DVD Program Notes
Part One: Thor Magnusson, Alex
McLean, Nick Collins, Curators
Curators’ Note
[Anmerkung der Redaktion: The curators attempted
to write their Note in a collaborative,
improvisatory fashion reminiscent
of live coding, and have left the
document open for further interaction
from readers. See the following URL:
https://docs.google.com/document/d/
1ESzQyd9vdBuKgzdukFNhfAAnGEg
LPgLlCe Mw8zf1Uw/edit?hl=en GB
&authkey=CM7zg90L&pli=1.]
Alex McLean is a researcher in the
area of programming languages for
the arts, writing his PhD within the
Intelligent Sound and Music Systems
group at Goldsmiths College, and also
working within the OAK group, Uni-
versity of Sheffield. He is one-third of
the live-coding ambient-gabba-skiffle
band Slub, who have been making
people dance to their algorithms
across Europe since 2001. Alex is jan-
itor of many organizations including
TOPLAP, POTAC, dorkbotsheffield,
and the placard headphone festival.
Further details are found on his Web
site (yaxu.org).
Thor Magnusson is a musician/
writer/programmer working in the
fields of music and generative art. His
PhD from the University of Sussex
focused on computer music interfaces
from the perspective of philosophy
of technology, phenomenology, Und
cognitive science. He is a senior lec-
turer in the School of Art and Media
at the University of Brighton. Thor
is a co-founder and member of the
ixi audio collective. With ixi he has
written a variety of musical software
and given workshops and talks at
key institutions across Europe on the
design and creation of digital musical
instruments and sound installations.
Further details are found on his Web
site (www.ixi-audio.net).
Click Nilson is a Swedish avant
garde codisician and code-jockey.
He has explored the live coding
of human performers since such
early self-modifiying algorithmic text
pieces as An Instructional Game
for One to Many Musicians (1975).
He is now actively involved with
Testing the Oxymoronic Potency of
Language Articulation Programmes
(TOPLAP), after being in the right
bar (in Hamburg) at the right time (2
BIN, 15 Februar 2004). He previously
curated for Leonardo Music Journal
and the Swedish Journal of Berlin Hot
Drink Outlets.
1. Overtone—Sam Aaron
In this video Sam gives a fast-paced
introduction to a number of key
live-programming techniques such
as triggering instruments, scheduling
future events, and synthesizer design.
Endlich, the viewer is shown how
a simple musical sequence may be
composed and then converted into
an intricate phase `a la Steve Reich.
The main body of the video was
recorded in one take and features
an Emacs buffer for editing text and
communicating with Overtone, ein
expressive Clojure front-end to Super-
Collider. Clojure is a state-of-the-art
functional Lisp dialect emphasizing
immutability and concurrency.
Sam Aaron (siehe Abbildung 1) is a re-
searcher, software architect, and live
programmer with a deep fascination
surrounding the notion of com-
municative programming. He sees
programming as a communication
channel for descriptions of formal-
ized processes of any kind, be it a
business process, a compiler strategy,
or even a musical composition. His
previous research focused on the de-
sign of domain-specific languages in
order to allow domain concepts to be
communicated and transposed
Figur 1. Sam Aaron.
more effectively and efficiently. Er
has successfully applied these ideas
and techniques in both industry
and academia. Currently, Sam
leads Improcess, a collaborative
research project hosted by the
Crucible Network for Research
in Interdisciplinary Design at the
University of Cambridge. Der
mission of the project is to explore
the combination of powerful sound
synthesis techniques with tactile
and linguistic user interfaces to build
new forms of musical device with a
high capacity for improvisation.
2. blind date—Pd∼graz
blind date is an audiovisual perfor-
mance that aims at an artistic exten-
sion of common patterns in computer
programming. Instead of featuring
isolated programmers, several artists
work concurrently on a single pro-
Gramm (a Pure Data, or PD, patch),
with all participants operating their
own physical keyboard, mouse, Und
monitor. In earlier performances,
these devices were all controlling the
same logical interface. The players
therefore had to coordinate their
programming efforts at an immediate
DVD Program Notes
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Figur 2. Pd∼graz.
ate/destroy (2003) and a twelve-hour
audiovisual live improvisation at
the Lange Nacht der Musik (2003),
both at the ESC Gallery in Graz.
In 2004, the collective organized
and hosted the First International
Pd∼Convention in Graz, with sup-
port from the ESC Gallery, the Mur.at
net art initiative, the Institute of
Electronic Music and Acoustics, Und
the Medienkunstlabor at the Kun-
sthaus Graz. In the aftermath of this
Ereignis, Pd∼graz was formally founded
together with its publishing body,
the Pd∼ label. The first release was
a DVD with artworks presented at
the Convention (release 0.1, 2005).
The book bang: Pure Data (ISBN
978-3-936000-37-5) was published in
2006 in collaboration with Wolke
Verlag. It includes articles by de-
velopers, artists, and theorists who
had participated in the Convention.
Pd∼graz conducts workshops on
Pure Data on a regular basis, solch
as at the Film and TV School of
the Academy for Performing Arts in
Prague (2006), the CC in Graz (2007),
and the EarZoom Festival in Ljubl-
jana, Slovenia (2009). In den vergangenen Jahren,
the collective has performed its au-
diovisual group improvisations blind
date and rec.wie.m on multiple occa-
sions in Austria, Slovenia, Deutschland,
the Czech Republic, the UK, Und
Kanada.
People who have been associated
with Pd∼graz include (in alphabet-
ical order): Lukas Gruber, Ypatios
Grigoriadis, Reni Hofm ¨uller, Florian
Hollerweger, Georg Holzmann, Karin
Koschell, Manuela Meier, Thomas
Musil, Markus Noisternig, Renate
Oblak, Michael Pinter, Peter Plessas,
Nicole Pruckermayr, Winfried Ritsch,
Romana Rust, Uwe Vollmann, Franz
Xaver, Ales Zemene, Fr ¨ank Zimmer,
and IOhannes m zm ¨olnig. Jedoch,
the line-up of actual participants
varies from occasion to occasion.
IOhannes m zm ¨olnig and Florian
Ebene, because only one person could
control the patch at any given point
in time. In later performances, solch
as the one documented in the present
Video, IOhannes m zm ¨olnig’s Peer
Data proxy provided each player with
an independent logical interface. Nev-
ertheless, the individual performers
still need to participate in a common
effort in order to produce a (tech-
nically and musically) functioning
patch. Rather than merely represent-
ing a technical tool for generating
Musik, the patch also becomes the
primary means of communication
between the players.
The performers start with a blank
canvas (d.h., an empty patch) and grad-
ually build up and modify a running
program in the tradition of “live cod-
ing.” Besides the resulting audio (Und
sometimes also video), the patches
themselves are also projected into
the performance environment. Das
offers the audience an insight into
the programming and communica-
tion processes that occur among the
players during the performance.
blind date has so far been pre-
sented at the following occasions:
EarZoom Festival, Ljubljana, Slovenia
(2009); International Computer Mu-
sic Conference, Belfast, Vereinigtes Königreich (2008,
shown in the video); Second Inter-
national Pd∼Convention, Montreal,
Kanada (2007); Roxy/NoD gallery,
Prague, Czech Republic (2006);
Netart Community Congress, Graz,
Österreich (2005); and the Musikpro-
tokoll Festival, Graz, Österreich (2005).
The media art collective Pd∼graz
(siehe Abbildung 2) was founded in Graz,
Österreich, In 2005 and serves as an
initiative for the organization of per-
formances, Installationen, workshops,
and publications around the Pure
Data programming language. Pd∼graz
grew out of the Pd Stammtisch, A
diverse group of independent artists
and academic researchers in Graz,
who have shared their fascination
for Pure Data in regular meetings
seit 2003. This soon resulted in
a number of group activities, solch
as the audiovisual installation cre-
120
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Figur 3. Andrew R. Braun.
Figur 4. Samuel Freeman.
Hollerweger are the two players in
Die 2008 performance of blind date
at the International Computer Music
Conference in Belfast, which is shown
in the video on the present DVD.
