Composing for Laptop - IA de Investigación especializada en el MIT

Componer para computadora portátil
Orchestra

Scott Smallwood,* Dan Trueman,*
Perry R. Cocinar,†* and Ge Wang†
*Universidad de Princeton
Department of Music
Woolworth Center
Princeton, New Jersey 08544 EE.UU
{skot, dan}@music.princeton.edu
†Princeton University
Departamento de Ciencias de la Computación
Princeton, New Jersey 08544 EE.UU
{prc, gewang}@cs.princeton.edu

This article is a chronicle of impressions, ideas,
methodologies, and challenges relating to the
experience of composing for a “laptop orchestra”;
speciﬁ cally, the recently formed Princeton Laptop
Orchestra (PLOrk). Here we document some of the
compositional issues that have been raised by this
unique performing force and the different strategies
taken by the composers for control, sound design,
spatialization, conductor roles, improvisation, y
instrument design. Throughout this document, nosotros
will reference a number of speciﬁ c compositions, todo
of which are available for listening on the PLOrk
Web site, plork.cs.princeton.edu. Apéndice A
includes a complete listing of pieces written for
PLOrk thus far. We are working to document and
make available the software used in as many of
these pieces as possible, should others be interested
in adapting them to their own ensembles—though
given their inevitably provisional nature at this
early stage, it is likely that most of these pieces will
undergo revision in the coming years.

As will become clear, these pieces represent a
range of aesthetic approaches. It has been our hope
that the ensemble be as transparent as possible,
inviting artists from any aesthetic sensibility to
imagine how it might come to life. Algunos de los
pieces are naturally indebted to the experimental
music tradition, especially in electronic music; el
work of the Hub, David Tudor, and John Cage
comes to mind. Other pieces are more closely
modeled after the traditional Western orchestra,
dividing the ensemble into sections and relying on
fully composed, notated structures. Yet others look
to non- Western musics and ensembles for inspira-
ción: the gamelan, the improvisatory percussion

Computer Music Journal, 32:1, páginas. 9–25, Primavera 2008
© 2008 Instituto de Tecnología de Massachusetts.

music of Northern India, or the folk music of
Scandinavia, por ejemplo. Some pieces do not even
treat the ensemble like an ensemble but rather see
it as an unusual ﬁ eld for realizing a “soundscape” or
a sonically charged context for network gaming.
Finalmente, the technology itself, especially with
regards to the possibilities afforded by high- velocidad
networking, has often been a motivating factor,
inspiring music that would be impossible to con-
ceive of without such an ensemble. Es, we believe,
one of the great strengths of the ensemble that it
invites such wide- ranging and provocative aesthetic
imaginings, and we hope to maintain this breadth in
the years to come.

Sin embargo, as described elsewhere (Trueman 2007),

PLOrk presents signiﬁ cant challenges and con-
tensiones: how will the technology involve all the
manos, ojos, and ears that are present in the en-
semble, En particular? This is not an ensemble for
those who are uninterested in human involvement
and imperfection. Nor is it an ensemble for those
with little tolerance for technological imperfection,
as computers and software are always imperfect. So,
although we continually push for aesthetic breadth,
the nature of the ensemble naturally constrains this
push and asserts its own limitations. The pieces
described here represent the initial solutions
reached by a number of composers with varying
intentions and values, y, tal como, should offer
some sense, however incomplete, of the future pos-
sibilities for laptop ensembles.

PLOrk: Motivations and Design

The historical context and motivations for estab-
lishing PLOrk, along with a general introduction,
are explored in Trueman (2007). The pedagogical

Smallwood et al.

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Cifra 1. Overview of a
PLOrk meta- instrument.

Cifra 2. A PLOrk equip-
ment rack.

aspects of PLOrk are discussed in this article’s com-
panion (Wang et al. 2008), which appears in this
issue of Computer Music Journal. Complete techni-
cal speciﬁ cations for PLOrk can be found on the
PLOrk Web site, but a summary is provided here.
Each of the ﬁ fteen meta- instruments in PLOrk
consists of laptop computer (currently, Apple
1.5- GHz 12- en. PowerBook G4s and 1.83- GHz 13- en.
MacBooks); the software development environ-
ments Max / MSP (Puckette 1991), SuperCollider
(McCartney 2002), and ChucK (Wang and Cook
2003); a rack of audio equipment consisting of a
multi- channel Firewire interface (Edirol FA- 101),
speaker ampliﬁ cation (Stewart DA- 70- 2 2- channel
ampliﬁ er and a Stewart DA- 70- 4 4- channel ampli-
ﬁ er), and a sensor interface (ElectroTap Teabox); y
a hemispherical speaker with six individually
addressable speakers. Cifra 1 shows a visual over-
vista, y figura 2 shows the face of the rack.

In addition to this, we have a collection of inter-

facing devices and sensors that can be integrated
into any of the meta- instruments to provide physi-
cal control of expression. These include off- el-
shelf keyboards, percussion pads, and knob / slider
controllers, but also custom interfaces using sensors
such as accelerometers, pressure pads (using force-
sintiendo- resistors), proximity sensors, light sensors,
etcétera. We encourage students and composers to
conceive of their own ways to interface the players
with the computers, and we have provided for the

ability to connect a variety of devices—including
custom ones—quickly and easily. We also have a
variety of microphones (handheld and headset) y
pickups that can be used bringing in live sound to
each instrument.

Each player sits on a meditation pillow and either

holds the laptop literally on the lap (supported and
protected by a lap- desk) or places the laptop on the
rack to the right and holds instead some interface to
the laptop, depending on the requirements of the
composition. The speaker sits directly in front of
each performer. In this way, each instrument is
completely self- contained.

