Interesting Music Concepts
Doing research into things the last few weeks I find a slew of interesting things? Looking into electronics and trying to learn the field has opened my eyes to a large onset of interesting musical applications. Although I'm only just now starting to even build a simple organ on breadboards I hope to get to a point where I can design (and possibly sell) a free-form moveable-key midi controller. Currently planning on maybe renting out a working loft with some other people to use as a studio for one's photography, one's painting, and a nice little workspace for me to do electronic and music shit all day =)
But we need a fourth person, for about $100-$140 a month, and it's hard to find a nonstranger. Anyway, interesting:
Music programming languages - Such as Princeton's ChucK (Free), Puredata (Free), Max\MSP ($$$ - look at the notable artists!) and Processing (Free) - Apparently music as a programming language is a pretty active field, something I was unaware of, and it looks to be an amazing thing to utilize. Applied with even basic theory or a more scientific approach this could be very interesting...
Alternative Music Notation Methods - People have argued traditional music notation is ridiculous in some ways and have tried to change it since it was first used. Bilinear (specifically Sotorrio's) and the three-line Shoenberg notation both look very interesting and helpful to learn along with traditional (as opposed to "instead of") notation for shorthand. The concept of placing a beat-marker unattached from the notes themselves seems like a particularly interesting concept.
Alternative Keyboard Layouts - such as Janko layout, Bilinear Chromatic Keyboards, C-Thru Music's Axis Hexagonal input MIDI controller, the Wicki\Hayden system - It's interesting to consider how the C Major scale has influenced interfaces, and how some tried to alter it. These keyboard layouts tend to alter piano to work like the guitar - using moveable shapes and simplifying memorization. Seems to be better for hobbyists who would rather spend their time learning theory than becoming acceptably proficient (taking many years of hard work) at an instrument such as piano. Some people of course have taken to trying to make their own or finding alternatives.
DIY Midi - such as Midibox, Midi Boutique, Doepfer's Pocket Electronic, Miditron, PAiA, etc - Why not create your own midi controller out of an old keyboard? How about one that suits your exact needs from scratch (look at the examples on Midibox)? Why not add midi capability to a church organ to say trigger lights (Midi Boutique), or to sprinklers to form shapes in falling water? Why not just make water itself a midi controller? Maybe...something else?
MIDI bits - Just for my own personal reference (which half of this is for anyway). Or maybe we can just take a shot at audio to MIDI... note to self: Try to find a Mac program that can map keys to midi triggers so I can make make a cheap chromatic keyboard using an old USB computer keyboard just for exercising theory and such.
Or maybe just lose the olden-time interfaces and get straight to creating sounds from nothing? I remember finding a great program awhile back - Metasynth - from this site detailing the "Equation" spectrograph face from Aphex Twin.
Arduino Electronics Platform - Cheap, well-made, expandable\modular microcontrollers designed for multi-platform and easily programable use for hobbyists and artists. They also seem to offer a lot of help, many, many working examples of software programming (and as applied with hardware) and a great knowledgebase, along with a giant community of people willing to share their schematics and ideas. You know you want a quick easy way to create a timelapse remote for a camera from almost scratch or a midi-controlled Gameboy for hot 8-bit action.
Fretzilla - Set this website as your homepage and it will quiz you on guitar fret board notes before allowing you to redirect to another page. Customizable to an extent. A good way to learn notes on the fretboard? I'm certainly trying it - would make applying theory instead of shapes and vague algorhythms easier.
Lemur - A completely customizable touch-screen audio-interface\controller that looks far too awesome to be priced within anywhere reasonably affordable.
Bleep Labs - Makers of DIY blip bloop bleep whositwhatsits. I need to start soldering that Thingamakit already...
Sparkle Labs - Makers of a learn electronics kit aimed at adults as well as children with straight forward diagrams and information. This combined with the Mims' classic Getting Started in Electronics has got me off to a good start so far I'd say (and a few trips to Elliotts here in town to grab more components =B). Of course, there's other good kits and books.
