But is it music?

[Matthew Gilliard]

Hi overtoners,

I think you might be interested in this recent TED talk where Mark Applebaum talks through some of his interesting ideas about how to extend (or ignore) the boundaries of musical convention.

http://tedx.stanford.edu/performers/mark-applebaum/

I  think the freedom offered by a tool like overtone gives us a great chance to try crazy stuff for ourselves, so enjoy!

mg

[Tom Oinn]

Thanks for the link, that's a fun talk :) I'm feeling philosophical,
and have no training so the following may be utter rubbish....

For me music, or any art, is a form of communication - the creator has
something in their mind, and through whatever they produce they create
an effect in the mind of the observer. It may or may not be the same
as what they saw, and sometimes it's deliberately ambiguous (abstract
art where everyone interprets it differently) but crucially it engages
and creates a connection - often an intentionally noisy or imperfect
one.

This means that for me some of the generative music we've had on the
list isn't music, in the same way a picture of the Mandlebrot set
isn't art* - that's not to say they're not interesting of course, and
it's just my definition before anyone gets too upset! The thing I'm
most interested in when it comes to overtone are the ways in which we
can create instruments which allow that creative input to shape the
results, and in particular how I can use it to build instruments with
a very tactile input capability as that's how I prefer to work.

Tom

* although this gets more ambiguous when it's a picture of a selected
part of the set, with colouration and effects applied. I'm still on
the side of 'not-art' in this case, but it's closer

[Sam Aaron]

Oh wow,

this guy has totally nailed exactly what I've been trying to say about my motivations with Overtone for so long. You really can take those different (potentially live) roles:

* interpreter
* improvisor
* inventor
* composer
* visual artist
* scavenger
* designer
* performance artist
* dramaturge
* choreographer

and mix them in a big pot, and then use our programming skills to play around with the ingredients in interesting new ways - such as allowing formalised processes to interpret your instructions to play part or all of these roles.

In addition (and something he doesn't really go into any detail with), you also mix in non-human elements:

* instrument
* composition
* notation

The truly exciting thing is that Overtone (and Quil) lets you mix all these things (and more) and really challenge traditional boundaries, creating/inventing something new that allows you to ask new and interesting questions of music and sound.

Truly exciting times,

Sam

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http://sam.aaron.name

[Sam Aaron]

On 5 Aug 2012, at 23:15, Tom Oinn <tom...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> Thanks for the link, that's a fun talk :) I'm feeling philosophical,
> and have no training so the following may be utter rubbish....

To be honest, whether or not your statements are utter rubbish in the traditional context for this kind of discourse is kind of irrelevant. I think what's far more exciting is that tools like Overtone are allowing standard programmers such as ourselves to actively engage in this kind of discourse - and more importantly, have something *interesting* to say about it that artists actually want to hear.

Sam

---
http://sam.aaron.name

[Tom Oinn]

On 5 August 2012 23:25, Sam Aaron <sama...@gmail.com> wrote:

> The truly exciting thing is that Overtone (and Quil) lets you mix all these things (and more) and really challenge traditional boundaries, creating/inventing something new that allows you to ask new and interesting questions of music and sound.

The other thing that he didn't touch upon in the talk at all was that
there's no reason there has to be a single driving force, we can build
instruments and systems where the division between human actors is
much less distinct than in traditional forms.

If I sit down with a pianist and play a cello sonata we have two
performers, two instruments and we interact but only at a fairly high
level. If I sit down with overtone or a similar setup (I'm thinking of
ableton live / maschine / various control surfaces) where I'm driving
a generative algorithm producing a stream of notes and someone else is
warping that stream before passing it back to me for me to sculpt the
synths rendering it - how many instruments? how many performers? The
interaction between the performers is at a much lower more intimate
level. It blows a lot of the conventional notions away which is very
exciting, a lot of fun stuff happens at the edges.

Tom

[Sam Aaron]

On 5 Aug 2012, at 23:34, Tom Oinn <tom...@gmail.com> wrote:

> The other thing that he didn't touch upon in the talk at all was that
> there's no reason there has to be a single driving force, we can build
> instruments and systems where the division between human actors is
> much less distinct than in traditional forms.

I completely and utterly agree. It's why I tagged Overtone as "Collaborative Programmable Music". It's the collaboration part which I'm personally most excited about.

In addition to being able to do interesting solo pieces, I really want to use Overtone to build new kinds of bands.

Sam

---
http://sam.aaron.name

[Tom Oinn]

I feel a hack day coming on... actually I'd be happy to host one if
people can get here*? The aim would be to build the instrument-o-doom,
one (possibly multichannel) sound out, as many people shaping that
sound as possible. I can provide audio gear, coffee, cocktails and
food...

Tom

*Elmdon, an insignificant hamlet somewhere between Cambridge and London

[Jeff Rose]

Sounds awesome, I'm in! Creating an instrument of doom is a cool idea. I'm wondering how it could be played too...

-Jeff

[Tom Oinn]

On 6 August 2012 00:51, Jeff Rose <ros...@gmail.com> wrote:
> Sounds awesome, I'm in! Creating an instrument of doom is a cool idea. I'm wondering how it could be played too...

Well, I have a pile of control surfaces of various kinds (some more
exotic than others) which can generally be persuaded to work with
overtone and a master keyboard. There's scope for more than that
though, the interfacing is one of the most interesting things to my
mind. Webcam and tracking logic maybe?

Tom

[Sam Aaron]

Sounds great. Depending on post-house-moving work, baby duty and other factors, I'll try and be there.

I would suggest that such a opportunity be one where playing with the "doom machine" be something you give as much (if not more) time to than making it...

Sam

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http://sam.aaron.name