Sound Design and Spatialization

PLOrk is an ensemble of laptop- based instrumental-
ists with localized sound sources. It produces a
sonic space comparable to a large ensemble of in-
struments that generate sound from various points
on a stage, the sound of each player radiating out in
all directions. The hemispherical speakers not only
project sounds in all directions but can produce
different sounds in each of six directions, donación
one the possibility of creating a kind of three-
dimensional spatial model of an instrument or
sound object. This distinction is vital, y el
ensemble has a profoundly different sound than that
of electro- acoustic music played through a stereo or

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Cifra 3. Default layout
diagram for PLOrk-
stations. Lettering / num-
bering was established to
facilitate communication,
and also suggests natural
sectioning.

surround sound- reinforcement system. At ﬁ rst, es
difﬁ cult to imagine what kind of sonic presence of
this ensemble has, and composers are usually sur-
prised (either pleasantly or not) when they ﬁ rst hear
their music performed by PLOrk.

PLOrk is an orchestra partly because it has a
roughly similar sonic and spatial footprint to the
conventional orchestra. As composers, it is impor-
tant to understand that although this orchestra is
not “ﬁ xed” in terms of speciﬁ c timbral groupings
(ﬁ rst violins on the left, basses on the right, etc.),
there are some practical limitations in terms of
spatialization, ﬁ delity, volume level, and sonic
density. Por ejemplo, like an orchestra, PLOrk has
had to develop a standard seating arrangement out
of necessity, owing to the amount of setup time and
coordination each rehearsal requires (ver figura 3).

The matrix of 15 speakers and 90 channels is thus

ﬁ xed spatially (though the hemispheres can be
rotated easily as needed). Además, the speakers
themselves have spectral limitations: ellos son
unable to produce frequencies below about 80 Hz.
To ﬁ ll out the lower frequencies, ﬁ ve of the meta-
instruments include a subwoofer, usually spaced
evenly across the outer ring (near stations 1, 3, 5, 7,
and 9—the “outer- odds” as we refer to them). Look-
ing at the diagram, one cannot imagine (or ad-
equately describe) what kind of sound this ensemble
might have, but it clearly has a “PLOrk- sound”—a
sound that, like a conventional orchestral sound, es
both limiting and inspiring.

As would be expected, PLOrk employs a wide
range of digital sound techniques. In Non- Speciﬁ c
Gamelan Taiko Fusion Band, por ejemplo, Perry
Cook and Ge Wang use high- quality samples of a
speciﬁ c set of drums and bells and incorporate the
original acoustic instruments into the piece as well.
What is remarkable about this is that the samples
are virtually indistinguishable from the acoustic
instruments owing to their spatial relationships
and the dispersion patterns of the speakers. Sobre el
other hand, in Dan Trueman’s The PLOrk- Drones,
the entire sound world is synthetic. Inspired by the
entonces- called “Risset Arpeggio” (Risset 1985), the com-
poser created instruments in which each player
maintains careful control over a stack of harmoni-
cally tuned sine waves. By subtly changing the

fundamental (very low, usually around 65 Hz, con
a controllable range of variation less than 1 Hz),
each player can contribute to a subtly beating
texture. Although the natural phasing created by
the widely spread multidirectional speakers pre-
cludes the emergence of the familiar Risset Arpeggio,
the laptop orchestra acoustically and interactively
recasts what is by now a classic synthesis tech-
nique. In his piece Idle Swamp, Brad Garton created
a palette of sounds based on a “quasi- retro” LPC
digital synthesis technique pioneered by Paul
Lansky (1989); in this piece, the sound world some-
times seems synthetic, and other times reveals its
source with speech- like utterances. Scott Small-
wood’s On the Floor combines the use of synthetic
sounds (emulating electronic slot machine sounds)
and ﬁ eld recordings of an Atlantic City casino to
create a dialog between an actual physical space and
a synthetic recreation of that space. Dan Trueman,
in his piece PLahara, uses acoustic sounds in his
piece in two different ways: in one section of the
orchestra, he digitizes the live tabla player (Ustad
Zakir Hussain) and routes that live signal to four
of the PLOrk players (cast as “soloists”), who rhyth-
mically process and transpose the tabla sound.
Mientras tanto, the rest of the orchestra uses headset
microphones, capturing the acoustic sound of their
notated vocal parts to excite tuned comb ﬁ lters. En
all of these cases, the considerations that had to be
made for space, density, and balance within the
orchestra proved intensely challenging, pero ellos
yielded new perspectives to the normal ways of
thinking about electro- acoustic music.

Although the standard conﬁ guration of PLOrk
necessitates a certain way of thinking about the
sonic canvas, there have been and will continue to

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be ways of altering this standard through special
kinds of concerts and installation scenarios. In one
caso, we organized a special concert of pieces “in
the round,” because we were able to make use of a
special performance space (the Chancellor Green
Rotunda at Princeton University) that allowed us to
set up in a circle, above and surrounding the audi-
ence. This invited us to develop works that were
different in their approach to space. Por ejemplo,
the piece ChucK ChucK Rocket, a collaborative
work by Scott Smallwood and Ge Wang, utilizes a
game scenario in which sounds are passed around
the circle of players, creating a unique surround
experience that would not have been possible in the
standard concert conﬁ guration. There is also the
possibility of writing for smaller or larger forces.
Paul Lansky opted to write for a more intimate
grupo: a quintet. His multi- movement piece A Guy
Walked into a Modal Bar utilizes instruments he
created in SuperCollider based primarily on physi-
cal modeling. Though a chamber work, the ap-
proach to sound in this piece is clearly framed by
the nature of PLOrk, and the composer developed it
through weekly rehearsals with the students di-
rectly on their meta- instruments. En el otro
mano, Brad Garton (in Idle Swamp) augments the
standard group with ﬁ ve additional players spread
throughout the hall in an effort to create a more
immersive, ambient “soundscape.” Finally, Perry
Cook and Ge Wang often invite additional drum-
mers to join the group in Non- Speciﬁ c Gamelan
Taiko Fusion Band, in which case the network-
synched laptops act as a kind of mediator for a
drum circle that can approach thirty players
(PLOrk included).

