Painting and music?

[Arpangel]

My partner was a teacher, primary school age early on, she has a very good way of teaching children, they immediately relate to her, and she brings out the best in them.
One of the things she used to do in art classes, she used to get a child to paint a picture, then, cut it into two pieces, each piece was given to two new kids, who would be asked to paint a picture influenced by what was on the first two pictures, and so it would continue, until there were a couple of hundred pictures, which would all be glued on the wall to make one big picture.
My partner showed me a photo she'd taken at the time, of one of these "collages" I can honestly say it blew me away, totally, it had a depth and maturity to it that went beyond, just beyond, and the detail was incredible, and you would never, ever think it was done by primary school kids.
I’m sure this technique has been used in music, I know Brian Eno has done "similar" things in the studio with other musicians, getting them to make music that would only be used to get ideas from, or to respond to, but it wouldn’t actually be used on the finished track.
I’m wondering how to make a piece of music using my partners process, I guess we could make musical sketches, and pass them backwards and forwards between us, each time writhing a new piece based on what we’ve both done.
But that wouldn’t work the same way as the picture, the picture had all of the previous elements in it, it had a continuity of some sort, music would be different, if you stitched all of our pieces together at the end it would end up as an abstract musical collage, and it may not hold together in the same way.

[RichardT]

My partner was a teacher, primary school age early on, she has a very good way of teaching children, they immediately realte to her, and she brings out the best in them.
One of the things she used to do in art classes, she used to get a child to paint a picture, then, cut it into two pieces, each piece was given to two new kids, who would be asked to paint a picture influenced by what was on the first two pictures, and so it would continue, until there were a couple of hundred pictures, which would all be glued on the wall to make one big picture.
My partner showed me a photo she'd taken at the time, of one of these "collages" I can honestly say it blew me away, totally, it had a depth and maturity to it that went beyond, just beyond, and the detail was incredible, and you would never, ever think it was done by primary school kids.
I’m sure this technique has been used in music, I know Brian Eno has done "similar" things in the studio with other musicians, getting them to make music that would only be used to get ideas from, or to respond to, but it wouldn’t actually be used on the finished track.
I’m wondering how to make a piece of music using my partners process, I guess we could make musical sketches, and pass them backwards and forwards between us, each time writhing a new piece based on what we’ve both done.
But that wouldn’t work the same way as the picture, the picture had all of the previous elements in it, it had a continuity of some sort, music would be different, if you stitched all of our pieces together at the end it would end up as an abstract musical collage, and it may not hold together in the same way.

That’s a fantastic idea! I’d love to take part in it. To get the pieces to fit together better, you could limit the number of keys they can use to say 3 or 4, then you could put the pieces together into 3 or 4 blocks, and then ask a few people to specifically write something that modulates from one key to the next. You could also give people the option to have a fade out at the end of their pieces or to suddenly stop so they could be overlapped or joined end to end.

[Arpangel]

That’s a fantastic idea! I’d love to take part in it. To get the pieces to fit together better, you could limit the number of keys they can use to say 3 or 4, then you could put the pieces together into 3 or 4 blocks, and then ask a few people to specifically write something that modulates from one key to the next. You could also give people the option to have a fade out at the end of their pieces or to suddenly stop so they could be overlapped or joined end to end.

That’s an idea Richard, but once you start putting restrictions, like keys etc, I think you run the danger of it sounding too much in one vein, I don’t like a lot of generative, or process music, because of this, once you’ve heard the first five minutes the next half an hour seems very repetitive.
It’s a matter of getting the balance right, I guess.

[FrankF]

My old AKAi multitracker (DPS16) had a max. project capacity of 127, so when I went over that, I had to merge and delete existing projects in order to be able to create new ones.
This meant that I often merged 4 or 5 unrelated projects into one (e.g. mono beatbox, guitar, synth loop), spread over the 16 available tracks.
The fun started when I played back the merged project(s): most of the different projects were out of sync, but occasionally happy musical accidents would occur. It was wild and noisy at times, but I had 16 sliders, plus solo and mute buttons to help me out.

I guess a DAW equivalent would be to play back 3 or 4 instances/projects, with or without merging them first.

[BigRedX]

In a similar vein, I created this piece for a composition competition on another forum.

It was made by using Audacity to "open" the image file as waveform data and then exporting the sections that inspired me and arranging them in "more musical" format in my DAW.

IIRC there's a delay plug-in applied to some of the sounds but otherwise everything you can hear was generated from the image.

[Ben Asaro]

I think you may be painting generative music with too narrow a brush.

[Arpangel]

My old AKAi multitracker (DPS16) had a max. project capacity of 127, so when I went over that, I had to merge and delete existing projects in order to be able to create new ones.
This meant that I often merged 4 or 5 unrelated projects into one (e.g. mono beatbox, guitar, synth loop), spread over the 16 available tracks.
The fun started when I played back the merged project(s): most of the different projects were out of sync, but occasionally happy musical accidents would occur. It was wild and noisy at times, but I had 16 sliders, plus solo and mute buttons to help me out.

I guess a DAW equivalent would be to play back 3 or 4 instances/projects, with or without merging them first.

This is exactly how I work now Frank! I move stuff around blindly in my DAW, without listening to it, it’s been the basis of most of what a I do for ages. Some of it doesn’t work, but it’s surprising how much does.
Ben, unless you’re constantly fiddling, or mixing, live, in a big way, generative music for me always sounds too samey, I want more of a mixture of completely differently genres seamlessly morphing into each other in a random way, which I just haven’t heard yet, and I don’t know how you’d achieve that........Oh yes! I think they call it a "DJ"

[FrankF]

What I want to know is: where can I buy a Marconi Microphone?
No-one seems to stock them!

