anechoic: welcome to the 1st bookclub meeting for 'Microsound' by Curtis Roads anechoic: I will NOT be leading the discussion but will act more as a facilitator and moderator anechoic: the general outline of the discussion will start with Chapter 1 anechoic: and progress through quwstions and ideas that have arisen while reading the book... anechoic: please excuse any of my mispellings! ;) <<< CR has joined >>> <<< 5/25/03 12:57:25 PM >>> <<< Caleb has joined >>> <<< 5/25/03 1:50:15 PM >>> <<< Miulew has joined >>> <<< 5/25/03 1:57:12 PM >>> Miulew: hello from sweden! (bjoern eriksson) Miulew: book club started yet? <<< Caleb has left >>> <<< 5/25/03 2:00:46 PM >>> <<< Caleb has joined >>> <<< 5/25/03 2:01:33 PM >>> anechoic: we'll wait until more people show up and then get started Miulew: ok anechoic: I will be trying to save all the text from this session and will put it up afterwards Miulew: i send a mail on microsound list now that we start soon - ok? anechoic: ok thanks! Caleb: Hello from Ohio anechoic: hey Caleb nice of you to join us! Caleb: Got some Jonathan Coleclough on the speakers to get me in the microsound mood! anechoic: not heard of him anechoic: what label? Caleb: one of the circle with Colin Potter, Ora, Darren Tate. anechoic: ah OK anechoic: just as a suggestion anechoic: I recommend breaking up your statement anechoic: s into separate sections like this anechoic: so people won't step on you anechoic: in text anechoic: maybe a '...' Miulew: hello again from sweden <<< Marcos Alcocer has joined >>> <<< 5/25/03 2:07:30 PM >>> anechoic: willlet others know you are not <<< kubia has joined >>> <<< 5/25/03 2:07:35 PM >>> anechoic: finished with your satement anechoic: ok so let's get started anechoic: as I said we'll be dealing with CH1 only today anechoic: so someone start with a statement or observation or question? anechoic: anyone? anechoic: hello? <<< kubia has left >>> <<< 5/25/03 2:11:58 PM >>> Miulew: i found the top-bottom contra bottom-up composition question interesting - - p13,14 anechoic: yes how so? anechoic: how do you approach this in your own work? Miulew: it reminded me of how really often this is both anechoic: true anechoic: do you deal with this in your own work? Caleb: How do you get access to the 'microsound' for the bottom-up work? Miulew: you start with a fragment - but at the same time you think something 'whole' - not always but often this is true for me CR: I usually start with fragments and use algorithmic processes... CR: to build up a whole. Caleb: I've done some work stretching short samples... Caleb: into minutes-long metallic drones... Caleb: (starting with piano glissandi). Caleb: I guess I got stuck finding the top-down form. Miulew: yeah - it is more fun to be surprised with the forms unknown - it is looking into an microscope <<< saylor@attbi.com has joined >>> <<< 5/25/03 2:18:45 PM >>> saylor@attbi.: hi- er is this the book club anechoic: yes anechoic: we're talking about pgs 13,14 <<< dvnt has joined >>> <<< 5/25/03 2:19:45 PM >>> saylor@attbi.: thx anechoic: about form top-down vs bottom up saylor@attbi.: this was something i struggled with in my COTF submission anechoic: in what way? saylor@attbi.: 2 ways saylor@attbi.: 1. i was struggling to organize over a long time span [5 mins] saylor@attbi.: 2. i was making all these interesting [to me anyway] shorter things by manipulating the material saylor@attbi.: and i wasn't sure how to connect them all saylor@attbi.: maybe it's just actually 2 ways of looking at the same thing anechoic: I call yr attention to the Cage quote on pg13 Caleb: But later, referring to his piece Winter Music... Caleb: he said that what originally was sounds without a continuity... Caleb: later sounded melodic. saylor@attbi.: i guess i'm just not quite ready to just stick stuff together arbitrarily ... anechoic: what if you were doing this using a chance algo? saylor@attbi.: it's not continuity, i just want there to be some kinda sense that stuff is together <<< omnid has joined >>> <<< 5/25/03 2:25:08 PM >>> <<< fugadeserebros has joined >>> <<< 5/25/03 2:25:54 PM >>> saylor@attbi.: i was reading the 'i ching' and it made the point that the 'random' [or chance] is how the spirit world reaches us saylor@attbi.: so maybe i just need to trust that more ... anechoic: what about a mix of top-> bottom and bottom->top? anechoic: as dicussed at the bottom of pg13 Miulew: thi pi project offered some nice challenges - to accept or not to accept the randomness... saylor@attbi.: i *was* trained all the way to a terminal degree, so it will take a while to undo all that top down stuff that was beat into me over the course of my studies ... anechoic: also of the possibility that pi is not random and is really a pattern we can't see yet saylor@attbi.: yes, top <-> bottom intermix- that's what i'm after anechoic: how can one implement this using digital audio tools? saylor@attbi.: pi is not random- just