What can a Vocaloid do?

[merin_chan]

Aaaand there goes the summer. Wow. Now that I'm home again, I can't even begin to summarize everything that happened in Japan, everything that's happened in my life. So instead I'll look back by looking forward, and just do my acafannish thing

Comments

[anonymous]

Hmmm what can a vocaloid do? Was originally returning to your blog to answer your 2011-02-12 "Words that we couldn't say" post, because it struck something in me - even though I came upon your journal researching other stuff. I have a fondness for the current vocaloid phenom, because something like it hit me 12-13 years ago, when i found myself trying to use nascent pc music software, primitive text-to-speech engines, autotune and random text generators to get "something" out of my system.

I had a lot of musical friends,and I am not at all musical. Add a few other lacks and wants, then add a bit of theory from art school and friends who understood high theory (hooray for D&G!), and a nagging few questions about the construction of the modernist "subject". Stir and simmer: it is amazing how patterns of things can be "almost" in so many ways. This is beyond the idea of masks, and tries to slip by the whole uncanny valley thing, because that doesn't answer any important questions.

End result: a few odd ball tunes posted on usenet groups interested in pc music software that was not really theirs, and the annoyance of my musically gifted friends. Felt GOOD! No need for me now, for yamaha software, or miku miku dance software obsessions, unless I could now get up the time and effort to have a vocaloid sing lyrics that were probability-based semi random strings of what word follows the previous from the text of all the women characters in Hamlet. (Hamlet because of Walter Benjamin, the text juggling done through a little gem whomped up by a finish programmer some 15-18 years ago.) Call it an obsession with the contingency of narrative.

So.. Why did I?? I am looking forward to your paper, and I hope you post it here, or to an open journal. I miss a lot because I cannot slip through academic paywalls any more.

I am interested in reading what you think a vocaloid can do, because what I thought I was doing was not "drag" - I had no text or music "composition" I needed a puppet to sing for/to me or be a substitute face/ voice for me- but I really needed to hear what resulted. This one was built around a random snippet of engineering joke about specifications, http://archive.org/download/iuma-king_beat_rythm_box/KING_BEAT_RYTHM_BOX_-_pipe.mp3

Originally stumbled on your stuff because of "Notes towards and analysis of Beautiful Fighting Girl (finally)" as my fanning over Genshiken led me into fujoshi theory stuff - oops, got diverted, end up posting (yikes!). My thanks for the insightful writings - mudakun, heartoffuriousfancies / wordpress.

[merin_chan]

Wow, thanks so much for your comment! I had no idea that anyone even remembered those posts you mention, especially since I get so few comments. You've really made my day!

I'd be fascinated to hear more about your early (and maybe future?) experiments with computer-generated music. I took a Digital Music course in high school (about 1998-99) where I had a lot of fun distorting the sounds of keyboards into "songs" that are still probably hanging around on floppy disks somewhere. So I've always had a fondness for electronic sounds too. Thanks for your link, btw! It's interestingly layered.

As for Miku...well, she's something else for me, more than a musical instrument. She sets off some kind of desiring for an inhuman or posthuman body I have and don't have, for the virtuality of my body. I guess that's why I went into D&G territory. I'm planning to submit the article version of this talk to the journal Mechademia, for an issue based on the conference in Seoul where I (also) presented it. Sorry! But at least Mechademia is more widely available than most academic journals, so you shouldn't have too much trouble getting hold of it. Let me know if you can't get it and I'll hook you up with a PDF once it's done.

Glad to meet another Genshiken/fujoshi/meta-fandom fan! I'll check out your wordpress blog as soon as I can.