Interfacing and Control

PLOrk uses laptops as instruments, and in the
ensemble they are the most immediate interfaces to
the world of sound. It is important to realize the
ways in which the laptop has become an extension
of the human body for many people in our culture.
Although it is true that the human body is not well
suited to sit hours at a time, typing and pointing
and clicking while staring into an illuminated

pantalla (Sommerich et al. 2002), it is also true that,
a pesar de todo, many humans have become quite accus-
tomed to doing just that. Composers working on
pieces for a laptop orchestra have the choice to
embrace the given laptop interface as an instru-
mento, or to ﬁ nd ways of providing more suitable
control mechanisms for making sound, depending
on the kind of instrument they are designing.

Many of the pieces composed in PLOrk’s ﬁ rst year
relied exclusively on the laptop interface for control.
One of the ﬁ rst instruments we developed allows
each player to quickly record a pool of samples of
themselves speaking the name of each QWERTY
key (“A,” “B,” “C,” “return,” “spacebar," etc.) y
then associate that pool with the appropriate key;
pressing a particular key randomly chooses one of
the samples from the corresponding pool for play-
atrás. The QWERTY keyboard then becomes a kind
of personalized percussion instrument. A pesar de
the keys are obviously not pressure- sensitive, el
playback time is controlled by how long the keys
are held, allowing the performer to either touch the
keys quickly and get only an unrecognizable percus-
sive attack, or hold the keys down longer to hear the
complete utterance. En general, we found the
latency of the QWERTY keyboard acceptable for
most rhythmic playing, and the ability to leverage
already established typing skills is empowering; él
seems likely that there is much that can be done
along these lines.

In an entirely different approach, Pauline Olive-
ros, Seth Cluett, and Scott Smallwood developed
instruments for Sound Scatter that require only
occasional control and rely exclusively on the lap-
top keyboard and trackpad. In this piece, EM.
Oliveros improvises on accordion, and her sound is
cast into the orchestra via a wired audio network.
The PLOrk players mostly just listen and then
make occasional small moves with the interface,
adjusting volumes, turning various processes on and
apagado. En un sentido, the players are more “monitors” than
“performers,” able to enjoy the slowly changing
“soundscape” while subtly pushing and pulling it in
various ways.

The laptop as physical interface is, sin embargo,
decidedly limited. In an effort to invite alternative
approaches, we have invested in many off- el- shelf

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Cifra 4. Tomie Hahn
conducting PLOrk in
En / Still.

Cifra 5. Virtual display of
the PLahara TriggerFinger
interface. The on- pantalla
graphics mirror the
conﬁ guration of a physical
set of drum pads, knobs,
and sliders. The rightmost

column of drum pad can
be rhythmically tapped to
set the delay time for each
row. En la práctica, these are
linked to pre- composed
subdivisions.

Cifra 6. Lawson White of
So Percussion processing
Zakir Hussain in PLahara.

devices, including pressure- pad “ﬁ nger drum” inter-
faces, MIDI keyboards, slider and knob boxes, y
graphics tablets. Each station also has a Teabox sen-
sor interface (available from www.electrotap.com),
which allows for plug- y- play integration of vari-
ous kinds of sensors, including force- sensing resis-
tores, accelerometers (for sensing tilt along two axes),
light and distance sensors, and ﬂ oor pressure tablets.

Curtis Bahn and Tomie Hahn, in their piece

En / Still (ver figura 4), created one of the most com-
pelling approaches to interfacing, both with sensors
and the generic laptop interface. EM. Hahn, who is
also a dancer and performer, conducts the players by
performing sweeping gestures which the players
emulate through movements of the mouse. Players
are encouraged to watch her gestures carefully
rather than watching their screens, which have very
little information on them necessary for performing
the piece. Hahn wears an accelerometer on each
mano, through which her movements effect both her
own sounds and, via the network, the sounds of the
orchestra. At one point in the piece, ﬁ ve members of
the orchestra, each also wearing accelerometers on
their hands, stand and “dance” with Ms. Hahn. Su
movements allow them to “scrub” forward and
backward through frames of phase- vocoder analyses.
In Dan Trueman’s PLahara, the four “soloists”
who process Ustad Zakir Hussain’s tabla perform
with TriggerFingers (drum pads for ﬁ ngers, con
additional knobs and sliders; see www.m- audio
.com / products / en_us / TriggerFinger- main.html).
The grid of 16 pads control varying delay times and

Cifra 5

Cifra 6

transpositions (performed spectrally to avoid tempo
cambios). The rightmost pad in each row can be
struck repeatedly to set the delay time for that row
(see the next section for further discussion of how
these delay times are set in practice), while a knob
above each column can control the transposition of
that column. The players can either press continu-
ally on particular pads, controlling the volume of
that delay and transposition through variable
pressure, or strike the pads rhythmically to grab
delayed versions of Mr. Hussain’s playing. Otro
knobs and sliders can be used to control bandpass
ﬁ lters and gains (see Figures 5 y 6).