irrational? omnid: I accept the randomness. It is what makes this world what it is. <<< dog_a_bone@yahoo.com has joined >>> <<< 5/25/03 2:28:19 PM >>> saylor@attbi.: i don't think it's the tools, i think it's the brain that needs work ... anechoic: ok at the top of pg13 CR quotes Schoenberg CR: The number pi isn't random (afterall, it comes from ... omnid: Using didital audio tool:Random number generators for instance. CR: the ratio of two properties of a circle), but... CR: Mathematicians think, but can't yet prove, that the digits.. CR: of pi are random. dog_a_bone@ya: 22/7 saylor@attbi.: and this is the part about 'a pattern we cannot see' omnid: They may follow an order wich is yet unknown. saylor@attbi.: to me, it's a mapping issue, the way pi 'plays out' as a decimal is what seems random omnid: And most likely may never be known. saylor@attbi.: except by artists and drug takers ... dog_a_bone@ya: a circle supposedly has an infinite number of sides omnid: How many places has pi been calculated to? anyone know? anechoic: uh oh! Miulew: i love random - but also loves some order now and then :) you got to have both anechoic: there was a Japanese uni that just did the highest anechoic: places of pi anechoic: we're veering off track a bit here omnid: Yep. saylor@attbi.: i guess we need some macro structure ... anechoic: so how could pi project have used a t-b and b-t approach? anechoic: and the Schoenberg quote is interesting on pg13 Caleb: The top down structure could have been like Cage's rhythmic subdivisions... Caleb: which no one ever heard anyway anechoic: likehis crystalline structures? saylor@attbi.: or b-t by using pi as the basis for macro strucutre [sounding out the minute divisions to fill 3:14] Caleb: yes! who said the the structures had to be audible? anechoic: interesting question saylor@attbi.: this is what i was struggling with in my COTF submission <<< CR has left >>> <<< 5/25/03 2:38:02 PM >>> anechoic: if structures are not able to be percieved can they be considered 'structure' per se? omnid: How "microsound" can it get before it becomes silence? anechoic: Planck omnid: You can perceive silence no? Miulew: i guess bach did some b-t with composing his name into canones, mirroring them etcetera but at same time i am sure he had lots of t-b thinking there anechoic: if you take smaller structures and organize them into larger structures isn't that a b-t approach? saylor@attbi.: bach had a lot controlling his music that isn't 'heard' Caleb: agreed. Don't we all have internal structures... Caleb: that we use when we compose? anechoic: also an interesting question saylor@attbi.: or external structures that we can hang things on Caleb: yes! and they're different! anechoic: ok now what about the in-between structures or size of sound objects? <<< fugadeserebros has left >>> <<< 5/25/03 2:42:19 PM >>> dog_a_bone@ya: might a strucuture be a perception of a pattern of organization like an index of a 'book' but wouldnt be confused with the contents of the 'book' saylor@attbi.: i need something to hang them on [or at least i felt i did for COTF] saylor@attbi.: well, what if you aren't hearing any patterns? Caleb: what I like about CR's different layers of time is that it exposes different layers of structure anechoic: let's talk about sound objects Caleb: the kind your audience hears belongs to macro or meso anechoic: on pg20 there is a quote by Schaeffer <<< omnid has left >>> <<< 5/25/03 2:45:04 PM >>> anechoic: where he says that the organization is conditined by the material saylor@attbi.: see, i wouldn't go along with that as a rule Caleb: if the material is rich enough,... Caleb: there's plenty of organization to choose from. saylor@attbi.: sometimes yes, but sometimes these big simple forms [ABA, or whatever] really help saylor@attbi.: maybe it's that i've been programming computers for so long ... saylor@attbi.: using software organization structures for music anechoic: this is an interesting topic anechoic: and can describe much of how algo music is composed Miulew: we can synthesize whatever sound object we want, we also can copy structures found in nature... anechoic: structure emanating from logic or software structures dog_a_bone@ya: solid liquid gasoeous atomic molecular saylor@attbi.: yes, but not just endless loops, software to start, grow, then wither and die saylor@attbi.: or model what it's like to look at the milky way [p.22] Caleb: cage again (etudes australes) dvnt: i'm having a hard time thining of pieces that have an object/arrangement kind of structure (concrete etc) as being b->t because they are not really generative...at least to my mind.... dog_a_bone@ya: i could see a software structure as a means to an end like a car (physical structure) whose pieces hold together and operate as long is there is a person using it anechoic: yes as most of the tape splicing techniques actually relied on t-b organization <<< 1001 has