And other things I've stumbled onto while researching all this shit: Instructables (a useful hobbycraft DIY resource), a look inside Daft Punk's Pyramid, the Music Thing and Matrix Synth blogs, Left 4k Dead, the No-Wave movement, Rotten Library's article on Chess, Make Magazine, MCU's Embedded Projects from Around the Web page, Fontstruct and a bunch of things that seemed interesting but I never saved.
But we need a fourth person, for about $100-$140 a month, and it's hard to find a nonstranger. Anyway, interesting:
Music programming languages - Such as Princeton's ChucK (Free), Puredata (Free), Max\MSP ($$$ - look at the notable artists!) and Processing (Free) - Apparently music as a programming language is a pretty active field, something I was unaware of, and it looks to be an amazing thing to utilize. Applied with even basic theory or a more scientific approach this could be very interesting...
Alternative Music Notation Methods - People have argued traditional music notation is ridiculous in some ways and have tried to change it since it was first used. Bilinear (specifically Sotorrio's) and the three-line Shoenberg notation both look very interesting and helpful to learn along with traditional (as opposed to "instead of") notation for shorthand. The concept of placing a beat-marker unattached from the notes themselves seems like a particularly interesting concept.
Alternative Keyboard Layouts - such as Janko layout, Bilinear Chromatic Keyboards, C-Thru Music's Axis Hexagonal input MIDI controller, the Wicki\Hayden system - It's interesting to consider how the C Major scale has influenced interfaces, and how some tried to alter it. These keyboard layouts tend to alter piano to work like the guitar - using moveable shapes and simplifying memorization. Seems to be better for hobbyists who would rather spend their time learning theory than becoming acceptably proficient (taking many years of hard work) at an instrument such as piano. Some people of course have taken to trying to make their own or finding alternatives.
DIY Midi - such as Midibox, Midi Boutique, Doepfer's Pocket Electronic, Miditron, PAiA, etc - Why not create your own midi controller out of an old keyboard? How about one that suits your exact needs from scratch (look at the examples on Midibox)? Why not add midi capability to a church organ to say trigger lights (Midi Boutique), or to sprinklers to form shapes in falling water? Why not just make water itself a midi controller? Maybe...something else?
MIDI bits - Just for my own personal reference (which half of this is for anyway). Or maybe we can just take a shot at audio to MIDI... note to self: Try to find a Mac program that can map keys to midi triggers so I can make make a cheap chromatic keyboard using an old USB computer keyboard just for exercising theory and such.
Or maybe just lose the olden-time interfaces and get straight to creating sounds from nothing? I remember finding a great program awhile back - Metasynth - from this site detailing the "Equation" spectrograph face from Aphex Twin.
Arduino Electronics Platform - Cheap, well-made, expandable\modular microcontrollers designed for multi-platform and easily programable use for hobbyists and artists. They also seem to offer a lot of help, many, many working examples of software programming (and as applied with hardware) and a great knowledgebase, along with a giant community of people willing to share their schematics and ideas. You know you want a quick easy way to create a timelapse remote for a camera from almost scratch or a midi-controlled Gameboy for hot 8-bit action.
Fretzilla - Set this website as your homepage and it will quiz you on guitar fret board notes before allowing you to redirect to another page. Customizable to an extent. A good way to learn notes on the fretboard? I'm certainly trying it - would make applying theory instead of shapes and vague algorhythms easier.
Lemur - A completely customizable touch-screen audio-interface\controller that looks far too awesome to be priced within anywhere reasonably affordable.
Bleep Labs - Makers of DIY blip bloop bleep whositwhatsits. I need to start soldering that Thingamakit already...
Sparkle Labs - Makers of a learn electronics kit aimed at adults as well as children with straight forward diagrams and information. This combined with the Mims' classic Getting Started in Electronics has got me off to a good start so far I'd say (and a few trips to Elliotts here in town to grab more components =B). Of course, there's other good kits and books.
And other things I've stumbled onto while researching all this shit: Instructables (a useful hobbycraft DIY resource), a look inside Daft Punk's Pyramid, the Music Thing and Matrix Synth blogs, Left 4k Dead, the No-Wave movement, Rotten Library's article on Chess, Make Magazine, MCU's Embedded Projects from Around the Web page, Fontstruct and a bunch of things that seemed interesting but I never saved.