thought
the musical / compositional kind of aspect of it is relevant here
- and anyway its the main thing I'm doing in the way of that type
of thing right now at this minute - though I hope to do more of the
conventional composing again soon.

Of course the hexany and CPS sets get used for
composition in Kraig Grady's pieces for instance - his
Farewell Ring for instance :-).

I've tried writing for hexany a little bit. I think I've
posted some of the things I did (like the hexany variations
and my hexany recorder trio).

However with this model, I'm just exploring them as musical geometry.
Don't know for sure if it is appropriate here, but
that kind of just fun playing around with the shapes
and clicking on the notes aspect of it I thought possibly
might be more appropriate here than the main list...?

Maybe on the lines of calling it a kind of java microtonal
instrument - cum - geometrical sculpture, or something.

Maybe one could design more elaborate sculptures from
chords, not necessariy always following maximally symmetrical
geometrical forms, but when you have two notes in common the chords
do have to share a diad. One could use squares for tetrads, as one
of the projections of a tetrahedron into 2D is a square.

I think one could use pentagons for pentads similarly
- there, maybe each edge could play the triad of those
two notes plus the opposite point, and each vertex could
play the triad of that note and its two neighbours to
either side, then the centre of the pentagon plays
the complete pentad. I've been puzzling over
whether there is a natural way to map pentads
to the faces of a dodecahedron so that they all
fit together with each sharing an edge with each of
it's neighbours, but that now is
more of a topic for the main list certainly.

:-).

Robert

--- In MakeMicroMusic@y..., "Robert Walker" <robertwalker@n...> wrote:
> HI Paul,
>
> I wondered a bit about the powers of 2 in your list - I reduce
> everything to the octave, so they will all end up as same effect
> as putting a 1 there. Or would you reduce to another interval?

how about not reducing at all?! try 4 5 6 7 with no reducing. i think
you may like the chords a bit better than what you have now!

Hi Kraig,

Sorry about that. I would particularly like you to be able to try it out.

I don't know what to suggest. Can you see the hexany?

(just saying that in case you have java disabled or something in which case
you wouldn't see it either).

However, as far as sound is concerned the quality isn't that great - it's
Sun Au format for java - which is an 8Khz format orignally intended for
telephone communications - but doesn't sound that bad, gives an idea of
the chords. It's the only one available for java applets for java 1.1 and
earlier.

Robert

Hi Paul,

Thanks for the suggestion to do the 4 5 6 7 hexany without octave reduction.
I'll give it a try, some of the others you suggest too. Thanks.

Robert