Some music I have done...

[Jayson]

This is an ongoing list of music that I have made under my independent project name, "Pencil Dust".
Largely, I use a compilation of the MTV Music Generator (on PC and Playstation 1) and a Guitar (when one is heard in a song).
*It should be noted that I do not use pre-programming (detest the stuff), so every hit and note you hear is something I put in there myself.


Song List
[Legend - Red: Old - Green: New]
Theos
Nightmare
Pendorum
Intent
Inspire (recording quality sucks)
Cantare de Intensus
Cascading van Beethoven

[Impenitent]

very cool

-Imp

[The Last Man]

Pretty good, I like it. You could add some more complexity of melody and rhythm, and more overall changes throughout, but its a good sound. I think the 'darker' parts are especially good.

[PavlovianModel146]

I agree that it's a great sound. I disagree a little with The Last Man because I think the level of complexity is fine, not everything necessarily need be very complex and simpler stuff is more attractive to some listeners. I do agree with The Last Man though that some more switches wouldn't hurt.

[MagsJ]

?

[Jayson]

?

lol

What the hell does that mean?

[MagsJ]

Lol, sorry TS.. is a reminder for me to delete a spammer in your thread, as it was gone 6am when I found them yesterday and I had to crash - and two other threads that I marked up for the same treatment.

[Jayson]

Updated with "Intent" added to list.

[matthatter]

Glad you added that song, giving this thread a bump (may have never seen it otherwise).

I listened to Intent so far, very nice! About :40 to 1:20 grabbed me the most.

I have never tried making music (never really tried any instruments or anything growing up), but have been interested for awhile. You've inspired me to try out that MTV music generator.

[Jayson]

Ps1 first mtv music generator is the best for flexibilty, but I will warn that it can take months before the gui and controls make sense...especially since 90% of the instructions aren't in the help or manual...you have to figure it out on your own.
But once you do, simply the fastest method I've found for writing complex pieces flexibly.

[Jayson]

added "inspire".
I will be replacing with a better copy later; sorry for the poor recording and sound quality.

[Jayson]

um...well that was embarrassing, lol.
Fixed the link for Inspire; also don't need to download. Still a less than perfect copy though.

[matthatter]

Can't speak for anyone else... but I didn't listen to the embarrassing "poor recording and sound quality version of Inspire", so I don't know what you mean, if that makes you feel better haha.

Ah, I'll have to stick with the learning curve then (I admit pressing through learning a complicated foreign system isn't one of my strengths).

For a couple years I've wanted a monome (http://monome.org/), have you heard of them? They're pretty expensive, and they always sell out fast whenever they make more available to purchase, but they do sell a kit with some of the main components (if you have a soldering iron and know how to use it you could save a little money that way, though I'm not sure if it comes with every part required for a finished product).

I think their website also includes a list of parts, and a guide on how to assemble your own (if the site doesn't have the former, I know these are available online). My eyes crossed as soon as I began looking over one of the guides, so I was too intimidated to seriously consider finding the parts and building my own, but for whatever reason (that I can't really actually "reason" ) my mind just tells me yours is good at and enjoys "that kind of complicated technological/mechanical/programming stuff", based off reading a list of your hobbies and ongoing projects--most of which I can't recall with any accuracy.

Okay, I left the small italicized paragraph below in case anyone wants to read, but in the middle of writing it out I decided "my 'explanation' of this is useless", and I'm not going to bother continuing it. I already planned to include a link, so you can see for yourself.

I ended up adding more and more links. I like the last two the most, as I think they better explain the possible functions and uses of the device.