3. King’s Anatomy—Andrew R.
Braun
This live coding performance was
performed at the Live Coding @ The
Anatomy Museum concert at Kings
College London in January 2010. Es
demonstrates the emergent combina-
tion of simultaneous computational
processes that have distilled through
research in computational musicol-
Ogy, and been published by the author
in various peer-reviewed publica-
tions over several years. In this work,
Andrew battles with the processes
of succinct music representation as
he performs with the Impromptu
live coding environment. He deploys
probability, recursion, and graph
structures in an integrated offensive
with his allies in music theory and
acoustics in an improvised struggle
with time and aesthetics. This and
other live coding performances are a
vehicle for experimentation of algo-
rithmic and procedural processes and
an ongoing struggle for computational
expression of music.
Andrew R. Braun (siehe Abbildung 3) is an
active computational artist working
in music and visual domains. Er
is Professor of Digital Arts at the
Queensland Conservatorium of Mu-
sic, in Brisbane, Australia, where his
work explores the aesthetics of pro-
cess and often involves programming
of software as part of the creative
Verfahren. In addition to a history of
computer-assisted composition and
rendered animations Brown has,
in recent years, focused on real-
time art works using generative
processes and musical live-coding
where the software to generate a
be queried and set by text commands
as well as being manipulable via
graphic user interface (GUI) Objekte.
This system is being developed as
part of my doctoral research which
questions the ways in which sound
is represented visually in computer
music software; how do the ways
in which elements of sound are
represented affect the ways we choose
to manipulate and organize those
elements as music? As a composer
the emphasis of my work is upon the
aesthetics of the software in use and
the musics one may produce with it.
Samuel Freeman (siehe Abbildung 4) makes
things to make noise with, and then
makes noises with them. These things
are made both inside computers,
where interactive systems are pro-
grammed mostly in Max/MSP/Jitter,
and in the more physical realm,
where electroacoustic contraptions
are hacked together using recycled/
recontextualized components. Mit
an experimental approach to perfor-
mance practice, Freeman regularly
appears with Inclusive Improv, von
which he is co-founder, and also plays
laptop in HELOpg ensemble. Freeman
is currently working on a PhD at the
University of Huddersfield under the
supervision of Michael Clarke and
Monty Adkins, supported by the Arts
and Humanities Research Council.
His work is being documented on his
Webseite (sdfphd.net).
work is written as part of the perfor-
Mance. He has performed live coding
around Australia and internationally,
including in London, Copenhagen,
and Boston. His digital artwork has
been shown in galleries in Australia
and China.
sdfsys2min—Samuel
4.
Freeman
The video presented here demon-
strates an alpha build of sdf.sys,
which is a programmable soundmak-
ing software system being developed
within Max/MSP/Jitter. There is
a basic text editor for script-based
interaction; text is used both by
the user to instruct the system and
by the system to inform the user.
The scripting syntax allows several
types of command. Erste, es gibt
geometry-based commands for spec-
ifying, and drawing with, points on
the plane. There are also commands
that manipulate digital signal pro-
Abschließen (DSP) abstractions within
the system. These abstractions ei-
ther write to or read from Jitter
matrices using MSP signals. Param-
eters of the DSP abstractions can
DVD Program Notes
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Figur 5. Graham Coleman.
Figur 6. Evan Hanson.
Figur 7. Mark Havryliv.
5. Short Variations on a
Quartet Theme from
Ravel—Graham Coleman
Adapting repertoire offers one pos-
sibility for interaction between live
coding and traditional music genres.
This is an attempt to riff on a classical
music fragment that has long buried
itself in my musical consciousness.
Presented is a first glance at what
hopefully will grow and evolve.
Two short phases defined the
preparation for this piece. Erste, Re-
alizing the original score fragment
in SuperCollider (SC). Zweite, reac-
quainting with the pattern and syn-
thesis systems in SC to allow for a
basic improvisation. A minuscule
hack was introduced for tracking
stream player references, sowie
some synonyms for patterns.
Thanks to Alex, Thor, and Nick
for providing an excuse to realize
Das. Much thanks to Stefan Kersten
as well as members of SC-users for
patient guidance in SC. Apologies to
Ravel.
Graham Coleman (siehe Abbildung 5)
occasionally live-codes cheesy coun-
terpoint in ChucK and SuperCollider.
Zusätzlich, he has presented tools for
automatic and non-automatic sample
composition at the ICMC and DAFx
conferences. He is from Athens,
Georgia, but is currently pursuing
a PhD at the Music Technology
Group of Pompeu Fabra University,
Barcelona.
6. Life—Evan Hanson
This is a small demonstration of an
idea I’ve explored recently: The con-
trol of sound by unrelated systems.
By mapping a logical series of musical
tones onto a simple but unpredictable
automaton (in this case one of the
most well-known, Conway’s Game of
Life), one can produce music that is
at once structured and chaotic.
Evan Hanson (siehe Abbildung 6) is a recent
graduate of the University of Wis-
consin, Madison, where he currently
works as a computer programmer.
His musical pursuits are, like much
of his code, driven by curiosity and a
desire to create things that are both
simple and compelling.
7. The Waiting Room—Mark
Havryliv and Josh Mei-Ling
Dubrau
This video represents a distillation of
a networked live performance based
on John Tranter’s poem “The Waiting
Room.” This poem takes the form of a
pantoum, an older Malaysian style of
variable length consisting of a pattern
of interwoven quatrains. It has a non-
rhyming but very strict scheme in
which the second and fourth lines of
each stanza are replicated as the first
and third in the stanza following.
Performance involves one or more
computers running our software,
P[A]ra[pra]xis, which is a front end for
SuperCollider and a set of algorithms
that substitute input text with other
Wörter. These algorithms play on
the notion of the parapraxis, oder
Freudian slip, and employ a set of
user-defined grammatical rules to
govern phonemic, phonetic, Und
lexical substitutions.
As we type, text inputs and ma-
nipulations are categorized and re-
ported to a sound-server in Super-
Collider, which is programmed to
route key/text/word/grammatical/
substitution events and their data
to synthesis and algorithmic control
inputs. This results in a neat range
of abstractions, flirting with classical
live coding.
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Figur 8. Josh Mei-Ling Dubrau.
Figur 9. Scott Hewitt.
Figur 10. IOhannes m zm ¨olnig.
more of this once he completes his
doctoral project, the Haptic Carillon.
8. Chuck CMJ Quarks—Scott
Hewitt
Chuck CMJ Quarks is the title of this
screen capture of Scott’s daily per-
formance practice. Using just a basic
single function with a built-in control
loop, the single impulse is reverber-
ated and then spread across the four
wide channels of the typical 5.1 DVD
setup. The recording aims to illus-
trate how rich a texture can be built
by using and reusing just a simple
section of code, the use of multichan-
nel ChucK, and finally, the power of
the command line for performance.
Scott Hewitt (siehe Abbildung 9) is a PhD
candidate at Huddersfield University
and the Director of the Hudders-
field Experimental Laptop Orchestra
(HELO). He also curates a Web site on
live coding (www.livecoding.co.uk).
9. Do sinusoids dream of
electr(An)ic sweeps—IOhannes m
zm ¨olnig
Do sinusoids dream of electr(An)ic
sweeps is a live-coding performance
done in Pure Data. It relies heav-
ily on self-modifying PD patches
that interact in an agent-like fash-
Ion. The acoustic output is some-
what limited to sine waves. Der
The substitution engine is a
weakly typed, late-binding, real-
time interpreter; any typed key calls
an overloaded function whose param-
eters are determined by surrounding
keys, Wörter, grammatical rules, Und
substitution rules, which gives the
source code the ability to alter itself.
This makes it an extremely diffi-
cult live-coding language for those
wanting precise control over sonic
output; it does, Jedoch, save on
wear-and-tear of parenthesis keys.
Josh Mei-Ling Dubrau (B. 1975) (sehen
Figur 8) is a poet and doctoral student
at the University of New South Wales,
Australia. Her thesis investigates the
potential of psychoanalytic theory
as a framework for the reading of
modern and avant-garde poetry, Und
her creative work explores the use
of multiple systems of delivering
meaning within the poem.
