Sunday Afternoon

Posted 9 April 2006, 08:06

For a complete change of pace, here is a little piece of chamber music, a miniature in E major for piano, flute, oboe and bassoon. I write it last year in Noteworthy Composer. Although I wrote in standard 12-ET (twelve-tone equal temperament), I decided that I wanted to hear it in a different tuning scheme. After some unsatisfying experimentation with Scala (not a reflection on Scala, but on my lack of skill with it), I decided to ask for help. So I posted to the Tuning list and the Making Microtonal Music list and offered the MIDI file to whoever would like to take on the challenge of retuning it and rendering it as a sound file.

So far, I have received versions from Jon Lyle Smith, Gene Ward Smith, and Charles Lucy. If I get more, I will update this page with the new additions. The versions are presented in the order in which I received them.

To the contributors: thanks so much for your time and effort!

Update: I have followed advice from Carl Lumma and used MP3Gain to give all the MP3s the same output level.

The original files

Jon Lyle Smith’s version

Jon chose just intonation. In his words:

It was rendered to WAV thru Orion Pro software studio, which also provided the samplers used in this rendition. The scale used:

1/1 16/15 9/8 6/5 5/4 4/3 45/32 3/2 8/5 5/3 16/9 15/8 2/1

Assuming E as the base pitch, I transposed the root and the composition upward one semitone to F, in order to brighten and clarify the tone colors only slightly. I used Scala to create the file, which was then copied into the Orion Pro’s tuning files.

I used the soundfonts Pianissimum for the piano, and Sinfonetta36 for the woodwinds. They were downloaded from the HammerSound SoundFont Library web-page.

Here is Jon’s soundfile: MP3

Gene Ward Smith’s version

Gene gave the piece a 31-ET (thirty-one tone equal temperament) meantone treatment. He rendered the MP3 with Timidity++ using the SGM-180v1.5.sf2 SoundFont. He describes the retuning (pre-rendering) process:

I took your midi file, and using Scala’s midi to seq file converter under the tools menu, converted it to a seq file with the note names option set. I then sent this through a sed script, which converted it into a form helpful for analysis, which I edited into a file Maple can read. This I then used to locate problem areas with the tuning, such as wolf fifths. I then edited the original seq file, which the sed script leaves untouched, by replacing some of the note names at selected locations with enharmonic equivalents.

Then I stuck the following lines into the edited seq file:

0 notation P31
0 equal 31

Then I ran it through Scala again, this time with seq to midi under tools, and with the pitch bend option set.

It’s not required to make this quite this complicated, however. The basics are discussed here: http://www.xenharmony.org/composing.htm

Gene’s result: MP3

Charles Lucy’s version

Charles is the developer and leading proponent of LucyTuning. After some experimentation with different LT key signatures, Charles settled on 0b6s (no flats, six sharps), giving the notes C C# D D# E E# F# G G# A A# B. He also changed the tempo: “I have increased the tempo slightly to bring it to 103.13 b.p.m. (A=440Hz converted to tempo).” He continues:

All my renditions were produced on Mac G5 dual 2.0 MHz, 2 Gig of ram; using Tiger OSX 10.4.6 running Logic Pro 7.2.0 (924) which includes EXS24. Samples I used are from Vienna Symphonic Library for flute, oboe and bassoon. The piano is from 1923 Steinway Old Lady 24 bit. The LucyTuned tables are downloadable from http://www.lucytune.com/midi_and_keyboard/pitch_bend.html.

_I have shortened some of the notes in the midi files, to avoid looping delay problems, and adjusted some of the velocities.
The mix is in stereo as mp3’s from aif, panned as the original midifile. The volumes are constant for the wind instruments, and I have “ridden” the piano volumes to produce gentle crescendos. Effects I have used are only EQ, Mild compression, and various Space Designer settings to separate the instruments with different ambiances and frequency bands. All these effects are standard in Logic Pro 7._

Charles’ rendition: MP3

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Sublimation (Realtime Version)

Posted 11 March 2006, 12:52

Description

A live performance version of my piece Sublimation, as arranged by Art Hunkins. Requires Csound 5.0 and a MIDI controller with 6-8 sliders or rotary pots.

Duration: 12 minutes.

Background & Technical Details

This is Art’s fourth realtime arrangement of one of my pieces. This one pushes the envelope — the sheer number of simultaneous oscillators along with the reverb processing makes this a very processor-intensive piece. Art made two variations, one using precision oscillators (as in my original version) and one using lower-precision interpolating oscillators, and also explains how to adjust the sampling rate if necessary to achieve a smooth performance; this is all explained in his performance notes.

Thanks again to Art for his dedication, time and energy. I appreciate his hard work not only on a selfish level, but also because of his tireless efforts to promote Csound as a viable and powerful tool for cross-platform realtime musical performance. To other Csound composers, I recommend reading and studying his code to learn some great techniques. Please visit Art’s site to check out his own beautiful and contemplative music.

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Half Remembered

Posted 5 March 2006, 12:43

Description

A collaboration with my brother Doug Seidel from 2004. For synthesized instruments with gyroscope and other recorded sounds.

Duration: 4 minutes, 31 seconds.

Background & Technical Details

Doug and I wrote this piece by passing bits back and forth by email (we live several states apart).

Doug started by sending me a file in NoteWorthy Composer format (NWC is an excellent shareware notation program with good MIDI facilities). He had written two fast arpeggiated phrases for vibraphone, one consisting of 37 sixty-fourth notes (including rests), the other of 42 sixty-fourth notes. They start together and repeat over and over. Since the phrase lengths are different, they quickly get “out of phase”, and since 37 and 42 have a high LCM (lowest common multiple), it takes quite a few repetitions before they sync up again.

