mysterybear: tag

This is my first SuperCollider (SC) piece. Having just put out a CD-R release, the result of three years or so of working with Csound, it seemed like a good time to try something new. Another excuse for experimentation was provided by an invitation to participate in the first show in the Unique States series. As I prepared for this event, I ported my Csound Risset harmonic arpeggio instrument to SC and started playing around with it in real time (something which is much easier to do in SC than in Csound). This piece is what emerged. I performed it for the first time at the Unique States event at BUOY in Kittery, Maine on Friday, January 9, 2009.

While it is intended to be performed live, I have included a rendering of the piece (available below) for people who just want to listen. If you use SuperCollider, and would like to try this, the source file (also available below) contains comments that explain how to play it; you should find it quite straight-forward. (Please note, if you are an SC aficionado: I know that the piece could have been written more compactly, but I am still a newbie, and I chose to err in the direction of directness, simplicity and readability as opposed to elegance. Plenty of time to get fancy later.)

The piece itself is no radical departure from my previous work, but continues to explore some of the things I find interesting, in particular the use of interference patterns to create subtle rhythms, the tension between stasis and constant change, and the power of perfectly tuned consonance.

If you listen to this on speakers (as opposed to headphones), please turn it up — the sound should fill the room.

Files/Downloads

MP3 (18MB, 320kpbs)
SuperCollider code (5KB)

Copyright 2009 by Dave Seidel, some rights reserved.

Nur by Dave Seidel is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial 3.0 Unported License.