Mark Havryliv (B. 1981) (siehe Abbildung 7)
is a composer and doctoral student
at the University of Wollongong,
Australia. He is especially interested
in the musical possibilities of
integrating real-time sonification
with other disciplines, like game
design and creative writing. Er
looks forward to doing much
visual output is a PD patch going
crazy.
IOhannes m zm ¨olnig (siehe Abbildung 10)
is a long-time user of Pure Data. Seit
2003 he uses his chosen environment
in live coding performances, mainly
generating sine waves.
“I always preferred building se-
quencers to building sequences.”
10. Quoth—Craig Latta
Quoth is a dynamic interactive fiction
system I wrote as an experiment in
executable natural language. I use it
for musical live coding, to make those
performances more accessible to au-
diences. Instead of using a typical pro-
gramming language and development
Umfeld, each of which tend to
appear cryptic to the uninitiated, I use
English in the simple conversational
format of the “text adventure.”
Writing code live for an audience
presents serious challenges. Der
most important is interactivity; ICH
need to get results quickly. In einem
musical performance, continuity is
also crucial. Because I work with
long-lived musical structures and
DVD Program Notes
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Figur 11. Craig Latta.
Figur 12. Julie Dassaud (photograph
by Andreas Maria Jacobs).
Figur 13. Eliad Wagner (photograph
by Olivia Wagner).
processes, I need to change the system
as it runs. The Squeak Smalltalk
system underlying Quoth provides
these features, and the language is
effectively a superset of English.
This video gives a short demon-
stration of Quoth’s conversational
interface. Several tactics for in-
creasing interaction speed appear,
including anthropomorphization and
phrase completion. The system also
attempts to create a more readable
transcript of past actions by rephras-
ing what the performer types. Der
musical objects conversing with the
performer are simple MIDI note
events and their component parts.
For more information about
Quoth, please visit the project Web
site (netjam.org/quoth).
Craig Latta (siehe Abbildung 11) studied
music and computer science at the
Universität von Kalifornien, Berkeley. Er
discovered Smalltalk programming
at the Center for New Music and
Audio Technologies, and was inspired
by the musical implications of its
improvisational development style. A
composer and research computer sci-
entist, he is active in the improvised
music communities of San Francisco
and Amsterdam.
11. Lemuriformes
(excerpts)—lemuriformes (Julie
Dassaud, Eliad Wagner, Roel van
Dooen, Laurens van der Wee)
lemuriformes is a collaborative im-
provisational performance project
in which live coding, painting, Und
electronic music blend together in
one experience. Many issues are ad-
dressed in the process, such as the
role of the graphical representation
of code in live coding performances,
live coding as a means of sound trans-
Formation (rather than synthesis),
human and machine involvement
levels in electronic music, and live
coding in collaborative performances.
The main reason to start this
unusual cooperation was to share a
positive and playful experience in
which the personal qualities of the
collaborators have their roles defined
on the fly. From it we have learned
that it definitely creates an interesting
combination of crosshatched and
intersecting auditory and visual
palettes, which we will continue to
explore.
lemuriformes includes: Julie Das-
saud, ink; Eliad Wagner, synthesizer;
Roel van Doorn, circuits; Laurens van
der Wee, coding.
Julie Dassaud (siehe Abbildung 12) ist ein
French visual artist, based in Ams-
terdam, who is involved with vari-
ous solo and collaborative projects,
wherein she explores in particular
the relevancy and possibilities of
drawing in our contemporary digital
Alter. In diesem Kontext, she exhibits,
zum Beispiel, with Img-src, a col-
lective that confuses the viewer’s
senses by producing analog work
that looks digital and the other way
around. Her live ink-painting contri-
bution to lemuriformes is her first
performing appearance. Besides this,
Julie is active as artistic director
of the Kulter art space and of the
Notations platform for alternative
music notations (www.julisso.org/
and www.notations.nl).
Eliad Wagner (siehe Abbildung 13) is a mu-
sician, Komponist, and programmer.
Born in Israel and currently based in
Utrecht, Die Niederlande, he holds
a Bachelors degree in physics and
is completing his Master of Music
degree at the Music Technology De-
partment of the Utrecht School of the
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Figur 14. Roel van Doorn
(photograph by Olivia Wagner).
Figur 15. Laurens van der Wee (pho-
tograph by Evelien van Zonneveld).
Figur 16. Benoˆıt and the
Mandelbrots.
Arts. He develops his own approach
to electronic sound, mainly based on
analog and modular synthesizers and
computer programming. His work has
been published by Metropolis records
(USA), Digital Kranky (Deutschland),
C-sides (Deutschland) and concrete
plastic (Vereinigtes Königreich). He is co-founder of
the electronica label ±g6pd records
(Israel) (eliadwagner.wordpress.com).
Roel van Doorn (siehe Abbildung 14) Ist
a multimedia artist living in Rot-
terdam. At first, his works were
focused on sound, but recently this
has slowly shifted to audiovisual
projects in which he is involved in
both the sonic and visual aspects
of performances. For Vanilla Riot
he programs interactive visual soft-
ware, and improvises with his visual
software as a fourth member of the
Gruppe. Hier entlang, sound and visuals
are intertwined in a meaningful way.
For his graduation project he designed
and produced several sound installa-
tions that created sound using solar
and wind power that were exhibited
during the Duizel festival in Rot-
terdam in 2009 (www.roelvandoorn
.com).
Laurens van der Wee (siehe Abbildung 15)
is a sonic designer, Komponist, Und
programmer from The Nether-
landet, currently living in Vilnius,
Lithuania. In June 2011 he will ob-
tain his Master of Music degree
at the Music Technology Depart-
ment of the Utrecht School of
the Arts. Laurens focuses on au-
tonomous works on the edge of
composition and performance, als
well as usual and less usual col-
laborations, ranging from modern
dance to live coding improvisation
(lemuriformes). His work has been
presented in Hong Kong, Kanada,
USA, Portugal, Spanien, and several
andere Länder, at occasions such
as ICMC, SMC, and the Hong Kong
International Dance Symposium
(www.laurensvanderwee.nl).
12. Bal des Ardents—Benoˆıt
and the Mandelbrots
Bal des Ardents was performed at the
Studiokonzert of the University of
Music Karlsruhe at the ZKM Kubus
An 28 Januar 2011. The piece is
inspired by the 618th anniversary
of the Bal des Ardents [Ball of the
Burning Men]: In 1393 King Charles
VI of France threw a grand party
to celebrate the wedding of one of
the queen’s ladies-in-waiting. As a
fire broke out, four of his friends
were killed. After this incident the
King, who had been suffering from
mental health issues all his life, went
irrevocably mad. In its original length
(16 min), the piece starts with the
simple development of a ternary
rhythm using the Dorian scale with
Pythagorean tuning. These decisions
were made just before the concert,
and were expanded through improvi-
sation. Some cues were planned to re-
flect the course of the historical event.
These cues and other spontaneous
directions are communicated by text
messages, Gesten, facial expressions,
and the musical flow itself. Die mu-
sical process is bound to the coding
Verfahren, which is performed live
using SuperCollider. The complexity
of the music increases with the
complexity of the code. The course
of this historical event is reflected
in the transition from melodies and
Rhythmen, inspired by early music, Zu
noise and more abstract sounds. Der
6-minute excerpt on this DVD starts
at 5’44” of the original recording.
Benoˆıt and the Mandelbrots (sehen
Figur 16) was formed in late 2009 als
a laptop band at the ComputerStudio
of the University of Music Karlsruhe.
Matthias Schneiderbanger and Holger
Ballweg joined Patrick Borgeat and
Juan A. Romero, who were members
of the recently disbanded laptop
ensemble Grainface. All members
were students at the Institute for
Musicology and Music Informatics
at that time. This new constellation
focuses on live programming and
DVD Program Notes
125
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Figur 17. Davy Smith and Louis
McCallum.