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Cifra 7. Pauline Oliveros
and Zevin Polzin, Murphy
abstracción.

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Mientras tanto, the orchestra uses accelerometers
and graphics tablets to control the Risset drones
previously described, in The PLOrk Drones (mientras
also performing the notated vocalizations into their
headset microphones). With the accelerometers,
tilting the right hand forward and backward con-
trols volume, and tilting it left and right controls
the fundamental frequency. Rotating the left hand
moves the drones through various combinations of
overtone weightings. Similarmente, tilting the pen of
the graphics tablet adjusts the fundamental fre-
quency, and pressure controls volume. “Drawing” a
circle then moves through the varying overtone
weightings. Although the mappings are simple, ellos
are quite performable and require some practice to
master. A new version of The PLOrk Drones relies
on the Sudden- Motion- Sensor (SMS, a built- in ac-
celerometer) of the Apple laptops for drone control,
creating an unfamiliar physical use for the laptop
itself as controller (Fiebrink, Wang, and Cook 2007).
Finalmente, Pauline Oliveros, in her composition
Murphy Mixup: Murphy Intends, in collaboration
with Zevin Polzin, asks the players interface the

laptops with their minds alone. Responding to
research conducted by Brenda Dunne and Robert
Jahn of the PEAR (Princeton Engineering Anomalies
Investigación) laboratory (Dunne and Jahn 2005), el
piece simulates in software the Murphy device. Este
device is an old analog contraption that is built into
a large wall of the PEAR lab. A conveyor belt carries
9,000 small balls to the top of the device and dumps
a ellos. They fall through a large matrix of pegs until
they sort themselves into 19 bins at the bottom of
the device. En general, most of the balls tend to fall
into the middle bins, but some of the balls make
their way across to the edges. The machine tracks
the statistics of balls to bins, and plots a curve
showing the results. Generally, it produces a bell
curve. Jahn and Dunne found, sin embargo, that if a
person “intends” for the curve to move slightly in
one direction or another, even though there is no
apparent physical connection between the person
and the machine, it can affect the results in a statis-
tically signiﬁ cant way. EM. Oliveros and Mr. Polzin
created a software version of the Murphy device
that uses the entire orchestra, with each machine

Computer Music Journal

Cifra 8. Ge Wang con-
ducting CliX.

being part of the system. Beforehand, each player
created a sound that is part of a bank of 19 sounds,
and their job in performance is to “intend” for the
system to become biased towards the sound that
they created (ver figura 7).

Needless to say, such research has its skeptics,
and several researchers have had difﬁ culty replicat-
ing the PEAR laboratory results. (See skepdic.com /
pear.html / for a summary of some of these issues,
and see Hansen, Utts, and Markwick [1991] for a
critique of related work from the lab.) Because of
este, some of the more scientiﬁ cally minded mem-
bers of PLOrk had difﬁ culty accepting the approach,
though they nevertheless attempted to perform the
piece in good faith.

Networking and The Conductor

The network can be a powerful conducting tool
and also facilitate the design of a kind of macro-
instrument with the orchestra. Information that
can be passed along the network is quite different
from the kind of information traditionally conveyed
by a conductor. De este modo, possibilities for coordination,
mensaje- passing, group control, quantization,
tempo, dynamics and so on are on the table for all
composers working with PLOrk. Should these
tasks be given to a conductor? Should the conductor
be human, or should it be a program operating over
the network? Or should there be both kinds of
conductor?

The ability to tightly synchronize the ensemble
via the network is remarkable, though not ﬂ awless.
It is practical and easy to have a single “conduct-
ing” computer send a sequence of pulses (p.ej., máx.
bang messages or similar) over the network to con-
trol rhythmically timed events, and in our experi-
ence, the timing is more than tight enough for very
small pulse- widths (on the order of 40 msec or so).
In most situations, we found the wireless network
capable of maintaining a constant, “hiccup- free”
pulse without difﬁ culty, though in some situations
this was not the case (perhaps owing to heavy local
wireless trafﬁ c from other networks), and we are
exploring ways to make our network more robust
and immune to interference (including working

with a wired network). Even in good situations,
sin embargo, packets are occasionally dropped, y
composers need to build a certain amount of protec-
tion into their programs if this is likely to cause
problemas. Por ejemplo, if it is important for all the
machines to be on the same beat in, decir, a 16- beat
ciclo, the conducting machine should send the beat
number over the network and not simply a pulse;
this will ensure that if a packet is dropped to a par
ticular machine, it will not get out of phase because
it is locally counting pulses. También, if particular
messages are crucial, it is essential to have them
paired with subsequent messages that ask for
message receipt conﬁ rmation. We are hopeful that
the need for such strategies will be minimized in
future versions of our network.

Ge Wang’s CliX (ver figura 8) makes use of two
different kinds of conductors. A conductor laptop
sends rapid pulses over the network; these pulses
effectively quantize the events generated on each
machine. The players type, generating pitched
clicks (the pitches are dependent on the key struck;
por ejemplo, it is possible to play a chromatic scale
by typing the alphabet), and their clicks are then

Smallwood et al.

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Cifra 9. Onscreen
interface for Non- Speciﬁ c
Gamelan Taiko Fusion
Band. Different colors
indicate sound types. El
players choose a color from

the bottom palette. El
network pulse can be seen
racing from left to right,
and then top to bottom,
through all 32 beats.

Cifra 10. No- Speciﬁ c
Gamelan Taiko Fusion
Band in performance.

