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Full-Text Articles in Arts and Humanities
Birds Of A Feather (Les Oiseaux De Même Plumage): Dynamic Soundscapes Using Real-Time Manipulation Of Locally Relevant Birdsongs, William Walker, Brian Belet
Birds Of A Feather (Les Oiseaux De Même Plumage): Dynamic Soundscapes Using Real-Time Manipulation Of Locally Relevant Birdsongs, William Walker, Brian Belet
Brian Belet
This paper and live audio demonstration explores the capabilities of using Web Audio API as a digital audio workstation (DAW) to manipulate sounds from massive server-side databases. Sonic source material comes from a database of birdsongs recorded worldwide by volunteer recordists at xeno-canto.org. Sounds from xeno-canto are chosen to match recent, nearby bird sightings submitted by volunteer birders at eBird. The result is a virtual soundscape derived from the sounds of birds currently present in the user’s geographical region. Our client-server architecture delegates database queries and archival storage to the server, leaving the client to concentrate on the aesthetic context …
System Of Shadows, An Interactive Performance Environment For Trumpet/Flugelhorn And Kyma, Brian Belet, Stephen Ruppenthal
System Of Shadows, An Interactive Performance Environment For Trumpet/Flugelhorn And Kyma, Brian Belet, Stephen Ruppenthal
Brian Belet
This paper summarizes our history with designing coherent real-time processing algorithms within Kyma that enable the spontaneous processing of acoustic instruments using the Capybara-320 and Pacarana synthesis engines in interactive real-time performance. Compositional and performance issues for the current work, System of Shadows, are examined, discussed, and performed during the demonstration, focusing on the composer’s Kyma processing algorithms and the musical score used by both performers. We posit relevant data surrounding the interactive performance issues involved in a complex real-time processing work of this nature, and discuss our collaborative creative process. Real-time performance choices by the trumpeter, directed improvisation and …
Theoretical And Formal Continuity In James Tenney's Music, Brian Belet
Theoretical And Formal Continuity In James Tenney's Music, Brian Belet
Brian Belet
James Tenney created much of his music and theoretical writing as an objective experimenter, observer and codifier. This article examines Tenney's traits of curiosity, experimentation and honest self-evaluation through a subset of his compositions from the 1960s, 1970s and 1980s. Although quite diverse in many ways, these compositions share his mark of intense individuality, integrity and compositional rigor, which creates a macro-unity and formal continuity between works. Perhaps this is his ultimate ‘clang’ and conceptual ‘temporal gestalt-unit’. Each composition grows out of the need to address one or more specific formal questions: each work is indeed an experiment designed to …
Live Performance Interaction For Humans And Machines In The Early Twenty-First Century: One Composer's Aesthetics For Composition And Performance Practice, Brian Belet
Brian Belet
Technology influences all art, and therefore all music, including composition, performance and listening. It always has, and it always will. For example, technical developments in materials, mechanics and manufacturing were important factors that permitted the piano to supersede the harpsichord as the primary concert Western keyboard instrument by about 1800. And with each new technical development new performance issues have been introduced. Piano performance technique is quite different from harpsichord technique, and composers responded to these differences with new music ideas and gestures. The multiple relationships between technology and composer and performer are dynamic and of paramount importance to each …
Compositional And Programming Issues Within Lyra, A Fully Interactive Performance Environment For Violin And Kyma System, Brian Belet
Brian Belet
Meaningful real-time interaction between human performers and computer processing is an important aesthetic issue for many composers. With the advent of computer systems that are actually fast enough to permit real-time algorithmic sound realizations based on the analysis of live performance data the issue now facing composers is how to utilize these tools in a meaningful and artistic way. Lyra, composed in 2002 for violin and Kyma, is an environment in which the acoustically generated sounds and the computer generated and processed sounds are mutually dependent upon each other for a unified ensemble performance. All of the computer music layers …
Applying Lmprovisationbuilder To Interactive Composition With Midi Piano, William Walker, Brian Belet
Applying Lmprovisationbuilder To Interactive Composition With Midi Piano, William Walker, Brian Belet
Brian Belet
In this presentation we will show how the ImprovisationBuilder framework was adapted to our compositions for pianists and computers. Software design issues include: capturing, transforming, and realizing MIDI piano data, and an easy-to-use graphical interface for altering parameters during performance. Compositional issues include: the causal responsorial aspect of the ImprovisationBuilder output, and varying the small-scale event and gestural levels while preserving the large-scale structure among multiple performances. The presentation will discuss the compositional and performance importance of these issues and show how each of these issues was handled within the ImprovisationBuilder framework. Work on this project suggests the advantages of …