Figur 18. No Copy Paste.
improvisation instead of using con-
trollers and pre-composing the music
for the performances. The band per-
forms frequently in the Karlsruhe
area in a wide variety of venues, aus
galleries and concert halls to cinemas
and bars.
The creative process of the band
is influenced by the respective events
and venues. Due to MandelClock, A
self-developed system based on OSC,
part of the open source BenoitLib,
the members are always beat-synced
and able to communicate with each
andere. The main intention of the band
is to show and establish the laptop
as a musical instrument by playing
a wide variety of musical genres,
including techno, noise, ambient,
and experimental avant-garde
(www.the-mandelbrots.de).
13. Show us Your
Screens—Davy Smith and Louis
McCallum
Show us Your Screens is a documen-
tary that provides an introduction to
live coding. Established practitioners
explain their motivations and meth-
ods alongside audience members who
have varying degrees of past exposure.
Davy Smith (siehe Abbildung 17) is a sculp-
tor by trade, using computer vision
techniques to explore interactivity in
his work.
Louis McCallum is a musician, Re-
searcher and rookie roboticist. Beide
are PhD students from Queen Mary’s
College, University of London, als
part of the Media and Arts Technol-
ogy program. Their current research
interests are in mixed reality and elec-
tromechanical sound, jeweils.
14. Fourfold—No Copy Paste
The sound is generated using the
PD real-time graphical dataflow pro-
gramming environment. The visuals
are created using Fluxus, welches ist
a rapid-prototyping, 3-D graphics,
and live-coding environment. Der
performance mixes live coding with
augmented reality (AR) technologies.
It starts up with blank slate live cod-
ing, then the programmed animation
is mixed with the camera feed using
AR markers. The location of the AR
markers control the sound param-
eters, their relative spatial location
determining how the various audio
modules are created and connected.
This type of dynamic system makes
real-time manual patching possible.
Fourfold was premiered at the Make
Art Festival 2009, Poitiers, Frankreich.
No Copy Paste (siehe Abbildung 18) ist ein
live-coding duo consisting of Agoston
Nagy and Gabor Papp. They mix
the expressive possibilities of pro-
gramming languages with computer
vision, mathematical models, Spiel
controllers, broken rhythms, and raw
synthesized sounds. Agoston works
with sound in traditional and experi-
mental ways, and Gabor is interested
in the aesthetic implications of soft-
ware. They create dynamic systems
for installations and build interfaces
for audiovisual live performances by
using and developing free and open
source tools (ncp.kibu.hu).
15. Less than a Minute for CMJ
(v4)—Miquel Parera Jaques
My main motivation is to reduce the
perceptual space to get the sound and
its processes as relevant as possible.
Miquel Parera Jaques (siehe Abbildung 19)
is based in Barcelona.
16. Untitled 12—Michele Pasin
Untitled 12 is an investigation of
how concise, recursive, and iterative
126
Computermusikjournal
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Figur 19. Miquel Parera Jaques.
Figur 20. Michele Pasin.
musical styles, ranging from mini-
malist electronica to progressive and
psychedelic rock. More recently, Er
discovered the world of algorithmic
Komposition, which presented him
with a chance to bring together two
of his passions, artificial intelligence
programming and music. Currently,
while at King’s College, he organizes
live-coding events and explores with
curiosity the musical affordances of
algorithmic abstractions.
17. Movement 1 – P ¨art—Alex
Ruthmann
Movement 1 – P ¨art (2010) is an
excerpt from a suite of live-coding
Stücke, Scratch Etudes, exploring the
live, interactive coding capabilities of
the Scratch visual programming en-
vironment (scratch.mit.edu). Taking
inspiration from the musical organi-
zation of Arvo P ¨art’s Stabat Mater and
a live coding performance by Andrew
Sorensen within his Impromptu soft-
ware, Movement 1 – P ¨art utilizes live
manipulation of visual code chunks,
blocks, lists, and variables through
mouse and keyboard control in a cre-
ative exploration of the Aeolian mode.
An additional minor pentatonic solo
layer was performed live over the
drone using an IchiBoard sensor in-
Schnittstelle (bit.ly/ichiboard) developed
by Mark Sherman in the Engaging
Computing Group at University of
Massachusetts, Lowell. The IchiBoard
enables melodic and rhythmic per-
formance of the solo line through a
button and linear potentiometer with
volume controlled by the z-axis of the
built-in accelerometer.
Scratch Etudes was conceived
as a set of live coding examples
to share with students enrolled in
an undergraduate general education
course, “Sound Thinking,” offered
at the University of Massachusetts,
Lowell, and for use in workshops with
procedures can be used to create in-
teresting musical results. Through
the use of algorithms that pick ran-
dom pitches within a deterministic
matrix of possibilities, the piece aims
at creating a crescendo of musical
structures that vary unexpectedly
but fundamentally remain within
a single, broad musical space. Das
creates a double effect on the audi-
enz. Tatsächlich, the listener/viewer is
almost subconsciously trying to bring
“cognitive” order to the composition
(z.B., by reading the code projected
on the screens and trying to figure
out the model behind the repeating
musical patterns), but is in the end
always and irremediably surprised by
the emergence of random sounds.
This recording of Untitled 12
was made in January 2010 at King’s
College Anatomy Museum (Lon-
Don). Untitled 12 was composed and
performed using Andrew Sorensen’s
Impromptu live-coding environment.
This is a freely available software for
Mac OS X that allows real-time cre-
ation of musical procedures using the
Scheme programming language. Eins
of the key features of Impromptu
is that it interfaces with Apple
Audio Units API, thus allowing
the employment of any third-party
virtual instrument in a composition.
Zum Beispiel, in Untitled 12 Pasin
is making use of U-He’s Zebra and
Native Instruments’s Battery audio
Einheiten.
Michele Pasin (siehe Abbildung 20) is an
Italian musician and digital creative
currently working as a research as-
sociate at London’s King’s College.
He graduated in Logic and Episte-
mology at the University of Venice.
In 2004 he moved to the UK and
did a PhD in artificial intelligence,
focusing on the application of knowl-
edge representation and semantic
technologies to humanistic domains.
Despite not being his primary aca-
demic subject, music has been a
constant research interest throughout
the years. He has a degree in music
theory from Trieste’s Conservatory
G. Tartini. He then extensively stud-
ied classical guitar for a number of
years before starting experimenting
with less traditional approaches and
DVD Program Notes
127
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Figur 21. Alex Ruthmann.
Figur 22. Ben Swift.
Extempore. Having initially stud-
ied both music and mathe-
matics, Ben is currently trying
to convince the Long Beards
at Australian National Univer-
sity that his “touchy-feely” re-
search constitutes real com-
puter science. Videos of Ben’s
live coding can be found at
vimeo.com/videos/benswift/.
19. Live Writing with the
Rumentarium—Andrea Valle
What does “to play a computer” mean?
Eigentlich, for me, playing has always
been mapping real-time gesture to
Klang, das ist, involving that specific
aspect of cognitive processes known
as muscle memory. In der Tat, Dort
is a peculiar tension between the
hypercognitivization of code writing
in live coding on one side, and the the
deep embodying of motor learning
involved in instrumental playing on
the other. But typing is also a specific
form of gestural action. As shown by
many studies in human–computer
interaction, it is possible to achieve
very fast typing, that can be compared
to percussion playing rates. Also, Die
idea at the basis of my approach
is to sonify the typing process by
defining different mapping strategies
from keys to sound. In this way,
typing gestures trigger sounds: es ist
wie, literally, playing a keyboard.
The best strategy in order to explore
muscle memory is not to use arbitrary
symbols, but to exploit the writing
process of ordinary languages (Zu
which we have been exposed since
childhood). In this way, much faster
rates can be reached. This also means
that the input data will not be neutral,
rather showing a specific structure,
depending on the sentence/word
structure but also on graphemic
patterns that are typical of each
Sprache (one can think, Zum Beispiel,
Mitte- and high-school students
in computational music. Originally
developed for use by children by the
Lifelong Kindergarten Group at the
MIT Media Lab, Scratch has proven
useful as a platform for engaging
children in creating computational
music and live coding in specific.