Cifra 11. Binary tree
structure for Dan True-
man’s The PLOrk Tree.
The “conductor” is at
station 5, and the different
layers of the tree are
indicated by G1, G2, y
G3.

quantized to the network pulse (synchronization
pulses are sent over the network every 0.09287
artículos de segunda clase), keeping all the machines tightly in
“sync.” Mr. Wang conducts the ensemble by visu-
ally indicating which section of the ensemble
should be active and whether their typing should
generate high or low pitches. In any particular
actuación, the composer- conductor can elicit a
variety of gestures, including sudden stops and
starts, slow rises and falls, and what we call “the
PLOrk spiral,” where the players type in sequence,
stations 1–9, then D–A, and ﬁ nally X–Y.

Cifra 10

In Perry Cook and Ge Wang’s Non- Speciﬁ c

Cifra 11

Gamelan Taiko Fusion Band, the ensemble is once
again synchronized by a network pulse. Aquí, el
pulse is visible via a set of onscreen colored boxes (ver
Cifra 9). The players can choose which sound they
would like to hear in each box, though the program
assigns a event probability for each box, so even if
the players placed an event in a particular box, ellos
are not guaranteed a sound will actually be triggered.
When Mr. Cook conducts, he prints instructions

from an onstage printer and displays these to the
jugadores, either in sections or to the ensemble as a
entero (ver figura 10). (The printer was added as
a theatrical component. Its sound on stage does not
interfere with the piece, as the printer is relatively
quiet, and the piece is relatively loud.) These in-
structions might include requests for high or low
densities, or for particular colors or spacings.

In Mr. Trueman’s The PLOrk Tree, the conductor

plays a minimal role, but the network is crucial.
This piece is a quasi- improvisation based on a
network binary tree (ver figura 11). The conductor
sits at the “bottom” of the tree (station 5) and sends
a network pulse to synchronize the ensemble. Todo
the players (including the conductor) have the same
instrument (a step- sequencer with controls for pitch
and amplitude; ver figura 12) and the state of their
instrument can be seen by their two network neigh-
bors “up” the tree. Similarmente, all the players (save
the conductor) can see the state of their “lower”
neighbor.

The piece begins when the conductor at station 5

starts manipulating his interface. Players 4 y 6
can then copy what they see the conductor doing

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Cifra 12. Dan Trueman’s
The PLOrk Tree player
interface. The top row is
the state of their network
neighbor’s interface, cual
can be copied with a single

click and then modiﬁ ed.
Sounds include simple
wavetable synthesis (el
wave is visible and
“drawable” at the bottom
izquierda) and samples. Conduc-

tor text- messages are
visible at bottom, mientras
neighbor text- messages
can be seen at top right
and then sent to the
middle right.

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and modify it (or do something else entirely), y
this then propagates further down the tree. Players
can also send text messages through the tree struc-
tura, and the conductor can send text messages to
the group as a whole or to the different layers (G1,
G2, G3) of the tree. Finalmente, the conductor sees the
state of all the interfaces at the end of the tree (G3),
and can choose to copy and modify what is visible,
thereby feeding information back into the network.
En la práctica, this piece can result in an exciting sense
of anarchy, with individual players wreaking havoc
and creating localized structures.

In Mr. Trueman’s PLahara, the role of the conduc-
tor is distributed among three people. PLahara was
inspired by the traditional North Indian lahara form

where a simple tune is repeated over and over again,
providing a structure within which percussionists
(típicamente) can improvise. In PLahara, this tune is
played by the composer on the Hardanger ﬁ ddle (a
Norwegian folk ﬁ ddle) and doubled on a MIDI
keyboard by one of the conductors. This “lahara-
conductor” adds a pre- composed bass line to the tune,
and this pitch information is sent over the network to
all the players. As described earlier, the orchestra is
articulating a variety of vocal sounds through micro-
phones to excite tuned comb ﬁ lters; the tuning of
these ﬁ lters is set by the lahara- conductor’s playing.
También, the fundamental for the Risset drones that
the players are controlling is set by this lahara-
conductor. In this way, pitch (which is typically one

Smallwood et al.

Cifra 13. Part for PLahara
vocalizers. Sign language is
used to cue particular riffs.

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of the main parameters controlled by the players in
a conventional orchestra) is controlled by a single
persona, leaving the orchestral players free to focus
their attention on other performance issues. Finalmente,
the lahara- conductor’s laptop has a tempo follower,
which constantly updates the delay times (via the
network) on the signal- processing soloist’s Trigger-
Finger delay- line interfaces. This allows the ensem-
ble to stay in “sync” without locking to a network
pulse or arbitrary delay- tiempo; changing tempos,
crucial to Indian percussion improvisation, is both
possible and smooth. A second “conductor” uses
sign language to indicate to particular sections of
players which pre- composed vocalization riff to
perform (see Figures 13 y 14).

Finalmente, a third conductor uses a knob box to
control various parameters of the player’s instru-
ments over the network, including volume and a
comb- ﬁ lter feedback coefﬁ cient, both crucial to

creating a balanced sound and for avoiding exces-
sive feedback. It is important to note that in this
piece the laptops are placed off to the side and
require no visual attention; all of the players’
attention is focused on their parts, the conductors
and the work of the soloists.