joined >>> <<< 5/25/03 2:53:21 PM >>> dvnt: was that necessary? dvnt: the tape techniques that is anechoic: necessary to the composers? dvnt: when working on the sound object level dvnt: yes anechoic: ah Miulew: it is you (the composer) who makes the choices. Grabs this and that, puts it together in that special way (formula/structure), without the driver the car gets meaningless, yes dvnt: i mean to say that i cannot think of arranging things that are on the perceptual level of sound object as being b->t anechoic: I guess in order to organize sounds on tape one has to sectionalize them physically anechoic: which lends itself to organizing at that level anechoic: of sound object anechoic: you mean intentionally? anechoic: and not by algo? dvnt: yes, not generatively anechoic: ah anechoic: good q: dvnt: but maybe tape works of xenakis are different? saylor@attbi.: i am not so familiar with those, i think of statistical units with xenakis anechoic: hmmm...also a good point as he processed the sounds themselves as sound objects and relied less on organzing ala Schaeffer anechoic: ja saylor@attbi.: and this has resonance with me as a way to go forward -> math == structure saylor@attbi.: but it has to be *special* math ... anechoic: I've taken a lot of heat for saying the same thing! anechoic: ;) dvnt: all math is special! saylor@attbi.: better you than me! <<< Marcos Alcocer has left >>> <<< 5/25/03 3:00:00 PM >>> anechoic: thanks! ;) saylor@attbi.: when cage was giving his lectures at harvard, he said he did all these processes on text anechoic: but I agree saylor@attbi.: but felt free to throw away what he didn't like saylor@attbi.: so that the 'special' in special math [to me anyway] anechoic: so is this approach a t-b or a b-t one? anechoic: or both? saylor@attbi.: well, the math can take care of the t-b part, but if it's not 'special' enough, the b-t will be lacking <<< hellomynameisphil has joined >>> <<< 5/25/03 3:02:47 PM >>> saylor@attbi.: hi phil! hellomynameis: Hello! How do I check out the book club discussion? anechoic: your in it anechoic: you;re saylor@attbi.: yer dvnt: at the very least, i feel like it lends itself to b-t because of the fact that it _can_, whereas this is lacking with other approaches anechoic: ah yea yer Miulew: i wasn't aware of the phonon until a year or two ago - it was refreshing to read about it again in CH1 anechoic: pg #? Miulew: shall look... brb anechoic: 34 correct? dvnt: looks to be Miulew: yes anechoic: what is interesting about the phonon? Miulew: i think it is refreshing to look on sound in new ways instead of the traditional wave way (but i am out on thin ice since i am no physician) saylor@attbi.: well, that might help with hypothermia if you fell in ... anechoic: U mean physicist? Miulew: probably - you know i am from sweden... :) anechoic: but how could we hear these wonderful swarming clouds of polarons? saylor@attbi.: so have you used this idea to make any musical decisions? <<< dogman has joined >>> <<< 5/25/03 3:09:39 PM >>> Miulew: no, but i'd love to hear sound clouds colliding/spreading by the virtual winds saylor@attbi.: i think statistics would help with this kind of thing saylor@attbi.: but i can't get my head around the math yet [or i just haven't found the right way to use them] <<< dogman has left >>> <<< 5/25/03 3:10:52 PM >>> anechoic: distribution of particle or sound objects anechoic: would be one approach? saylor@attbi.: that, and the creation of sound objects too saylor@attbi.: so that would be both t-b and b-t anechoic: are you talking about exciting phonons using statistical methods? saylor@attbi.: it wasn't specific to photons, it just made me think about those statistical clouds that i'm seeking saylor@attbi.: phonons as statistical models that could be applied to sound events anechoic: ah anechoic: how would one chart these? anechoic: computer models? saylor@attbi.: yes, or maybe there's some data already out there that could be used saylor@attbi.: kinda like we all used pi for that project 1001: not so mathematical, but i used feynman diagrams as graphic models with 1001: -in metasynth/Xx at one time anechoic: what was the result of that? anechoic: and what sort of structure resulted? 