Alex Ruthmann (siehe Abbildung 21) is As-
sistant Professor of Music Education
at the University of Massachusetts,
Lowell, where he teaches coursework
at the intersection of music, comput-
ing, and learning. After graduating
from the Performing Arts Technology
program at the University of Michi-
gan, he pursued masters and doctoral
work in music education at Oakland
Universität. Currently, he is an active
collaborator on a National Science
Foundation–funded Performamatics
project linking computer science with
the fine, Design, and performing arts
and serves as a development consul-
tant on several music education tech-
nology projects with companies and
research teams in Australia, Norwegen,
and the USA. His research centers
around the design, creation, and study
of technologies and environments
that promote creative music-making,
learning, and teaching.
18.
Impish Grooves—Ben Swift
Building something meaningful
in three minutes of live coding
is a significant challenge. Impish
Grooves is an exploration in proce-
dural rhythm generation. By reusing
code fragments while tweaking pa-
rameters, it is possible to layer differ-
ent percussive parts over one another
and quickly produce a polyrhythmic
texture. Once the rhythmic pulse
is established, its components are
available for manipulation, allowing
the coder to guide the dynamics of the
piece while interacting with the code.
Ben Swift (siehe Abbildung 22) is a Com-
puter Science PhD student based
in Canberra, Australia. His cur-
rent creative practice revolves
around live coding in Impromptu/
128
Computermusikjournal
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Figur 23. Andrea Valle.
Figur 24. Graham Wakefield.
master classes by Trevor Wishart
and Marco Stroppa. His work as a
composer is mainly focused on algo-
rithmic methodologies, in both the
electroacoustic and instrumental do-
mains. When composing for acoustic
Instrumente, he is interested in devel-
oping compositional methodologies
for automatic notation generation
and he has participated in the Nota-
tion 21 Projekt (Theresa Sauer, Hrsg.,
New York: Mark Batty Publisher,
2009). His compositions have been
performed at Logos Foundation and
commissioned by OSN Rai of Torino.
He has worked on multimedia instal-
Beziehungen, film music (La f ˆoret rouge, von
Michela Franzoso, a project hosted by
Le Fresnoy, 2008; Rohbauten, by Eva
Sauer, 2009), Und, recently, theater
(Cotrone, by Marcel.l`ı Antu ˜nez Roca,
2010). His most recent major project is
the Rumentarium, an electromechan-
isch, computer-driven, percussion
ensemble made of recycled materials.
Andrea is a member of the core
unit of AMP2, a collective devoted to
free improvisation, and he appears on
the album Hopeful Monster, issued
by Die Schachtel in the Musica
Improvvisa box set (2010). He earned
a PhD in Semiotics at the University
of Bologna and he is currently re-
searcher at the University of Torino,
where he is a founding member of
CIRMA (Inter-departmental Centre
for Multimedia and Audiovisual).
He participated in the VEP project,
which reconstructed the po `eme
´electronique in virtual reality. Er
is a member of the Italian Semiotic
Association and of the Italian Music
Informatics Association.
20. Dupin’s
Spaceship—Graham Wakefield
and Wesley Smith
The visual forms are generated from
a shape called a Dupin Cyclide, made
by inverting a torus through a sphere.
The sounds are produced by two live-
coding performances (played side by
Seite, overlaid on the video). Dupin’s
Spaceship was written and performed
using LuaAV.
Graham Wakefield (siehe Abbildung 24)
is a composer of time-based media,
and co-author of the LuaAV real-time
audiovisual scripting environment.
Graham is approaching the end of
his PhD at the Media Arts and Tech-
nology program at the University
of California, Santa Barbara, Wo
he also works as a researcher for
the AlloSphere immersive instru-
ment. He is also a developer for
Radfahren ’74.
Wesley Smith (siehe Abbildung 25) ist ein
computational designer living and
working in San Francisco. He is a
co-author of the LuaAV real-time
audiovisual scripting environment.
Wesley is currently pursuing his PhD
at University of California, Santa
Barbara’s Media Arts and Technology
Programm, and works for Cycling ’74.
Improvisation—Matthew
21.
Yee-King (Live Coding), Finn
Peters (Alto Flute)
This is an edited version of a 9-
min improvisation recorded on 22
Marsch 2011 at the Goldsmiths Digital
Studios, Goldsmiths College, London.
Finn Peters plays alto flute, Und
Matthew Yee-King live-codes. Der
DVD Program Notes
129
about the difference between Italian
and English alphabets and writing
Systeme). Poetry is particularly apt
to be typed, as it typically shows
complex patterns based on varia-
tion/repetition. Aber, In der Tat, the text
to be typed can be code itself: In
this way, the sonification of writing
is intermingled with live coding,
leading to a form of live code writ-
ing, so to say. In the video, the live
writing approach is used to drive the
Rumentarium, my computationally-
controlled, electromechanical per-
cussion ensemble. Electronic sound
is added, mapping keys to pitches
and including processed sound from
the Rumentarium and the typing
Aktion. The whole software system is
implemented in SuperCollider.
Andrea Valle (siehe Abbildung 23)
(www.cirma.unito.it/andrea), ein
electric bass player interested in
experimental rock and in free jazz,
studied music composition with
Alessandro Ruo Rui, Azio Corghi,
and Mauro Bonifacio while attending
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Figur 25. Wesley Smith.
Figur 26. Matthew Yee-King and
Finn Peters.
Figur 27. Renick Bell.
programming and interactive music
Systeme. Recent musical activities
include development of the tech-
nique and practice of live coding in
the UK with the TOPLAP collec-
tiv, and extensive involvement in a
brain-wave music project “Music of
the Mind” alongside composer Finn
Peters. He has performed live inter-
nationally and nationally and has
recorded many sessions for BBC Ra-
dio. His solo music has been released
on electronic music imprints such as
Warp Records and Richard James’s
Rephlex Records. Collaborators in-
clude Jamie Lidell, Tom Jenkinson
(Squarepusher), Finn Peters, and Max
de Wardener (www.yeeking.net).
Finn Peters is a flautist and saxophon-
ist who studied music at Durham
University and took the postgraduate
jazz course at Guildhall School of
Musik. He is a member of the F-IRE
Collective and the contemporary
classical music group Noszferatu.
He has also worked with Two Banks
of Four and Matthew Herbert and
recorded under the names Bansuri
and Finntech. Im September 2006,
he released his first album, Su-
ling, under his own name, having
recorded this album with a band
that included guitarist Dave Okumu,
pianist Nick Ramm, bassist Tom
Herbert, and drummer Tom Skin-
ner. It was selected as a Jazzwise
album of the year for 2006. Im Juli
2007, the Finn Peters Quintet (oder
Finntet) beat the competitors in the
best jazz group category of the BBC
Radio 3 Jazz Awards. In 2008 he ini-
tiated the Music of the Mind project,
working closely with Matthew
Yee-King.
22. Percussion
Improvisation—Renick Bell
This rhythmic three-stage impro-
visation served as practice with
Conductive, a live-coding library
for Haskell written by Renick Bell
(siehe Abbildung 27). As a musical foun-
dation, a 130-BPM electronic dance
music style was chosen to allow a
clearer judgment of how much live
control could be achieved with this
Umfeld. Seventy-eight percus-
sion samples are played according to
algorithmically composed patterns
that were generated shortly before
the video begins. The performance
consists of executing functions that
specify which patterns should be
played by selected samples. Die Funktion-
tions are sent for evaluation from
the Vim text editor (at the top of
the screen) to the Glasgow Haskell
Compiler interpreter (at the bottom
of the screen). The cursor position
serves as a hint to which functions
programming language is Scaling
Ausführung 3.3, and the live-coding is
carried out in the Emacs text editor
under Ubuntu Linux. Four impro-
visations were recorded during the
session, and this piece was chosen
as it had the most successful overall
Struktur, allowing it to function as
a standalone piece. The other pieces
were more in a free improvisation
Stil, featuring less constrained pitch
and rhythm sequences. This was the
first time Matthew and Finn had
played together with the constraints
of using an unaffected instrument
and from-scratch live-coding. Der
experience was inspiring, but it ap-
pears that a specialized environment
for live-coding interactive music sys-
tems might need to be developed to
improve the standard of the results,
or that more practice is required.
