[Highly Experimental Ambient] Energy (MP3)

[bvanoudtshoorn]

I've been playing with a programming environment called "Processing" for a while now, and I've been wanting to use it for some more experimental musical projects. This is an early attempt. I constructed this applet, recorded the sound, and then post-processed it using a variety of plugins.

The first thing you'll notice is that this is atonal. I did initially work with a fixed key (E minor, in fact), and experimented with a variety of other keys, too; everything from simple triads to pentatonics, seventeen tone equal temperaments, and even a completely random set of frequencies, but overall, I think that a three octave span of twelve tone equal temperament frequencies is the most effective.

The sounds are generated on-the-fly; they are simple sine waves with a decay. Internally, the x-coordinates of the particles are broken into a series of 'frequency bars'. Particles move along, building up energy, and eventually release this energy as a musical tone; the frequency is determined by the bar they are in. The frequencies are randomised.

Left clicking will create a 'beat-particle' for the frequency bar under the cursor. These particles will emit a tone every 2, 4, or 8 quantisations. Right clicking creates a 'pulse-particle', which emits a tone every x quantisations, where x is randomly determined.

Also in the code, but not enabled in the applet, are 'orbit particles' - these are the same as normal particles, but they choose a normal particle to follow as quickly as their current energy level will allow them to. They have a 5% chance of changing their target every tick.

If you run the applet, you will probably notice that the audio and the visuals are not perfectly in sync; unfortunately, this is a drawback of the Java sound API in conjunction with all of the maths and rendering going on every drawing cycle (at around 60 frames per second).

Download the MP3
View the applet
View the applet with all options enabled, force-mapped to E natural minor

[Sam_Zen]

The first part I would call 'aleatoric', things that are often, as a publication, not particular interesting because there's no movement/story in time.
A state where things could take 2 mins. or 8. So the break to the low freqs at 2:09 was a crucial thing.

[bvanoudtshoorn]

You're right Sam_Zen. I like to view the applet I made as, essentially, a sound generator, like a synth or a flute or a drum. The act of composing, using this generator, lies in manipulating its output. Just as I couldn't whack a drum and call it a full piece of music (even though it might be 'musical'), I can't just record this applet and call it music. Sampling the sounds, though, and manipulating them is what makes it music. So as you say, when its primarily an only slightly modified version of the sound, it's aleatoric, but the introduction of the lower frequencies, and their position within the context of the entire sound is what makes it music. Otherwise, it's just virtual wind chimes.

[uncloned]

I like the sounds you achieve in the first part a lot, though I hear some crackling? The low notes at the end... are kind of incidental to me.

If the notes are constrained to E minor I wonder if you can rightfully call it atonal - "Atonality in its broadest sense describes music that lacks a tonal center, or key. "

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atonality

I guess the point could be debated - do I hear a tonal center? - I'm not sure.

I was shown a link to something called Processing a couple months back - it was something that did visuals - is this the same or similar program?

[bvanoudtshoorn]

Well, Clones, the sound in the MP3 isn't, in fact, constrained to E minor; rather, it's taken from three full scales of twelve tone equal temperament, with A = 440Hz as the basis.

Processing *can* do visuals - this is in fact one of its big selling points. If you take a look at the applets, you'll notice that they're quite visual, too. Most of the stuff I've done with Processing up to now has been visual, so I wanted to extend it into audio as well. Using particles for sound is an intriguing idea, so you should be hearing some more of these experiments.

[uncloned]

Well, Clones, the sound in the MP3 isn't, in fact, constrained to E minor; rather, it's taken from three full scales of twelve tone equal temperament, with A = 440Hz as the basis.

Barry - sorry - I needed to read closer!

[bvanoudtshoorn]

Haha, that's ok.