The Lyre of Ur

Hello,

I have put a new piece online called "The Lyre of Ur":

http://www.mctague.org/carl/music/computer/pieces/lyre

From the point of view of alternate tunings, "Lyre" is much more
conventional than the last piece I posted to this list, "Ripples
Through Pitch Space"
(http://www.mctague.org/carl/music/computer/pieces/ripples); "Lyre" is
tuned in conventional diatonic Just Intonation.

The more novel aspect of "Lyre" is that I composed it with the idea of
realizing music with a large-scale sense of direction by explicitly
constructing hierarchical structures mimicking those elicited by
Schenker. To compose each movement, I first constructed a
hierarchical structure representing a melodic fragment, and then
embedded that structure within itself. The resulting movements might
therefore be called weakly self-similar. (A truly self-similar
movement would result only if this embedding process were carried out
infinitely many times.)

So in each movement, listen for a single melodic fragment to be
repeated at diatonic transpositions and tempi that outline a
large-scale instance of the very same fragment. Notice, too, how the
perception of that repeated fragment evolves: at higher tempi it
begins to resemble compound melody. My favorite parts of the piece
are the second and last movements, especially the ascent to the last
movements climax beginning around 1:26, and the following final
descent.

Sincerely,
Carl McTague

Carl,

{you wrote...}
>I have put a new piece online called "The Lyre of Ur":

Lovely piece, quite evocative. I might require repeated listenings to catch more of the inherent structure that you speak about, but fortunately the piece would not be a burden to listen to!

I also want to comment on the clean and elegant nature of your site at large - very well done. In particular, apropos recent discussions on MMM, I appreciate the multiple file formats you offer, as well as the clear manner in which you present them; a good example is on the full lyre page:

http://www.mctague.org/carl/music/computer/pieces/lyre/

(FireFox seemed to want that concluding forward slash...)

Bravo - now I'm going to go back and check out some of your fiddling, and see if your head can keep up with your heart!! :)

Cheers,
Jon

Carl,
I enjoyed the War Piece most, but all three are terrific pieces with a
very professional sound and movement. I also enjoyed the story.

Back in 2003 or so, I followed the story of the Lyre, but not with the
kind of detail and color that you provided. I always enjoy a good
story with my music. Didn't they find amost all of the 170,000 "lost"
artifacts soon after they were "reported" lost? That is my
recollection, but I could be wrong.

Prent Rodgers

--- In MakeMicroMusic@yahoogroups.com, Carl McTague
<box-0cccbec56b@s...> wrote:
> Hello,
>
> I have put a new piece online called "The Lyre of Ur":
>
> http://www.mctague.org/carl/music/computer/pieces/lyre

Carl,

I enjoyed your piece very much....I also liked the CMix pluck sound you chose.

I too am interested in using self-similar melodic material. Check out my piece
"self-similar variations" at http://www.akjmusic.com/audio/ssv.mp3

Best,
Aaron.

On Tuesday 19 October 2004 02:39 pm, Carl McTague wrote:
> Hello,
>
> I have put a new piece online called "The Lyre of Ur":
>
> http://www.mctague.org/carl/music/computer/pieces/lyre
>
> From the point of view of alternate tunings, "Lyre" is much more
> conventional than the last piece I posted to this list, "Ripples
> Through Pitch Space"
> (http://www.mctague.org/carl/music/computer/pieces/ripples); "Lyre" is
> tuned in conventional diatonic Just Intonation.
>
> The more novel aspect of "Lyre" is that I composed it with the idea of
> realizing music with a large-scale sense of direction by explicitly
> constructing hierarchical structures mimicking those elicited by
> Schenker. To compose each movement, I first constructed a
> hierarchical structure representing a melodic fragment, and then
> embedded that structure within itself. The resulting movements might
> therefore be called weakly self-similar. (A truly self-similar
> movement would result only if this embedding process were carried out
> infinitely many times.)
>
> So in each movement, listen for a single melodic fragment to be
> repeated at diatonic transpositions and tempi that outline a
> large-scale instance of the very same fragment. Notice, too, how the
> perception of that repeated fragment evolves: at higher tempi it
> begins to resemble compound melody. My favorite parts of the piece
> are the second and last movements, especially the ascent to the last
> movements climax beginning around 1:26, and the following final
> descent.
>
> Sincerely,
> Carl McTague
>
>
>
>
>
> Yahoo! Groups Links
>
>
>

--
Aaron Krister Johnson
http://www.akjmusic.com
http://www.dividebypi.com

--- In MakeMicroMusic@yahoogroups.com, Carl McTague <box-
0cccbec56b@s...> wrote:
> Hello,
>
> I have put a new piece online called "The Lyre of Ur":
>
> http://www.mctague.org/carl/music/computer/pieces/lyre
>
> From the point of view of alternate tunings, "Lyre" is much more
> conventional than the last piece I posted to this list, "Ripples
> Through Pitch Space"
> (http://www.mctague.org/carl/music/computer/pieces/ripples);
<. . . . .>

>
> Sincerely,
> Carl McTague

Hello, thank you for having referred to "Ripples Trough Pitch Space",
which I had missed when first posted to the MMM group. I have just
listened to the four movements of "Ripples" in the ogg. versions you
kindly provided. I also saw your site, including the full version of
the lemon pie happening - that made me wonder, having no sister, how
appreciative my 39 and 26 daughters would be if I tried to translate
the event into our French, probably using baba au rhum.

I have greatly enjoyed "Ripples", particularly the simplicity
and "hearability" or the composition, from "big bang" to a few tones
in quasi "just" relation, ending in Eb7, A, F#m etc.

