Purr-data/PD-L2Ork, a Pd distribution for Virginia Tech’s Linux Laptop Orchestra (L2Ork)
There are dozens of tutorials and help systems available. I suggest this video series by Dr. Rafael Hernandez, for starters, as well as Pd’s own built-in help system. A useful forum on Pd, including examples provided by users can be found here.
A deeper history of Pd from Miller Puckette himself, including its origins in the earliest computer music languages can be read here.
Max/MSP is commercial software, similar to Pd having the same original source code. Max is available as a 30-day trial download on the Cycling74 website. Cycling74 was purchased by Abelton in 2017.
As with Pd, there are a multitude of tutorials available, including a help system built into the software itself. Some example projects using Max can be perused here.
More information and (non-crashing!) demonstrations to follow. I recommend perusing YouTube and the recent blossoming of live streaming techniques on YouTube, Vimeo, Twitch (most directly used for gaming but also music).
Following on to our conversations about samplers, beats, and beat slicing, we’ll be exploring loops more fully this week. Here are some loops to play with in class.
Here is some further listening from today’s class.
My band from college was called “Milk of Amnesia”. We performed primarily in the MidWest (Chicago, Minneapolis, Madison, Milwaukee) where all three of the band members went to college together (UW-Madison). The song excerpt I shared in class today from “Kamikaze Airplane” can be heard again here: Kamikaze Airplane.
My piece for solo guitar and electronics, Roses Don’t Need Perfume, uses sounds of the guitar as an electronic backdrop for a live solo guitar part. All electronic sounds are “acoustic”, i.e. they are derived from guitar. You can hear the recording from the commercial CD, Draw the Strings Tight–which I engineered myself here in Barnes Hall–on my website. A score is there also, or linked here.
The piece is long (15 minutes), so I encourage you to listen to the first 3 minutes (Movement #1, first page of the score) only.
Here, too, since I mentioned this method in class previously, is an image from that recording showing the microphone placement…two near mics (12th fret, behind the sound hole) and a third large diaphragm condenser mic further away).
With that speech, Kennedy calmed his audience from rioting, channeling his own experience losing his brother, JFK, who was assassinated 5 years earlier in 1963. Partway through, he quotes Aeschylus … lines that would late appear on his own gravestone after his own sad assassination just months later.
“Even in our sleep, pain which cannot forget falls drop by drop upon the heart, until, in our own despair, against our will, comes wisdom through the awful grace of God.” – Aeschylus
My central ideal with this piece was to channel that mutual empathy, which seemed to me important to our current moment.
My piece is for viola, percussion, and unmanned piano. The piano is used as a resonator (speakers placed inside and under) as well as being played *inside* by the percussions (fingers, sticks, mallets, his ringed finger, eBows).
In the excerpt you will hear, the first part is made up of these “inside the piano” sounds. Then you’ll hear Robert Kennedy’s voice, from his April 4th 1968 recitation of the Aeschylus, resonated into the piano. The voice is circulated back to the piano repeatedly (feedback) to enhance the frequencies of the voice (those “partials” we’ve been talking about) as they make the piano strings ring sympathetically. To hear this effect yourself, find a piano, put down the pedal, and shout into it! Finally, in the last section, the percussionist uses the eBows to play the strings directly, creating a singing melody. The drone sound in the background is derived from MLK’s voice, from his last speech (“I’ve Been to the Mountaintop”), given the day before his death. It’s specifically derived from the word, “see” in the line:
“…only when it is dark enough, can you see the stars”.
Several of you have asked about having access to the recording made in lecture in order to play around with the results yourself, exploring basic panning and mixing.
Edgard Varere’s Poeme Electroninique … the precursor for our conversation on “What is music?”
Pierre Henry’s “Symphony for a Man Alone”
Henry:
“I believe that the [tape] recorder is currently the best instrument for the composer who really wants to create by ear for the ear.”
“It is necessary to destroy music”.
Karlheinz Stockhausen’s “elektronische musik”, Studie II (1954):
Pauline Oliveros, we listened to several tracks in lecture, but I wanted you to hear music made in the underground cistern, with 60+ seconds of reverb!
I promised some follow-up information from lecture, in particular links for music to listen to and and, for those who had trouble accessing the live lecture, a message to let you know that video from this morning’s sessions is now uploading to Canvas for you to review.
Ordinarily, video from lectures and sections will be online in the “Zoom” tab area under “Cloud recordings”, but since today I had some technical issues of my own (!), I did some slight editing to the video to add a view of items I was referring to that were not visible.
See that video on Canvas in the “Files” area for the course.
Now, some links to enjoy!
My introductory, pre-lecture music from today:
Sounds from the phonoautogram, invented in 1857 by Édouard-Léon Scott de Martinville, with first recordings (played in lecture) in the early 1860’s:
The phonautograph in action, video and sound test from “THEVICTROLAGUY“.
Some other music of interest, most caught in the gap between analog and digital…including a pieces by my predecessor David Borden, who worked as a composers at the Moog factory in nearby Trumansburg, NY.
Another of Laurie Spiegel, here a live improvisation with equipment from Bell Labs, analog synthesizers triggered by computer controller:
Delia Derbyshire’s famous theme for Doctor Who:
David Borden’s “The Continuing Story of Counterpoint #9:
Learn to produce your own music in Cornell’s electro-acoustic music studios or with our own gear.
Topics can include audio recording, editing, mixing, MIDI sequencing, sampling, effects processing, software synthesis, digital orchestration/arranging, scoring to video, music theory, composition, and music production on iOS. We can design a program that suits your needs, interests, and level of experience.
About the instructor:
Eric Feinstein has over 30 years of experience as a composer/producer, having created a wide range of music for dance, theatre, film and television. He has been giving private lessons in digital music to Cornell undergraduates, graduate students, and faculty since 2003.
All lessons for Fall 2020 taught via Zoom.
For an application/questionnaire, or for more information, contact ehf6@cornell.edu
When visiting CEMC studios, as with any lab space on campus utilizing shared equipment (see Cornell guidance), sanitation will be an important part of studio protocols. Keyboards and mice, as well as the desktop itself will are the most obvious, similar to any shared desk or table on campus. But electronic music studios have additional shared items whose design and sensitivity require specific treatment.
Microphones
When using common microphones, the following is recommended.
1. Students must wear an approved mask during any microphone use.
2. Use sanitizing wipes provided, clean the microphone body itself, including the front grill. Then proceed to other surfaces you will come into contact with, such as the microphone clip, the cable, and the adjustment mechanisms of the microphone stand.
2. Use a disposable microphone cover, provided on the desk within each studio. You will want to remove this cover when you exit the studio out of courtesy to the next user. If the microphone is covered when you arrive, replace it with a new one, sanitizing your hands and the mic before putting on a new cover for your own use.
Further advice is provided by the Shure microphone company, makers of the mics we’ll be using this semester.