This is a video about the Monome, by the creators of the device (this is mostly out of respect for the makers of monome, it doesn't demonstrate the device all that much):

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-1tTABS_Ugs

a demonstration of the Monome:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F0A8xR8ieek&feature=related

And another demonstration:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cJwxbTKwONc&feature=fvw

****a very cool demonstration that includes some quotes by (at least one of) the creator(s) of Monone, explaining his inspirations of the device, and its uses, with clips specifying the qualities and uses of some of the specific softwares/programs (I guess...?) that can be downloaded (for free from their website) and used with the device:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yAyjcONJcaY&feature=related

***I think this is a really cool video that shows how sounds can be linked to monomes and utilized to improvise in the moment:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qkowz_OVz2s&feature=related

I only have a vague understanding of this kind of thing, but as I understand it basically the monome is an open source device, pretty simple in (at least exterior look/) design, which--via plugging it into a computer's usb port--can run various music-based programs/software [i](as a the intended specialty, I think, it isn't limited to music), oftentimes simultaneously (or always? assuming the softwares don't contradict each other...? i dunno ), which seems to offer a lot of creative potential for making music. Certain buttons can be assigned certain functions, it seems, which behave in different ways/result in different things depending on how they are pressed (tapped, double tapped, held down, etc.), what other buttons are activated (and how) around them, etc. Sometimes they seem to just make a noise, sometimes they will loop a file, sometime's they'll cause a new program/function to start (... that's what it loo[/i]

[Jayson]

If you think that's crazy...you'll love this:
http://www.youtube.com/results?search_q ... nharp&aq=f

It's called an Eigenharp, and it's like someone decided that the instruments in Star Wars at the Catina should actually exist and set about doing just that in an imaginative way that blows this lid off of anything George Lucas could have imagined up.


http://www.eigenlabs.com/our-products/

The crazy part about this instrument is that you can do what you were talking about with the other device; you can interact more than simply musically with this thing:

[matthatter]

Hahaha my goodness, that thing is crazy. Nice find. It looks a little silly though (but that's probably just due to my discrimination of seeing multiple instruments on a stage). And boy oh boy expensive. Also I'm lazy, so standing up and using that seems like work. Pretty cool what that guy can do with it after such a small period of practice!

Other than the fact it has more buttons (on average--there are some monomes that are built with a crazy amount of buttons... there have been a few made with 512 button... and you can always connect multiple ones), and that air blowing thingy (there has to be a better word but words fail me this morning), it doesn't seem all that different from the monome's capabilities, at least in terms of making music in a recording or casual setting--the image of like 4 people on a stage with Eigenharps looks pretty silly to me, but it is at least more of a "performance" than a couple of people sitting down using monomes haha. The main thing that kinda turns me off is the overall shape of the device, not only because I'd be more comfortable and better focused sitting and looking down at it, but I think my hands would have less maneuverability/ dexterity--overall creative potential--working with a long narrow input board, with hands slung around it.

Though I think the Eigenharp is interesting, and seeing it for the first time wowed me, I sort of feel like the star wars inspiration kind of limits it (in terms of how well received and successful it will be), as I feel "performing" musically on stage (like rock bands do) has, generally, a bit of an inverse relationship with musical/instrumental complexity. A very talented guitar player can give a great energetic performance while doing a crazy guitar solo, that's true, but the complexity and craziness of it is still relative to (and limited by) the guitar's functions. I suppose a group of super talented people could practice a great deal with rigidly programmed inputs for their buttons, so their hands can work automatically to produce amazing stuff, while still giving a great performance, but making a great performance (with the kind of energy to music that goes with a stand-up energetic concert event) with the musical complexity, ingenuity (and unique potential that differentiates the Eigenharp with more traditional "performing" instruments) that makes it worth the extra money and extra time to master what is required to do all the above... I don't imagine many people doing that. I just sort of feel the natural place for these devices is just like a DJ booth, where things are set up so the musician completely focuses on what he's doing, and the audience is focused wholly on the music (and dancing atmosphere or whatever), and not the maker of it.

Any other crazy instruments you've heard of/seen? No need to limit it to electronic stuff, or newer instruments.