I took up the idea of repeating melodic cells of different lengths and wrote two phrases for recorder with the same melodic shape but separated by a major third, the lower one very slightly longer (by one sixty-fourth note) than the higher. I also wrote a much longer phrase, a series of four descending sustained notes in octaves for organ.

Doug then took all of these parts, rendered them using some good MIDI-triggered sounds, and created the overall structure. He added in a cool siren-like sound from a military surplus gyroscope device he found along with some other recorded sounds and effects, and mixed the final result.

Copyright & Licensing

Copyright © 2004-2006, Doug Seidel & Dave Seidel. Some rights reserved. This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution License.

Files

MP3 (13MB)
OGG (10MB)

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Drift Dhikr Interactive

Posted 26 July 2005, 17:55

Description

A live performance version of my piece Drift Dhikr, as arranged by Art Hunkins. For realtime versions of Csound, with or without MIDI controllers.

Background & Technical Details

See the Drift Dhikr page for background. Art’s arrangements (there are actually twelve different variants) make it possible for the performer to control several aspects of the piece, including the duration, the choice of starting interval, and more. Several of the variants are designed specifically for people with hardware MIDI controllers. See Art’s performance notes for all the details.

This is the third collaboration so far for Art and me, and as before I thank him for his interest and his energy. Please be sure to check out Art’s own music. It’s great stuff.

Copyright & Licensing

Copyright © 2005, Dave Seidel. Some rights reserved. This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution License.

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Gemini Nebula Live

Posted 9 March 2005, 08:30

Description

A live performance version of The Gemini Nebula, arranged by Art Hunkins for realtime versions of Csound. Several variants are included: with or without MIDI controllers, stereo or quad.

Background & Technical Details

For details on the original version of the piece, see the Gemini Nebula page. In this version, Art Hunkins has taken the primary compositional elements and put them under control of the performer, using either graphical controls on the screen or MIDI controllers (sliders or knobs). He has also, in the quadraphonic variants, added an additional spatial element that is not present in my original piece.

Thank you, Art, for seeing new possibilities in this music and making them real! Please see Art’s site for many more beautiful and fascinating works of realtime electronic music.

Copyright & Licensing

Copyright © 2005, Dave Seidel. Some rights reserved. This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution License.

Files

Csound unified score files (21KB)
Performance notes (text, 8KB)

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Cloud Dragon

Posted 7 December 2004, 17:56

Description

A live electronic piece; a series of swelling sustained chords built from the combination tones resulting from just-tuned dyads, over an optional drone.

Duration: variable. Requires a performer, a PC, one or two banks of eight continuous MIDI controllers (optional) and certain versions of Csound (see below for details).

Realized for live performance by Art Hunkins.

Background & Technical Details

This is a live-performance (i.e., real-time) Csound piece based on Combination Study 1, made in collaboration with Art Hunkins. It was Art’s idea to transform CS1 into a live piece. I did a little work on the visual appearance, and came up with some ideas for opening up the possibilities of the piece, but Art is responsible for all the hard work of designing and coding the performance arrangements, as well as writing the performance notes — he really drove this project. There are several different versions of the piece included, as explained in the performance notes, excerpted below:

There are three major versions of Cloud Dragon – indicated as v1, v2, and v3. They differ by performance instrumentation: v1 uses only computer mouse and monitor; v2 requires a bank of 8 MIDI (continuous) controllers – either pots or sliders; v3 requires 12 (or 14) controllers, configured as a bank of 8 and a bank of 4 (or 6).

There are three variants of each version as well – indicated as a, b, and c. Variant a is the most basic, offering preset Chord Ratios; its fixed six-chord sequence (and suggested performance order) is 8/5, 7/5, 6/5, 7/6, 9/8 and 5/4; eight-chord sequences add a final 4/3 and 3/2.

Variant b allows the performer to select his/her own Chord Ratios; the choices (numerator and denominator) are integers between 1 and 1500. Default settings are the fixed ones indicated above. In addition, the performer can select a single Chord-to-Drone Root Ratio – a kind of global transposition factor for all chords. (Default is 1/1 – no transposition.) Again, integers up to 1500 are allowed in numerator and denominator. All these ratios may be varied during performance, but doing so is not encouraged. Any change takes place with the following chord.

Variant c permits the performer, in addition to the above, to specify Chord-to-Drone Root Ratios independently for each chord (all defaults, 1/1). This variant encourages you to explore the wide-open possibilities of tuning systems referenced by Dave Seidel on his Combination Study 1 webpage (see above).

Versions 3b and 3c have the highest degree of flexibility and will hopefully be interesting and fun for anyone who would like to experiment in realtime with complex ratios that are not necessarily anchored to the “root” (1/1) established by the drone.

Because this is a live performance piece that employs a graphical user interface, only certain versions of Csound are suitable. See the performance notes (available below as a separate download) for details.

For more information on the underlying musical/acoustical concepts, see the notes for Combination Study 1. The title comes from an image I get when listening to the piece: a winged serpent weaving in and out of the tops of the clouds, sinuous and gleaming in the sun.

My sincere thanks to Art Hunkins for envisioning this project and making it happen. “Cloud Dragon” is also listed on his site, along with some of Art’s other compositions (electronic and otherwise, most of them realtime), which are lovely and well worth checking out.

Copyright & Licensing

Copyright © 2004, Dave Seidel. Some rights reserved. This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution License.

Files

Performance notes (text, 8KB)
Csound unified score files and performance notes (zip, 42KB)

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