Would you or other group members help with the following questions :

1) Can the "big bang" sounds we hear at the beginning of each
movement be interpreted, in Bill Sethares language, as the basis for
the "Timbre" which is analysed into the "non linear potential"
(dissonance) curve shown in the "Ripples" E-site? Are these sounds of
inharmonic nature?

2) Since Bill provided his didactic CD of examples as an annex to his
book, have others used parallel methods for creation of musical
works? If so, who are they, and where is the music?

I have deep interest in the concept of a link between timbre and
musical scale, and have very much appreciated "Ripples", and your
description of how it was made.

With cheers from Paris

Dominique Larré

--- In MakeMicroMusic@yahoogroups.com, Carl McTague <box-

/makemicromusic/topicId_7905.html#7905

0cccbec56b@s...> wrote:
> Hello,
>
> I have put a new piece online called "The Lyre of Ur":
>
> http://www.mctague.org/carl/music/computer/pieces/lyre
>
> From the point of view of alternate tunings, "Lyre" is much more
> conventional than the last piece I posted to this list, "Ripples
> Through Pitch Space"
> (http://www.mctague.org/carl/music/computer/pieces/ripples); "Lyre"
is
> tuned in conventional diatonic Just Intonation.
>
> The more novel aspect of "Lyre" is that I composed it with the idea
of
> realizing music with a large-scale sense of direction by explicitly
> constructing hierarchical structures mimicking those elicited by
> Schenker. To compose each movement, I first constructed a
> hierarchical structure representing a melodic fragment, and then
> embedded that structure within itself. The resulting movements
might
> therefore be called weakly self-similar. (A truly self-similar
> movement would result only if this embedding process were carried
out
> infinitely many times.)
>
> So in each movement, listen for a single melodic fragment to be
> repeated at diatonic transpositions and tempi that outline a
> large-scale instance of the very same fragment. Notice, too, how
the
> perception of that repeated fragment evolves: at higher tempi it
> begins to resemble compound melody. My favorite parts of the piece
> are the second and last movements, especially the ascent to the last
> movements climax beginning around 1:26, and the following final
> descent.
>
> Sincerely,
> Carl McTague

***This piece seems effective. I particularly like the *second*
movement, but then, maybe I'm a "harmony person..." Nice
contemporaneous story behind it, too.... Great...

jp

--- In MakeMicroMusic@yahoogroups.com, "domiscala" <domilare@w...>

/makemicromusic/topicId_7905.html#7914
> > (http://www.mctague.org/carl/music/computer/pieces/ripples);
> <. . . . .>
>
> >
> > Sincerely,
> > Carl McTague

***The fourth movement of this piece, which I also, regrettably,
missed the first time around, reminded me of old games we used to
play with hardware sequencers (way before software "sequencers"
became ubiquitous...)

Essentially, if one would crank up the hardware sequencer fast
enough, it started to play *harmony...*, an interesting development
from a discrete series of separate pitch bombardments...

jp

Dear Dominique,

Thanks for your kind comments.

If I understand your question (1) correctly, I think the answer is
unfortunately no. The dissonance curve used is for two pairs of
harmonic tones, not the more complex spectra of the plucked string
used to realize the individual notes of the composition. But I think
that's a very good idea; it might be very effective to create a
composition that unifies these two aspects.

I unfortunately don't know the answer to your question (2).

Sincerely,
Carl

PS: I'm glad you liked the pie photos. I love my little sister to
pieces, and miss her terribly now that I am studying overseas, so I
really like to look back at those photos, myself.

On Thu, 2004-10-21 at 18:47, MakeMicroMusic@yahoogroups.com wrote:
> Message: 3
> Date: Thu, 21 Oct 2004 08:51:23 -0000
> From: "domiscala" <domilare@...>
> Subject: Re: The Lyre of Ur
>
>
> --- In MakeMicroMusic@yahoogroups.com, Carl McTague <box-
> 0cccbec56b@s...> wrote:
> > Hello,
> >
> > I have put a new piece online called "The Lyre of Ur":
> >
> > http://www.mctague.org/carl/music/computer/pieces/lyre
> >
> > From the point of view of alternate tunings, "Lyre" is much more
> > conventional than the last piece I posted to this list, "Ripples
> > Through Pitch Space"
> > (http://www.mctague.org/carl/music/computer/pieces/ripples);
> <. . . . .>
>
> >
> > Sincerely,
> > Carl McTague
>
> Hello, thank you for having referred to "Ripples Trough Pitch Space",
> which I had missed when first posted to the MMM group. I have just
> listened to the four movements of "Ripples" in the ogg. versions you
> kindly provided. I also saw your site, including the full version of
> the lemon pie happening - that made me wonder, having no sister, how
> appreciative my 39 and 26 daughters would be if I tried to translate
> the event into our French, probably using baba au rhum.
>
> I have greatly enjoyed "Ripples", particularly the simplicity
> and "hearability" or the composition, from "big bang" to a few tones
> in quasi "just" relation, ending in Eb7, A, F#m etc.
>
> Would you or other group members help with the following questions :
>
> 1) Can the "big bang" sounds we hear at the beginning of each
> movement be interpreted, in Bill Sethares language, as the basis for
> the "Timbre" which is analysed into the "non linear potential"
> (dissonance) curve shown in the "Ripples" E-site? Are these sounds of
> inharmonic nature?
>
> 2) Since Bill provided his didactic CD of examples as an annex to his
> book, have others used parallel methods for creation of musical
> works? If so, who are they, and where is the music?
>
> I have deep interest in the concept of a link between timbre and
> musical scale, and have very much appreciated "Ripples", and your
> description of how it was made.
>
> With cheers from Paris
>
> Dominique Larr?

----- End forwarded message -----