Scott Smallwood’s piece On the Floor (see Figures

15 y 16) uses the network conductor in a subtle
way. In this piece, players are completely indepen-
mella, playing a simple slot machine game until they
run out of “credits.” The sounds created are simply
a byproduct of each person’s game play. Sin embargo,
each player has the potential to win more credits at
any time, determined by the odds programmed into
the software machine. The conductor operates sur-
veillance on each player, monitoring the results of
their game. If at any time, a player seems to be win-
ning too much, or not enough, the conductor can
simply change the player’s odds. This way, the con-

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Computer Music Journal

Cifra 14. The three
“conductors” (Oscar
Bettison, Seth Cluett, y
Scott Smallwood) en un
rehearsal of Dan True-
man’s PLahara.

Cifra 15. Scott Small-
wood’s conductor interface
for On the Floor.

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ductor has some control over the length of the piece
(as well as the sonic character), because the piece
ends when everyone has lost all of their money.

alternates between detailed code changes and
sections in which players are encouraged to impro-
vise (ver figura 17).

Yet another conducting paradigm is used in Ge
Wang’s TBA, a large- scale group live- coding perfor-
mance in which players are divided into “squad-
rons” that follow instructions from a conducting
live coder. Directives are issued in the forms of both
code fragments (in the ChucK language) and sen-
tence fragments (in the English language). In keep-
ing with the tenets of live coding, these instructions
and code segments are projected for the audience to
follow along. Players write and edit code “on- el-
ﬂ y” to sculpt a collective sonic environment over
the course of the performance. “Rally points” are
preset throughout the code to aid the conductor in
directing and coordinating the ensemble. The piece

Game Pieces

Perhaps one of the more obvious areas of investiga-
tion in PLOrk are game pieces; it is difﬁ cult to resist
the idea of playing games with 15 networked
computers in the same space! Sin embargo, what is
particularly interesting about this idea is not so
much the games themselves but the shared “sound-
scape.” By design, most video games consist of two
categories of sounds: sound effects (sounds that
provide sonic feedback in the game, including laser
blasts, doors opening, jumping or running sounds,

Smallwood et al.

Cifra 16. Scott Small-
wood’s and Ge Wang’s
player interface screens for
On the Floor.

Cifra 17. Ge Wang’s TBA:
orchestral live coding.

Cifra 16

Cifra 17

Etcétera; and the background “soundscape,"
which is sometimes designed to create a sense of
lugar (the sound of wind, a distant storm, insects
chirping in the forest, mechanical drones, etc.) y
at other times is simply some kind of composed
música, such as a melodic or rhythmic loop, a song,
or even an orchestrated soundtrack. Several game
pieces have been created for PLOrk that investigate
the musical and performative possibilities within
this framework.

The ﬁ rst of such pieces conceived for PLOrk is
Scott Smallwood’s On the Floor, which attempts to

recreate the sound environment of an Atlantic City
casino. As mentioned previously, this piece consists
de 15 virtual slot machines, written in ChucK, con
a visual face written in the Audicle (Wang and Cook
2004) by Ge Wang. Each player receives 30 “credits”
at the outset and can bet 1–3 credits each turn. Si
more credits are bet, more credits can be won, pero
obviously the player can run out of credits faster.
The program generates the normal slot- machine
sounds each turn, but when the player reaches a
certain credit threshold (nine credits left), el
sounds change, and instead of hearing a randomized

Computer Music Journal

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arpeggio, the player hears a looped recording of an
actual casino “soundscape,” which is randomly
chosen from a set of 16 sound ﬁ les. Each of these
sound ﬁ les reﬂ ect a different moment in time and
lugar, extracted from longer recordings made in the
same casino on the same evening by the composer.
Eventualmente, everyone loses, and each player is left
with a drone, a random member of a C- major triad,
so that the piece subsides into an organ- como C- major
triad. De este modo, the length of this piece is determined
by the loss of credits by all 15 members of the
ensemble.

As mentioned earlier, the conductor’s role is to
monitor the players’ winnings, adjusting the odds to
ensure that everyone loses and the piece will end.
The players’ responsibility in this piece, in terms of
their actions, is not to be musicians or to reﬂ ect any
kind of expressivity, but simply to play the game.
They are encouraged to show excitement if they
win, or frustration if they lose, and each player
simply walks off the stage once they have run out of
credits. But as a group, we make some decisions
together ahead of time about the presentation, el
relative volume level of the machines, and how to
begin and end. So, this piece is an example of a kind
of anti- orchestra piece, because it does not present
musicians with an instrument that they must
master, nor are the musicians members of an en-
semble with which they must blend and interact.
En cambio, it is a sound composition based on a group
of people performing the same individual activities,
like a typing pool, or a group of snowmobilers driv-
ing through the woods.

Another game piece is Mr. Smallwood’s The
Future of Fun (1983)!, which also features individ-
ual game play, but in this case everyone plays a
different game. Using Multiple Arcade Machine
Emulator (MAME) software, the performers play
actual games from the early 1980s arcade- game era.
Each player picks a game from a collection, como
Pac- Man, Defender, and Donkey Kong, y ellos
simply play the game for a speciﬁ ed amount of
tiempo. In some ways this is a nostalgic composition:
it is a recreation of a lost sound world. A pesar de
there was no apparent attempt among video arcade
game designers to create sound worlds that were
congruent with each other in the way that casino

games are, there was nevertheless a very distinct
“soundscape” in the early video arcade: in particu-
lar, rather than using samples, these games relied on
relatively low- resolution synthetic sounds owing to
limitations of computing power. La resultante
sound world is mostly lost to us today, because it is
unlikely that one could ﬁ nd dozens of these vintage
game machines in the same room together not also
accompanied by the arcade games of today. De hecho,
most of these games have disappeared entirely ex-
cept in isolated places. For those who were children
at the time, this recreation of a lost sound world
tends to bring back a lot of nostalgic joy, excite-
mento, and adrenaline; for those who were parents at
el tiempo, this piece is probably annoying, a lo mejor!