Matthew Yee-King (siehe Abbildung 26) Ist
a lecturer in creative computing at
Goldsmiths College as well as a com-
puter music composer, performer,
and researcher. His research interests
include automated sound synthesizer
130
Computermusikjournal
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Figur 28. Sonogram 1.
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are being sent to the interpreter,
while the interpreter displays the
functions themselves, status mes-
sages, and debugging information.
This practice revealed the need
for even-higher-level functions and
regular practice with this new instru-
ment to achieve more-spontaneous,
fast-moving improvisations. Der
need for less-verbose debugging in-
formation and more persistently
displayed status information also
became clear.
Renick Bell is a researcher and com-
poser based in Tokyo. He focuses
his research on computer systems
for live performance. Information
on the tools he has developed and
his music can be found at his Web
site (renickbell.net). An American,
he holds an interdisciplinary under-
graduate degree from Texas Tech
Universität, where he studied elec-
tronic music with Steven Paxton.
He also holds a Master of Science
degree in Music Technology from
Indiana University. He was a doc-
toral student in Information Systems
and Multimedia Design at Naotoshi
Osaka’s Sound Media Representa-
tion Laboratory at Tokyo Denki
Universität.
Part Two: Video and Sound
Beispiele
This section of the disc features video
and sound examples to accompany
articles appearing in Volume 35 von
the Journal. Where examples contain
more than one element in succession,
each individual element has been
encoded as a separate chapter, so one
may navigate forward and backward
through the examples using the Next
and Previous Chapter buttons on
any DVD player or remote control.
Alternativ, the examples will
automatically play in sequence with
a short pause between each.
1. Sound Examples to
Accompany the Article
“OMChroma: Compositional
Control of Sound Synthesis”
by Carlos Agon, Jean Bresson,
and Marco Stroppa (Volumen
35, Nummer 2)
All examples come from Marco
Stroppa’s composition Come Natura
di Foglia, where they are used in the
electronic part starting at 6’54”. Sie
were chosen because they constitute
an exhaustive overview of the main
concepts delved into in the article.
DVD Program Notes
131
Figur 29. Sonogram 2.
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1. Original sound: nahhami,
song from pearl fishermen of
Bahrain (Arabian Peninsula).
Analytical Procedure
A. Sonogram analysis of the
Klang (FFT Size: 4,096 points;
black at –60 dB, white at 0 dB);
B. Discrete temporal segmenta-
tion of the sonogram (shown
on the disc), according to
some compositional prin-
ciples, based on placing a
marker wherever a musically
important change is located
(although the main notes
are marked, there are more
markers than notes);
C. Computation of a static spec-
trum between each group of
two adjacent markers. Der
spectrum contains the par-
tials that are above a certain
amplitude and last through
the whole time segment (sehen
Figur 28);
D. Construction of a chroma
Modell. Each spectrum
instantiates a chroma matrix
containing the following
Information: as many com-
ponents as frequencies, eins
amplitude and frequency per
component. Each matrix has
a duration corresponding to
the inter-onset interval (IOI)
between two adjacent markers
and a global onset time corre-
sponding to the value of the
marker (siehe Abbildung 29);
e. Processing and synthesis
of the chroma model. Der
synthesis class is chosen;
the missing parameters
required by that class are
given according to a set of
compositional rules.
Synthesis Results
The main compositional issue being
the exploration and development of
a cognitive spectromorphology of the
original sound, an exact resynthesis
was not sought for. By cognitive we
mean the ability to recognize the
salient features of the original sound
(if known) or of its synthetic devel-
opment, whereas spectromorphology
is the control of the characteristics
and evolution of the sound over time.
It is worth noting that at least two
levels of time are used: each matrix
has both a position in the sequence
of the onsets of the chroma model,
as well as its own internal duration.
This allows each matrix to end before
or overlap with other matrices.
General Control Strategy
For examples 2–5 a subset of markers
was selected (1 2 3 7 10 14 16 19 21 22
132
Computermusikjournal
23 24 25). The duration of each matrix
was stretched across the IOI, so that
each event is partially superposed on
the next one (to simulate a “legato”
Wirkung). The amount of superposition
can vary across a model and is deter-
mined by a scalar factor computed
by looking up a break-point function.
Further data for the matrix were
computed algorithmically (using Lisp
functions).
2. Relatively close additive syn-
thesis of the original sound
(similar rhythm, no change
of the spectromorphological
information coming from the
Modell), mit ca
2–3 side-components per real
component. The stereo pan
goes from left to right from
the beginning to the end of
the model. The sonogram
(shown on the disc) is of the
mono reduction. The over-
lap between each matrix, Die
additive structure, sowie
the small entry delays of the
partials of each matrix, Sind
clearly visible.
3. Same as above, but using for-
mant frequency modulation
(one modulating, tuned to
the lowest frequency in the
Modell, and several carrier
waves, tuned to the upper
partials of the model, Aber
adjusted so as to produce a rel-
atively harmonic spectrum).
This means that the N1/N2
ratio consists of small integer
Zahlen, plus a little amount
of “detuning” added to the
computation of the N2. Der
sonogram (shown on the disc)
is of the mono reduction. Der
typical formant structure and
the opening of the formant
due to the increase of the
modulation index are very
apparent.
4. Same spectromorphological
profile as Example 2, mit dem
following changes: pan goes
from right to left, there are 10–
20 sub-components for each
partial (it sounds more “clus-
tery”), the spectral amplitude
and duration of each partial
start as in Example 2 and are
progressively reversed, welche
produces a final chord with
the higher frequencies being
the longest and loudest. Im
sonogram (shown on the disc),
the thickness of each partial
is clearly visible (vergleichen,
zum Beispiel, the spectrum at
4.4”).
5. Spectral profile similar to Ex-
reichlich 2, but with a longer
phrase and slower tempo. Es
starts with the same pitch
and develops towards other
pitches (shown in the sono-
Gramm, on the disc).
6. Same spectral profile as Ex-
reichlich 2, with exponential
accelerando and a bell-like
percussive attack and decay
(shown in the sonogram, An
die Scheibe).
7. Same profile as Example 6,
but with very large clusters
(20–100 sub-components per
partial), yielding the effect of
a cymbal-like sound (shown
in the sonogram, on the disc).
8. Come Natura di Foglia, Canti
lontani per voci ed elettronica
[Faraway Songs for Voices and
Electronics]—Marco Stroppa.
Texts: an ancient prophecy
by the Cree Indians and sa-
cred appeals and reports from
shamans, translated into En-
glish. Performers: Electric
Phoenix (Judith Rees, soprano;
Meriel Dickinson, mezzo-
soprano; Daryl Runswick,
tenor; Terry Edwards, bass;
John Whiting and Mike Skeet,
sound projection). Computer
music design: Serge Lemou-
Tonne. Electronic production:
Institut de Recherche et Coor-
dination Acoustique/Musique
(IRCAM). Commissioned by
Franc¸ oise and Jean-Philippe
Billarant for IRCAM. Das
live recording was produced
at IRCAM in 1997. It is used
here with kind permission
of Electric Phoenix. Notiz:
this version of the piece is
currently withdrawn. A major
revision is being planned.
The Real People don’t think the
voice was designed for talking.
You do that with your heart/head
center. If the voice is used for
Rede, one tends to get into
small, unnecessary, and less spir-
itual conversation. The voice is
made for singing, for celebration,
and for healing. (Marlo Morgan,
Mutant Message Down Under)
Come Natura di Foglia was born
from a challenge I made to myself:
How to bring together my own mu-
sical experience and models coming
from several distant traditions, solch
as Tibetan voices, the Bunun choir, A
song of a fisherman from Bahrein, oder
a toaca, a Romanian wooden drum.
