Hydraulophones

Although this is somewhat off-topic, I thought this was a really cool example of the inclusion of flowing water into music. Steve Mann is known for his work in wearable technology, but he is also interested in experimental music and Human-Computer Interaction in relation to sound.

River Procession

With Laurie Spiegel's "Drums" as our inspiration for the river piece, Rachel and I are coming up with rhythms in various meters, using Taiko drum samples. My very simple idea for the progression of the piece is that, we could start with a softer sample with a very simple rhythm (straight 16th, maybe?). Then, as the river puppet emerges from behind the bushes, things can pick up, adding more voices transposed to different notes and the rhythms become more involved. As the river splits to go around the pond, we can have a left-panned voice doing rhythms in 3/4, and a right-panned voice doing rhythms in 4/4. As the river merges back together, the two rhythms will combine in a way to form a new rhythm, in perhaps another different meter (6/8?). We can continue with the previous rhythms and fit them into the 6/8 format as the river processes.

Wind Wand

I think this is the thing for spinning puppets:

FM Broadcasting for Spatial Audio

Our group has been discussing using a spatial audio setup during the beginning of the performance. One way of doing this that we have discussed is to broadcast audio using FM radio to a number of boomboxes located around the pond. We could simply buy an FM transmitter like this one: https://www.amazon.com/0-5-Fail-Safe-Long-Range-Transmitter/dp/B003FO4UHW/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1336750605&sr=8-1. This transmitter would broadcast over 100 yards, which seems like a good distance. But, we could also build our own transmitter, which would be a lot cheaper and more fun. This looks like a good set of plans to build one: http://makezine.com/projects/super-simple-fm-transmitter/.  This specific design would only broadcast over 30 feet, but we could boost the range by adding an antenna.

New Age Sounds & Birds

The past week I have interestingly stumbled upon some new age records. There is a series by self-titled "sound recordist" Dan Gibson called Solitudes. There is some interesting stuff here in terms of natural sounds that may be useful to different composition groups, although I don't know how I feel about some of the background music...

Here is a great image of Dan Gibson recording with a parabolic microphone in a canoe:

Melodic Harmonizing for River

Rachel and I recorded some sounds from outside to potentially use as percussive elements for the "River Group" composition. In class, we had discussed the idea of adding harmonies to the drums that will emerge as the river puppet emerges/moves. As we were coming up with drum rhythms, Rachel and I explored various ideas for melodic elements that would fit the ambient atmosphere. We developed a sine wave MIDI instrument and started messing around with some chord progressions, and researched some cool "bubble-like" sounds that could be a nice melodic addition. We also discussed potentially using a flute recording.

This flute recording is a sample that I had recorded previously for a different piece. For this sample, I only played through the head-joint of the flute (the body and foot-joint were not attached) and used cheap earbuds to record, placing them into the head-joint itself. It almost sounds like an airy recorder or something...I'm not really sure how to describe it. The sample can be heard throughout a piece that I composed linked below, first appearing around 0:38. (I did not process it very much in this piece, just kind of threw it in with very minimal adjustments). For the river group people, the raw sample can be found in the "River Peeps" Google Drive folder (if you want to mess around with it at all). In the sample found on the drive, I also have other techniques I used, including very exaggerated vibrato, and singing while playing (which typically creates a buzzy sound underneath/above the note actually being played). Also, I'm awful at naming songs, so please excuse the song title haha.

More Harry Potter inspo

While looking for rhythmic ideas as inspiration for the piece we're working on I remembered another gem - this one's by Patrick Doyle, from Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire (focusing on the second half of the piece - heavy on percussion.)


As I post this, Jennifer and I are hard at work figuring out how to combine ambient themes with percussive elements, like Laurie Spiegel's "Drums."

Frog Composition ideas

Today's discussions in class got me thinking about more ideas for the frog music. When we were discussing the trees, Ben asked what tree planting music really is. There isn't really any music fit specifically for planting trees, nor is there for frogs, but it made me think about how the music during this scene will create the mood. Since the scene will be rather lighthearted, the music should reflect that. As the lily pads are spinning faster and faster before the frog comes out, the music should build, getting faster and faster as it creates tension. Once the frog emerges, that's when the melody will be introduced. The music will be rather simple at first, and become more complex and interesting as the frog ages. I am not entirely sure how the music and frog sounds will mesh, but once we get the composition and patch more developed we can experiment with it.

Frog Delay Max Patch

I wanted to post the live processing max patch I presented in class today, in case anyone wanted to see how I put it together.


<pre><code>
----------begin_max5_patcher----------
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-----------end_max5_patcher-----------
</code></pre>

Looking at PAT's Past

Out of curiosity I was browsing old videos posted to the PAT Youtube page. I came across 2014 clips from the PAT Showcase and really dug a performance at 1:12:



I love the pairing of electronics and guitar. The overall timbres of the piece are similar to what Brian, Stone, and I are trying to achieve at the finale.

Looking at the past works our peers have completed is great inspiration. What better place to get inspiration from than the people we study with everyday?