The ﬁ nal game piece for PLOrk was developed by

Ge Wang and Scott Smallwood, called ChucK
ChucK Rocket (ver figura 18). Based upon Sega’s Chu
Chu Rocket! (see en.wikipedia.org / wiki / ChuChu_
Rocket!), the piece is written in ChucK with a
visual interface in the Audicle. In the game, mice
are released onto a large grid. Each player has a piece
of this grid and is able to cause the running mice to
change direction by placing arrows in their path;
they are also able to place objects in their path that
make sound when the mice run over them. De este modo, a
player can create a kind of instrument with their
piece of the grid, trapping groups of mice into loops
that contain sound objects of their choosing. Ellos
can also send mice to and receive mice from their
neighbors through network portals; thus the mice
are shared throughout the entire group.

From a composer- conductor standpoint, el

central challenge of this piece is to create a shared,
improvised composition based upon the individual
actions of the players. So, unlike the previous pieces
mentioned herein, this piece has more in common
with pieces such as John Zorn’s Cobra, in the sense
that the players are interacting with each other
through game actions but also are asked to be mind-
ful of their sound and the overall texture of the
música. Señor. Wang and Mr. Smallwood developed a
sound world that includes both sound effects
triggered by mice running over the objects placed in
their path, as well as with background sounds that
are omnipresent but change based on the density of
mice on the screen and the speed that they are trav-

Smallwood et al.

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Cifra 18. ChucK ChucK
Rocket player interface.
The mice move at a pace
determined by the “con-
ductor” computer. Arrows
redirect the mice. Sounds
are generated when the

mice move over sound
objects. Portals to neigh-
bor machines (both left
and right neighbors) allow
mice to depart and arrive.
(The ensemble is arranged
in a doubly linked list.)

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eling throughout the shared virtual space. A con-
ductor machine provides for the ability to change
the overall speed of play and the density of mice in
the game. More mice can be added to any individu-
al’s part of the grid, and any individual can divert
his or her mice to their neighbor by directing the
mice to run into their network portals.

Because it is possible for players to create their
own motives and patterns by setting up traps for
individual mice (two arrows pointing at each other,
causing mice to run back and forth over objects
placed in their path, Por ejemplo), this piece pro-
vides for some interesting possibilities. Por ejemplo,
it is possible for the composer- conductor to direct
the players to create a certain type of pattern on
their screen, such as a four- por- four loop of running
mice, by giving a speciﬁ c cue. Players can also
thwart each other’s attempts to make structures by
sending mice onto each other’s screens, disrupting
the ﬂ ow of activity in that part of the space.

Future Directions

In the coming years, we plan to ask many compos-
ers to work with PLOrk, both from Princeton and
elsewhere. The pieces described here demonstrate a
wide range of technical and aesthetic approaches
(and we plan to continue performing these pieces
for years to come), but it seems that we are just
scratching the surface. The technical issues we
hope to address include (1) development of a stan-
dardized set of interface and networking tools for
composers to use in Max / MSP, ChucK, and Super-
Collider (some of these resources have recently
been made available through the Small Musically
Expressive Laptop Toolkit—SMELT—available for
download at smelt.cs.princeton.edu and described
by Fiebrink, Wang, and Cook 2007); (2) establish-
ment of a more robust, reliable network, with mini-
mal packet drops and no “hiccups”; (3) adquisición
of more off- el- shelf interface devices, and develop-

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Computer Music Journal

ment of more idiosyncratic sensor- based interfaces;
(4) construction of ﬂ ight cases for speakers and racks
to facilitate travel; (5) development of a yet more
portable and easier- a- colocar- up instrument design; y
(6) establishment of a permanent rehearsal and
laboratory space, so the ensemble can remain set
up at all times for development and rehearsal.

In future pieces, we hope to explore more of the
possibilities afforded by networking both data and
audio. (We recently designed and had fabricated a
set of rack- mount panels for the rear of the PLOrk
equipment racks to facilitate access to the audio
interface.) weinberg (2005) has developed a compel-
ling taxonomy of possible network structures that
should serve as a good model. We also hope that
some future pieces will develop truly unusual and
challenging physical interfaces—interfaces that
demand practice and force the players to “break a
sweat.” It is also clear that there are many new
juego- piece possibilities that are worth pursuing.
Finalmente, we plan to begin carefully integrating video
projection into our performance practice as each
piece demands. Many of possibilities exist here,
depending on budgets and setup complications. Para
ejemplo, multiple machines could deal with projec-
tions in separate locations, or they could share
computational burdens required by a complicated
single- channel projection. We have even discussed
using the screens of the laptops themselves as a
kind of visual canvas that could be used for pieces
that do not require that the screens to give visual
cues to the performers.

As with any large ensemble, ﬁ nding adequate
rehearsal time is challenging. Though primarily a
student ensemble, these issues remain, and we hope
to establish a more standard and generous rehearsal
schedule in the future so that we have not only the
time to learn the pieces, but also the opportunity to
play the pieces enough for them to really come to
vida. Unlike the conventional orchestra, donde el
performance practice is largely standardized, nosotros
require more time for experimentation to determine
how best to proceed for each piece. And though
currently a student ensemble, we hope to establish
some continuity with our newly developing perfor-
mance practice so that we do not have to “reinvent
the wheel” each year and so we can reach higher

levels of skill and familiarity. We also plan to
develop smaller pieces (chamber works, but in the
PLOrk mold) for professional musicians so we have
the opportunity to see and hear how experienced
musicians handle and perceive these new instru-
ments and approaches.