I've seen some stuff similar to the monome (meaning, for me, a bunch of buttons programmed with functions and noises to play beats, mixes noises, on a little pad), but I didn't like them as much--I think the things I saw weren't open sourced (rather than having a usb device to program it, it just came preprogrammed with functions and sounds), and they looked a little too flashy for my taste (cool at first, but so heavy on the visuals of the buttons I feel it would become too much an inseparable color/facet of the musical experience, which I think could kind of limit the mood of the music, and the creative process... for me at least).

[Jayson]

Some songs I made playing around with punk-o-matic
Click the Play Icon that looks like this
Later On
4 Parts Carelessness
Hot Air

Oh, and if it lags...well...sorry about that, but that's kind of how the program runs sometimes. You can restart it if it gets really bad and that usually re-syncs everything.

[fuse]

Theos has some nice dynamics that make it stand out among your older stuff. Overall, some of it is really engaging, some of it I wouldn't listen to other than as background music, but I like your general style. It's promising.

Just my thoughts. I haven't listened to any of your newer stuff yet. Might get to it later.

[Jayson]

Another punkomatic creation.
I kind of really enjoy this one...
Cascading van Beethoven
An harmonic divergence of Beethoven's 5th Symphony's principle theme in the genre of modern guitar rock.

[Jayson]

Work in progress, but it's rather interesting.
I first played this on the guitar on the A and D strings in one step down tuning (tune E to D, and then re-tune the rest of the strings back to D as if D was E, as opposed to drop D tuning of thrash metal)
Anyways, this took me about 15 to 20 minutes to figure out how to write what I was doing so that it actually fit on sheet music in standard timing signatures.
I had to crank it all the way down to 3/16th timing and use a 16th note with an extra 32nd note's worth of time added to every 16th note placed.


It's actually a very easy rhythm:
[(1,2,3)(1,2,3)(1,2)(1,2,3)]
Except the end which runs:
[(1,2,3)(1,2,3)(1,2)(1,2,3)(1,2,3)]
OK...and the "bridge" (calling it that for now), but it is:
[(1,2,3)(1,2,3)]

Anyways, here's the start of it anyway.
Just thought I'd post it because it's another oddball.

[davidchatman]

I liked it

[Jayson]

Here's two short cuts dinking around on my beat up ol' classical. These were simply made using the mic on my phone.
For those that play, the guitar is tuned one step down from E (so D).
And that's not to be confused with open D tuning (only dropping E to D); I stepped every string down one step so the entire guitar is lower. This is my normal setup; I don't like E.

A jam/song I'm casually working on

Random Improvised Jamming

[Jayson]

What I think I think (no vocals: conceptual arrangement copy)

[Faust]

Jayson, tell me - in your manuscript - why didn't you just write it in a mixed meter - 3, with the occasional bar in 2? The fermatas don't provide a fixed value.

[Jayson]

If you're talking about this post:
viewtopic.php?f=24&t=169302&sid=6b7e9f8ce69fe109172b87e5331ef528#p2242997

I'm not understanding what you mean by, "The fermatas don't provide a fixed value."
How so?

[Faust]

Well, a fermata means hold the note more or less ad libitum. There are practical and aesthetic limits, of course, but the time the note is held is not fixed to any certain number of beats. Since by your explanatory notes you mean for the measures that contain fermatas to have three beats and for those that don't to have 2 beats, I'm wondering why you didn't just write it in mixed meter. I guess it meant more back in the old days when you had to write the manuscript by hand, but still, how does anyone who is playing the piece know your intention that the held notes are held for two beats?

Oh, I mean neither to assume or to insult - a fermata is the "eye with the eyebrow" symbol.

Anyway, if you wrote it in mixed meter, you could use 3/8 and 2/8, or more commonly, 3/4 and 2/4 time. It would just get rid of all those dots and make the notation simpler. Again, when you use a computer, it matters less in the writing, but it is still easier to read, I think.