[Arpangel]

What I want to know is: where can I buy a Marconi Microphone?
No-one seems to stock them!

Are you joking? I sold two about 3 years ago.

[FrankF]

What I want to know is: where can I buy a Marconi Microphone?
No-one seems to stock them!

Are you joking? I sold two about 3 years ago.

Ha! Well, I can wait. As they say, "what goes around comes around".

Actually, I contacted one music shop called The Kipple Factory, they've got outlets everywhere, but I think their biggest branch is down by the Tannhauser Gate.
Shell Beach is the nearest tube station, I believe.

Anyway, I asked them if they had the item in stock, and the chap on the vidphone (Isidore, I think his name was), he said, "hmm, well, we did have a few last month, but they got puddinged in a timeslip, so I reckon we're looking at a very long delay."

"Yes, yes!", I exclaimed, "that's exactly what I'm after, a VERY LONG DELAY!"
"Have you tried Digitech?", he replied.

I hung up in disgust.
I dunno, maybe I should just get some more neural plugins for my Interocitor...

[Agharta]

Music by 300 strangers:
https://youtu.be/enFB33SOo6k

There are other videos where they look at how the piece was put together.

[Martin Walker]

In a similar vein, I created this piece for a composition competition on another forum.

It was made by using Audacity to "open" the image file as waveform data and then exporting the sections that inspired me and arranging them in "more musical" format in my DAW.

I'm loving this BigRedX!

Must dig out my copies of Coagula and Photosounder and get stuck in again.

Martin

[Rich Hanson]

Music by 300 strangers:
https://youtu.be/enFB33SOo6k

There are other videos where they look at how the piece was put together.

That is quite extraordinary, and surprisingly moving.

[BigRedX]

I'm loving this BigRedX!

Must dig out my copies of Coagula and Photosounder and get stuck in again.

Martin

Thank you. I had a look at the programs in question. The Coagula site was very short on info, I assume it's Windows only? Photosounder does look good.

TBH this process is the only thing I've found Audacity useful for, and even then it had a tendency to crash a lot, plus I had to try all the different import options before I found the ones that produced some useful sounds.

[ManFromGlass]

Photosounder looked wonderfully deep and I’ve kept it around for when I have time to learn it properly. There used to be a Mac program that converted pictures to music and I think one could also go in and alter the frequencies by drawing.
I’ve always been fascinated by the concept of converting images to sounds. The visual and aural seem somehow strongly connected to me.
If this community composition gets off the ground I am in too!

[Ben Asaro]

Photosounder looked wonderfully deep and I’ve kept it around for when I have time to learn it properly. There used to be a Mac program that converted pictures to music and I think one could also go in and alter the frequencies by drawing.
I’ve always been fascinated by the concept of converting images to sounds. The visual and aural seem somehow strongly connected to me.
If this community composition gets off the ground I am in too!

I think the latest iteration of this technology is called sonification. NASA has been using it with Hubble images, it creates some really interesting soundscapes. There are open source sonification programs that convert data to sound and those are really interesting as well.

[Martin Walker]

Yes, as far as I remember Coagula was Windows only, but unlike your granular-style example, each line in its drawn image controls the amplitude of one sine-wave oscillator at a specific pitch, and different colours determine stereo placement and noise contributions.

So it generates sounds more like additive synthesis, which are rather different from the norm.

Martin

[Arpangel]

What I want to know is: where can I buy a Marconi Microphone?
No-one seems to stock them!

Are you joking? I sold two about 3 years ago.

Ha! Well, I can wait. As they say, "what goes around comes around".

Actually, I contacted one music shop called The Kipple Factory, they've got outlets everywhere, but I think their biggest branch is down by the Tannhauser Gate.
Shell Beach is the nearest tube station, I believe.

Anyway, I asked them if they had the item in stock, and the chap on the vidphone (Isidore, I think his name was), he said, "hmm, well, we did have a few last month, but they got puddinged in a timeslip, so I reckon we're looking at a very long delay."

"Yes, yes!", I exclaimed, "that's exactly what I'm after, a VERY LONG DELAY!"
"Have you tried Digitech?", he replied.

I hung up in disgust.
I dunno, maybe I should just get some more neural plugins for my Interocitor...

This was the type I sold, I got them refurbished by UK ribbon specialist Xuadia

https://collection.sciencemuseumgroup.org.uk/objects/co8430787/bbc-marconi-axbt-ribbon-microphone-microphone

They were sold to raise funds for my late friend Mike Skeets family.

[FrankF]

Oh, right, you weren't joking! Kudos to you, hombre: I hope you got a good price for a good cause.
I was referring to this rather mystical and fascinating anecdote:

"The story goes that, late in his life, Guglielmo Marconi had an epiphany. The godfather of radio technology decided that no sound ever dies. It just decays beyond the point that we can detect it with our ears. Any sound was forever recoverable, he believed, with the right device. His dream was to build one powerful enough to pick up Christ’s Sermon on the Mount."

[Arpangel]

Oh, right, you weren't joking! Kudos to you, hombre: I hope you got a good price for a good cause.
I was referring to this rather mystical and fascinating anecdote:

"The story goes that, late in his life, Guglielmo Marconi had an epiphany. The godfather of radio technology decided that no sound ever dies. It just decays beyond the point that we can detect it with our ears. Any sound was forever recoverable, he believed, with the right device. His dream was to build one powerful enough to pick up Christ’s Sermon on the Mount."

That’s f******g amazing! What a brilliant idea, it just goes to show that genius and madness are closely related!



But no, seriously as they say, it’s a beautiful idea, and I wish it was true, and maybe it is?