This ﬁ rst two years have been focused on the
creation of new works and the performances of
these works. In the coming years, we plan to more
fully document these pieces and all new pieces that
are created, and release working versions of the
software. (Such documentation is no small under-
taking.) The technical design of the ensemble is
fully described online, and this description will also
be continually be updated, offering a resource for
those who wish to begin their own ensembles. simí-
mucho, we hope to have constantly revised versions of
PLOrk compositions available online so that others
can not only hear the music that has been made, pero
also see how it has been implemented and take
whatever is useful to them. PLOrk will remain
whenever possible an “open- source” compositional
and technical community.

Referencias

Dunne, B. J., y r. GRAMO. Jahn. 2005. “Consciousness, Infor-
formación, and Living Systems.” Cellular and Molecular
Biología 51:703–714.

Fiebrink, r., GRAMO. Wang, y P. Cocinar. 2007. “Don’t Forget

the Laptop: Using Native Input Capabilities for Expres-
sive Musical Control.” Proceedings of the 2007 Conferir-
ence on New Interfaces for Musical Expression. Nuevo
york: NIME, páginas. 164–167.

Hansen, GRAMO. PAG., j. Utts, y B. Markwick. 1991. “Statisti-

cal and Methodological Problems of the PEAR Remote
Viewing Experiments.” Proceedings of Presented Pa-
pers: The Parapsychological Association 34th Annual
Convention. Petaluma, California: Parapsychological
Asociación, páginas. 189–204.

Lansky, PAG. 1989. “Compositional Applications of Linear
Predictive Coding.” In M. V. Mathews and J. Pierce,
eds. Current Directions in Computer Music Research.
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McCartney, j. 2002. “Rethinking the Computer Music
Idioma: SuperCollider.” Computer Music Journal
26(4):61–68.

Smallwood et al.

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ment.” Computer Music Journal 15(3):41–49.
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Sommerich, C. METRO., et al. 2002. “Effects of Notebook

Computer Conﬁ guration and Task on User Biomechan-
circuitos integrados, Productividad, and Comfort.” International Journal
of Industrial Ergonomics 30(1):7–31.

San Francisco, California: International Computer
Music Association, páginas. 219–226.

Wang, GRAMO. y P. Cocinar. 2004. “The Audicle: A Context-
Sensitive, On- el- Fly Audio Programming Environ /
Mentality.” Proceedings of the 2004 Internacional
Computer Music Conference. San Francisco, Cali-
fornia: International Computer Music Association,
páginas. 256–263.

Wang, GRAMO., et al. 2008. “The Laptop Orchestra as Class-

Trueman, D. 2007. “Why a Laptop Orchestra?” Organised

room.” Computer Music Journal 32(1):26–37.

Sound 12(2):171–179.

Wang, GRAMO., y P. Cocinar. 2003. “ChucK: A Concurrent, On-
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Computer Music Journal

Apéndice A: Listing of PLOrk Compositions to
Date

Composer

Título

Bahn, Curtis, and Tomie Hahn
collins, Nicolas
Cocinar, Perry
Cocinar, Perry, and Ge Wang

Douthitt, Christopher

En / Still
Waggledance
Take it for Granite
(Incluso) Más / No- Speciﬁ c
Gamelan Taiko Fusion
Piece for Plucked Strings
and Bells

Año

2006
2007
2006
2005

2006

Elmegreen, Scott, and John Fontein PLOrking in the Prairie
Elmegreen, Scott, and John Fontein PLOrkit!
Fiebrink, rebeca, and Ge Wang
Fiebrink, rebeca, Ge Wang,
and Perry Cook
Garton, Brad
Hege, Anne
Hege, Anne

Idle Swamp
Gray Spectral
Maybe the Monolith will

PLOrk Beat Science
Joy of Chant

just calm down

Hollander, Laurie
Lansky, Pablo

Mazarriello, Andrea
Michel, Nathan
Oliveros, Pauline, and Zevin Polzin Murphy Mixup: Murphy

Fingerplay 12
A Guy Walks into a
Modal Bar
10:01
Mumble

Intends
Sound Scatter

2006
2006
2007

2006
2006

2006
2006
2006

2006

2007
2007
2006–2007
2006

15
15
2
15 + C

Players Software

Interface(s)

15 + c max
máximo
15
ck
12 + C
ck
15 + C

Carolina del Sur

ck
ck
ck
ck

20 + c max
5
1

ck
ck

12
5

ck
Carolina del Sur

1
15 + c max
15 + c max

l, A
l
l
l, a

l, k

l
l, j
l, t, a
l, j

l
l, v
l, v

l
l, k

l, a
l

Oliveros, Pauline, Seth Cluett,
and Scott Smallwood
Pluta, Samuel

Salazar, Spencer
Smallwood, Scott
Smallwood, Scott
Smallwood, Scott
Smallwood, Scott
Tignor, Christopher
Tormey, alan
Trueman, Dan
Trueman, Dan
Trueman, Dan
Trueman, Dan
Wang, Ge
Wang, Ge
Wang, Ge
Wang, Ge, and Scott Smallwood
Joven, Samson

Favorite Things or Titre fran- 2007
çais avec un petit Mondrian
Cirrus Pattern
A breeze brings . . .
Fabrics
On the Floor
The Future of Fun (1983)!
Orbits (5)
. . . to shining sea
Plahara
The PLOrk Chorale
The PLOrk Drones
The PLOrk Tree
CliX
Crystalis
TBA
ChucK ChucK Rocket
Mirror Dance