1001: the aktual models were very thin so it was often diffikult to make sensible changes 1001: to the sound or filter <<< Eloy has joined >>> <<< 5/25/03 3:17:41 PM >>> dvnt: i like using colored noise to control grain parameters..... anechoic: are the grains samples or sines? dvnt: they have been samples mostly anechoic: ah hellomynameis: I used a lorenz attractor to control grain parameters in csound. dvnt: grainlet in that i linked speed sample reading to length/time anechoic: getting back to phonons... anechoic: top of page 35 is interesting to me anechoic: especially the part about acoustic holography dvnt: sorry to interrupt....just wanted to say it's been fun!!!adios anechoic: thanks for joining us! saylor@attbi.: have you ever *seen* that? [has anyone?] anechoic: seen acoustic holography? saylor@attbi.: yes <<< dvnt has left >>> <<< 5/25/03 3:22:14 PM >>> anechoic: no I haven't saylor@attbi.: or am i misunderstanding saylor@attbi.: 'visualization of acoustic phenomena by laser light' anechoic: it would be the visualization of acoustic phenomena anechoic: ja anechoic: I can't even imagine what they might look like saylor@attbi.: me neither anechoic: 3 dimensional wave propagation? anechoic: something out of the Matrix?! Miulew: yes, acoustic holography is really interesting anechoic: have you seen any of this? Miulew: guess the sonic warfare also comes into the scene with the highly directed sound beams Miulew: i haen't seen any ac. hologr saylor@attbi.: i think the outside time music part is interesting [even if only mentioned briefly p.38] anechoic: agreed saylor@attbi.: this gets back to the perceptible structure we were talking about earlier anechoic: explain saylor@attbi.: hold on a sec saylor@attbi.: about pi, and hearing it in the structure- it is not a temporal structure, it's a ratio saylor@attbi.: does that help? saylor@attbi.: or is it just more fragmentary meandering intellectual drivel saylor@attbi.: [or both] anechoic: in the book CR calls attention to the scale as an object out of time anechoic: or an instrument anechoic: as the key layout does not suggest a way in which it could be used anechoic: I mean the order in which they would be used saylor@attbi.: o, i see, whereas the digits of pi does require them to be used in a particular order anechoic: pi could be considered a precomposition strategy anechoic: in that it is a process waiting to happen but in and of itself exists out of time anechoic: pi could be compared to a scale...? dog_a_bone@ya: pi is a ratio, right? anechoic: yes Miulew: but the digits could be considered as a scale (that could be a formula) anechoic: but pi is also a numeric description of that ratio Caleb: is the challenge of this project is to find a precompositional strategy based on pi anechoic: exactly Caleb: sounds pretty t-b ;-) anechoic: maybe anechoic: we didn't write pi anechoic: it exists outside of our ability to organize data hellomynameis: what's t-b? anechoic: so maybe its a little of both t-b and b-t? anechoic: top to bottom anechoic: b-t=bottom to top Miulew: R. Murray Schafer made a piece, maybe it's called Oceanic, that is based on the sea depth Miulew: fram A to B anechoic: the sea depth could be considered out of time Miulew: agreed dog_a_bone@ya: since we havent been able to find a repeating pattern in the 22/7 decimal readout (pi) i wonder if the ratio would be the proper out of time form for it where the decimal is always inexact attempt at translation anechoic: until it is implemented in a piece anechoic: it could be infinitely out of time! ;) anechoic: the decimal that is dog_a_bone@ya: you cant put a square peg into a round hole anechoic: just a heads up: 20 minutes left to this session <<< 1001 has left >>> <<< 5/25/03 3:41:29 PM >>> anechoic: I also found pg 32 interesting anechoic: that part about aliasing anechoic: being a subsample artifact Miulew: i won't argue "square peg/round hole" much but it really depends on the sizes! :) dog_a_bone@ya: thats true anechoic: anyone hear ultrasonic loudspeakers anechoic: > anechoic: ? dog_a_bone@ya: mabye lower resonating harmonics? anechoic: I liked the idea of pointing a beam of sound at a wall and having the source be that point on the wall... anechoic: any comments on CR's summary on pg 40? <<< ShopSlash has joined >>> <<< 5/25/03 3:49:11 PM >>> Miulew: figure 1.2 is interesting as it points out the narrow range for our ears <<< hellomynameisphil has left >>> <<< 5/25/03 3:49:58 PM >>> anechoic: I thought that was interesting too Miulew: like we are swimming in a really big ocean anechoic: invisible too anechoic: at least to our perceptual apparatus Miulew: yes lots of things is about pespectives - we are not bats or whales or ants dog_a_bone@ya: waves on the surface <<< Caleb has left >>> <<< 5/25/03 3:53:49 PM >>> anechoic: it would be interesting to be able to translate what they hear though <<< Eloy has left >>> <<< 5/25/03 3:53:56 PM >>> anechoic: well it looks like things are winding down so maybe we can cut it off here until next month dog_a_bone@ya: the mechanics of how they hear is different too anechoic: when we'll tackle chapter 2 in Microsound Miulew: i like "microsonic particles can be likened to molecules built from atomic samples" on p40 anechoic: I will be in Spain so Trace will be hosting the next session <<< ShopSlash has left >>> <<< 5/25/03 3:55:34 PM >>> anechoic: but feel free to hang out and chat some more if you'd like! saylor@attbi.: thanks kim and everyone! <<< saylor@attbi.com has left >>> <<< 5/25/03 3:56:31 PM >>> Miulew: it has been inspiring to read and discuss CH1, thanx alot anechoic: I will post the txt to the server