The relationship should remain un-
derstandable, but without any direct
quotation of the original sounds. ICH
was fascinated by the deep relation-
ship between the people’s culture,
the social function of the music, Und
its insertion into a universal frame-
work governed by the laws of Nature
and the Cosmos. I have sought for a
musical path that would link these
different models and delve into the
poetic and emotional dimension of
computer-generated sounds, mit dem
hope to carve a sort of “magic” event
out of every sound.
DVD Program Notes
133
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The title comes from one of the
Meditations written during the last
ten years of his life by Marcus Au-
relius, the great Roman emperor,
philosopher, and humanist, who en-
lightened with his wisdom a decaying
empire (Marco Stroppa).
2. Sound Examples to
Accompany the Article
“Parametric Electric Guitar
Synthesis” by Niklas
Lindroos, Henri Penttinen,
and Vesa V ¨alim ¨aki (Volumen
35, Nummer 3)
A complete electric guitar synthesis
algorithm based on the digital wave-
guide approach was developed incor-
porating novel techniques and other
appropriate improvements. The exci-
tation signal produced by plucking a
steel string with a plectrum was mea-
sured using a piezoelectric pickup. A
parametric excitation model consist-
ing of two parts was then proposed:
The first part is a filtered noise burst
and the second is composed of a
parametric simplified pulse that is
reproduced with an integrating filter.
The proposed magnetic pickup
model is founded on a special feed-
forward comb filter in which a
frequency-dependent delay is im-
plemented using an all-pass filter.
The frequency-dependent delay filter
is needed to simulate the dispersive
wave propagation on the vibrating
steel string, which causes the notches
of the comb filter to be nonuniformly
spaced in frequency.
In addition to these novelties,
an improvement to the waveguide
string model was introduced: A time-
varying loop gain helps to emulate
the two-stage decay of electric guitar
tones. The gain variation over time is
easily calibrated by smoothing a
short-term averaged envelope of
the first harmonic. The proposed
synthesis model also accounts for
inharmonicity and beating appearing
in electric guitar tones.
Recorded Sound:
1. Recorded guitar pluck: String:
6; Fret: 0; Plucking point: 10
cm; Pickup: Bridge; Level:
mf.
Synthesized Examples:
2. Synthesized guitar pluck:
String: 6; Fret: 0; Plucking
Punkt: 10 cm; Pickup: Bridge;
Level: mf.
Changing Pickups:
3. Synthesized guitar chord:
Open E major; Pickup: Bridge.
4. Synthesized guitar chord:
Open E major; Pickup:
Mitte.
5. Synthesized guitar chord:
Open E major; Pickup: Neck.
Changing plucking point:
6. Changing plucking point of
a synthesized guitar tone:
Plucking point moves from
2.6 cm to 32.6 cm on the open
sixth string.
Altering dynamics:
7. Altering the dynamics of
a synthesized guitar tone:
Plucking force from pp to ff
in five steps. The amplitude
is normalized, daher,
the pitch drift is the most
prominent effect.
Synthetic chords without dis-
tortion and with distortion:
8. A synthetic perfect fifth chord
without distortion.
9. A synthetic power chord, d.h.,
a perfect fifth chord with
distortion.
Synthetic Riff Without Dis-
tortion and With Distortion:
10. A synthetic riff without
distortion.
11. A synthetic riff with
distortion.
3. Sound Examples to
Accompany the Article “Two
Pioneering Projects from the
Early History of
Computer-Aided Algorithmic
Composition” by Christopher
Ariza (Volumen 35, Nummer 3)
1. In 1955 David Caplin, arbeiten-
ing at the Koninklijke/Shell-
Laboratorium in Amsterdam,
made a recording of the Fer-
ranti Mark I∗ performing a
program to generate and syn-
thesize melodic lines from
contredances, based on a
version of W. A. Mozart’s
Musikalisches W ¨urfelspiel.
The synthesis technique, als
suggested by Alan Turing
In 1951, used the integrated
computer loudspeaker and
the “hoot” programming
instruction. This synthesis
system was implemented by
Dietrich Prinz. The record-
ing was made by holding a
microphone near the com-
puter’s loudspeaker and
recording to a reel-to-reel
analog recorder. The occa-
sional high-frequency noises
are a result of the random
signal generation; the occa-
sional stutters in the sound
are due to the time necessary
to transfer data from the
magnetic drum storage to
the fast access storage. Das
recording was transferred to
analog cassette in the late
1990s and digitized in 2009.
No noise reduction or other
audio processes have been
applied.
2. In 1959 Caplin commissioned
Elizabeth Innes, a program-
mer in the Shell Computer
Development Division, Zu
134
Computermusikjournal
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rewrite the 1955 Mozart
Dice Game System and
the synthesis routine for
the Ferranti Mercury, a sig-
nificantly faster computer
than the Ferranti Mark I∗.
The output of this com-
puter was recorded using a
method similar to that of
Example 1. This recording
contains frequent clicks
due to the starting and
stopping of the recorder.
This recording was simi-
larly transferred to analog
cassette in the late 1990s
and digitized in 2009, Und
no noise reduction or other
audio processes have been
applied.
3. In 1964 Sister Harriet Pad-
berg, then studying at Saint
Louis University, submitted
her dissertation, Computer-
Composed Canon and Free
Fugue, with complete score
tables defining pitch and
duration for five computer-
generated, microtonal, poly-
phonic compositions. Der
works were the result of
an original system that,
based on a text string input,
created canons and fugues
with multiple pitch and
rhythmic transformations
and a non-equal-tempered,
24-tone, microtonal scale.
Although she used the IBM
1620 and IBM 7072 to gen-
erate these works, she did
not have access to sonic
realizations.
This example is a canon,
the fourth composition Pad-
berg provides. The first three
compositions all use the
same source text as input
(“college canon”) and thus
begin with the same pri-
mary voice. This example
is unique, and perhaps more
musically compelling, in that
it uses four voices, eher
than two.
These realizations were
made by transcribing the
printed score tables by
hand into a tab-delimited
data table. This table was
then processed by a Python
script to provide a Csound
CSD file. For a clear pre-
sentation of the pitch and
rhythm structures with a
harp-like tone, a simple
Csound instrument using
the wgpluck opcode is used
with a quickly attacked en-
velope. Small amounts of
reverb (via the freeverb
opcode) and stereo panning
are employed to support voice
separation.
4. This example is the fifth
composition Padberg pro-
vides, and is the only ex-
ample of a free fugue. Der
source input text is “uni-
versity canon and twenti-
eth century fugue.” This
example was realized in
the same manner as in
Example 3.
4. Video Examples to
Accompany the Article
“Virtual Gesture Control and
Synthesis of Music
Performances: Qualitative
Evaluation of Synthesized
Timpani Exercises” by
Alexandre Bou ¨enard et al.
(Volumen 35, Nummer 3)
Validation Exercises
1. Attack Modes.
Simulations showing each
attack mode indepen-
dently, at one-third impact
location.
A. Legato: sequence of legato
attacks, played at 63
bpm, composed of six
two-handed beats, fin-
ishing with a right-hand
beat.
B. Tenuto: sequence of tenuto
attacks, played at 63
bpm, composed of six
two-handed beats, fin-
ishing with a right-hand
beat.
C. Accent: sequence of ac-
cent attacks, played at
63 bpm, composed of six
two-handed beats, fin-
ishing with a right-hand
beat.
D. Vertical accent: sequence
of vertical accent at-
tacks, played at 63 bpm,
composed of six two-
handed beats, finish-
ing with a right-hand
beat.
e. Staccato: sequence of
staccato attacks, gespielt
bei 63 bpm, zusammengesetzt aus
six two-handed beats,
finishing with a right-hand
beat.
2. Impact Locations.
Simulations showing each
impact location indepen-
dently, with legato attacks.
A. One-third: sequence of
impacts at the one-third lo-
cation, played at 63 bpm,
composed of six two-hand
one-third impacts, fin-
ishing with a right-hand
one-third impact.
B. Center: sequence of im-
pacts at the center loca-
tion, played at 63 bpm,
composed of six two-hand
one-third impacts, fin-
ishing with a right-hand
one-third impact.
DVD Program Notes
135
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C. Rim: sequence of impacts
at the rim location, gespielt
bei 63 bpm, zusammengesetzt aus
six two-hand one-third
impacts, finishing with
a right-hand one-third
impact.
5. Sound Examples to
Accompany the Article
“Experiments in Modular
Design for the Creative
Composition of Live
Algorithms” by Oliver Bown
(Volumen 35, Nummer 3)
rope and Australia. He is interested in
the application of complex dynamical
systems to musical composition,
applications of evolutionary ideas
to creative music software, Und
evolutionary approaches to human
musical behavior and culture.
Extrapolation Exercises
3. Attack Modes.
Simulations showing
mixed sequences of attack
modes, at one-third impact
Standorte.
A. Exercise 1: sequence played
bei 63 bpm, composed al-
ternatively of staccato,
legato, tenuto, legato,
accent, legato, vertical
accent, and legato at-
tacks.
B. Exercise 2: sequence
played at 63 bpm, com-
posed alternatively of
legato and accent at-
tacks (3 mal), ending
with a vertical accent at-
tack.
4. Tempo Variations.
A. Accelerando-decelerando:
accelerando-decelerando
of legato attacks at
the one-third loca-
tion, progressively
aus 63 bpm to 120
bpm and then back to
63 bpm.
5. Impact Locations.
A. Impact locations: se-
quence of legato attacks,
played at 63 bpm, com-
posed alternatively of
location pairs: rim/one-
dritte, rim/center, eins-
third/center, and finally
locations played and se-
quenced differently by the
two hands.
These short excerpts provide docu-
mentation of experimental works us-
ing two types of dynamical system—
continuous-time recurrent neural
Netzwerke (CTRNNs) and dynamic
decision trees (DTs)—as patterning
modules in the context of live al-
gorithms for music (LAMs). In each
excerpt, a single dynamical system
responds to the input from one or
more live performers, through sim-
ple feature analysis, and controls a
metronome’s rate as well as multiple
electronic sound modules that are
either triggered directly from the dy-
namical system’s output or from the
metronome. This work was produced
by Oliver Bown while working as
a post-doctoral research assistant at
the Centre for Electronic Media Art
at Monash University, Melbourne,
Australia. It was created using a
Java-based software library for real-
time generative music, called Beads,
which was also developed during
this period. Beads is freely available
under a GNU General Public License
(www.beadsproject.net). The specifics
of analysis and synthesis modules
are not provided in detail. Sie
are operationally relatively opaque,
being the products of hacking and
tweaking during the compositional
Verfahren.
Oliver Bown is a British electronic
musician and researcher working in
Australia (www.olliebown.com). Er
is one half of the electronic music
duo Icarus and a member of the Not
Applicable label and artists’ group
(www.not-applicable.org). He works
with improvising musicians in Eu-
1. CTRNN with Finn Peters
(flute).
Recorded live at Cafe Oto,
London, August 2009. Teil
of a concert of Live Algo-
rithms which followed a
three-day workshop at Gold-
smiths, University of London.
Recorded by Sam Britton.
The CTRNN controls FM-
synthesis and drum-machine
modules. Finn Peters is a
British flautist and saxophon-
ist who regularly improvises
with electronic musicians.
His 2010 album Music of the
Mind explores the use of a
brain–computer interface as a
compositional tool.
2. CTRNN with Adrian Sherriff
(shakuhachi) and Brigid
Burke (clarinet).
Recorded live at the
Guildford Lane Gallery,
Melbourne, Februar 2010.
Part of a concert series called
Hands Free, which explored
autonomous music software.
Recorded by Oliver Bown.
The CTRNN controls drum
machine, FM-Synthese,
and granular sampler
modules. Adrian Sherriff is
an Australian trombonist,
shakuhachi player, and tabla
player who performs with live
electronics. Brigid Burke is
an Australian clarinetist and
bass clarinetist who works in
improvised and new music.
She performs with live
electronics and incorporates
136
Computermusikjournal
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live video mixing into her
Aufführungen. Burke and
Bown released an album of
improvised music, Erase
(2011), on the Not Applicable
label.
3. DT with Lothar Ohlmeier
(bass clarinet).
Recorded live at the North
Sea Jazz Festival, Rotterdam,
Juli 2010. Part of a special
event called OK Computer,
which explored contempo-
rary approaches to electronic
music performance. Live
technical assistance and
recording by Roy Carroll. Der
DT directly triggers a sampler
playing percussive bass
clarinet and timpani samples,
and a granular sample
player playing textural bass
clarinet samples. Lothar
Ohlmeier is a German bass
clarinetist and saxophonist
and a regular member
of the Not Applicable
Artists.
4. DT with Brigid Burke (bass
clarinet).
Recorded in a studio session
at Northern Melbourne In-
stitute of TAFE, Melbourne,
Dezember 2010. Recorded
by Oliver Bown. The DT
directly triggers subtractive
synthesis, drum machine,
and granular sample player
modules.
6. Video Example to Accompany
the Article “The Machine
Orchestra: An Ensemble
of Human Laptop Performers
and Robotic Musical
Instruments” by Ajay Kapur
et al. (Volumen 35, Nummer 4)
Karmetik Machine Orchestra,
REDCAT Theater, Los Angeles,
Kalifornien, USA, 27 Januar 2010.
7. Video Example to
Accompany the Article “The
Man and Machine Robot
Orchestra at Logos” by Laura
Maes, Godfried-Willem Raes,
and Troy Rogers (Volumen 35,
Nummer 4)
The video was created to illustrate the
various automatons that are discussed
in detail in the article. Performer:
Godfried-Willem Raes. Robots: aeio,
fa, harmo, ob, pp2, psch, puff, qt,
thunderwood, toypi, vibi. Filming
and editing: Laura Maes. More infor-
mation on the M&M orchestra can be
found at the Logos Foundation Web
site (www.logosfoundation.org).
8. Video Example to
Accompany the Article
“Trimpin: An Interview” by
Sasha Leitman (Volumen 35,
Nummer 4)
This 5-min sequence from the
film Trimpin: The Sound of Inven-
tion (2011, 77 min) shows Trimpin’s
design and construction of if VI
was IX, which is on permanent
exhibit in Seattle’s Experience Mu-
sic Project. The piece makes use
of over 500 Instrumente, 32 von
which play MIDI files continuously.
if VI was IX was designed, com-
posed, programmed, and constructed
by Trimpin over a seven-month pe-
riod in 1999.
Producer/director: Peter Es-
monde. Camera: Peter Esmonde
and Elijah Lawson. Audio: Gabriel
Müller. Distributor: Microcinema and
Participant Observer.
Part Three: Additional Content
Der 2011 DVD includes a DVD-
ROM section. To access the materials
contained there, the reader will need
to place the DVD into a suitable disc
drive on a computer.
1. Sound Files to Accompany
the Article “The Perceived
Affective Expression of
Computer-Manipulated
Sung Sounds” by Freya Bailes
and Roger T. Dean
(Volumen 35, Nummer 1)
Diese 40 audio files are all described
on pp. 92–95 of the article. In particu-
lar, siehe Tabelle 1 (which omits the file-
name prefixes Sn-, where n =1 to 40).
2. Data Files to Accompany the
Article “An Evaluation of
Musical Score Characteristics
for Automatic Classification
of Composers” by Ofer Dor
and Yoram Reich (Volumen 35,
Nummer 3)
1. Base files: full data.arff;
full data string.arff;
full data keyboard.arff;
DO NOT CLASSIFY full
info data.arff.
2. Binary Files: Tastatur (280
ARFF files); string (150 ARFF
Dateien); beide (360 ARFF files).
3. Composer files: Komponist
(ten files);
n.arff
major n.arff (ten files).
4. Genre files: baroque n.arff
(ten files); classical n.arff
(ten files).
5. Genre instrument files:
baroque keyboard n.arff
(ten files); classical
keyboard n.arff (ten files).
6. Instrument files: Tastatur
n.arff (ten files); string n.arff
(ten files).
DVD Program Notes
137
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