The interesting thing about web browers such as Internet Explorer 6 or Firefox is that you can embed a number of sound files in the HTML to automatically play. Because all the sound files will play independently, over the top of each other, you can create some interesting generative music pieces. I’ve done this before years ago when this site looked very different. I’ve had this domain for about six years and a web presence since around 1997.
Anyway, back to (de)generative music. The idea is simple – you create a number of fairly loose short loops of different lengths. You upload these to a webspace and then put the code into an HTML file such as this. You set each embedded music file to play automatically and to loop indefinately. As the loops move out of synch, they create new patterns and new music – hence the term generative music. Before this was done with multiple tape recorders or looping devices. Now you can do it with a web browser. As the loops are fairly short and small in size, most people, even those on a narrowband connection, will hear the music. Normally, I’d create longer loops or loops with more spaces so that they fell out of synch more – but in this instance it is meant to be a piss-take of a technique called “Soundscaping” – you google it, my friend.
An example of this can be heard at the moment at www.projekction.net – a music fansite I foolishly setup three years ago. I’m doing a fund drive to raise the rent and I thought I’d keep my punters entertained with some generative music. It’s called “Turkeys” and features the vocal talents of Robert Fripp. It becomes quite hypnotic after a while and you’ll soon be reaching for the razor blades.
Amazing what you can do in 10 minutes, ain’t it? 😉
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Three entries in one day…oo’er Missus. (That’s watching the brilliant Fatabulosa on BBC 4 last night – more about that later). Now stop messin’ about.
This entry is a note to myself that today I got my Iain Lee Rocks MP3 played on LBC. He liked it a lot, especially liking the slightly rude lyrics. On the radio it sounded a bit mushy and compressed. Not too happy with the production. Oh well, must clean out my lugholes.
Last night, I really enjoyed the aforementioend “Fantabulosa” on BBC4, a dramatisation of the life of Kenneth Williams. Now Williams wasn’t the easiest person to get along with for various reasons, but was hugely talented. I still remember him fondly on Jackanory and doing all the voices for the cartoon series Willo The Wisp. Anyway, Michael Sheen did a fantastic performance recreating the man and his many guises. It was amazing to watch. The story of Williams is two-fold: it’s either the story of a comedy genius who never found his level or its the story of a man looking for love and not finding it. Williams was gay (obviously) but brought up at a time where being homosexual was not easy, nor legal. His fastidious nature and his inability to connect with people meant that he was always going to be alone. He would have made a psychologist very happy as a case study.
His stomach problems are something I can totally sympathise with. I have suffered with terrible stomach cramps (well, they are bowel spasms if you must know) for nearly a decade. I have my condition under control, avoiding stressful situations and eating very carefully. Williams wasn’t so lucky and suffered with his stomach to the point of suicide. It’s a pain you cannot imagine and there’s no relief. They can swap hearts, kidneys and lungs, but with your bowels you are screwed – the most they can do is whip it out and give you a bag. The stomach pains I feelt are so bad you can’t even move. Thanks to this blog, I know my last bout of it was last year, causing me to miss the Tortoise concert at the RFH. When Sheen winced, I winced with him. At the end, it was very moving. Whenever I think of people in that condition, I often think of Kurt Cobain, who got hooked on drugs because they helped him overcome his own stomach problems.
Anyway, I digress. Fatabulosa was an excellent bit of TV, but what annoyed me was that it was on BBC4. This should have easily been on BBC1. The ghettoisation of broadcasting means that fine TV programmes are often marginalised and hidden away where Joe Q Public are unlikely to see them. It’s a terrible shame and a waste of resources, but I reckon the BBC wiill be showing this on the main channel real soon as it helped BBC4 get its biggest viewership in its history.
To end, more from Williams:
“Infamy, Infamy, they’ve all got it in for me.” 😉
Saw this on Google Video and just had to share it. It’s the voice of Darth Maul himself sending up Hollywood.
I always find it a little apprehensive when it is time to re-string a new guitar. OK, you’ve had the guitar for a couple of months and you want to fit your favourite strings. You take the old strings off and replace – but will the tension of the new strings be any different, forcing you to adjust the bridge? Will your once perfect guitar setup be blighted with fret buzz? Will the guitar’s sound change for the worse? These questions naturally swim around your head like little fishes in the goldfish bowl of consciousness.
My Godin XTSA is a fantastic guitar. In fact, it is probably the best guitar I’ve ever owned or likely to own. Despite this, it had a few tuning problems that meant whenever you used the tremelo arm or “whammy bar” for you youngers, it went seriously out of tune. This can be a common problem. It is an issue with the grooves in the nut where the strings rest against. If the grooves are too tight, the strings snag, causing the tuning instability when you bend strings or use the temelo.
I’d had enough of the guitar drifting out of tune and me constantly having to retune, often in mid song. So I decided to pluck up the courage and remove the old strings and replace them with some Ernie Ball Slinkys – my brand of choice. The XTSA is interesting because it has locking tuning pegs. This means that you don’t have to wind the strings around the capstan like other guitars. You cut the strings to length, with about 2cm extra to thread through the eyelet and then you screw the lock onto the string. The winding pegs are of a tension that when you give them a couple of turns, the string is almost in tune.
Marvellous! This meant that I had my guitar strung in literally half the time. Of course, before I restrung the guitar, I applied a good dose of graphite to the nut. I know it sounds high-tech, but it is in fact a low-tech solution. You take a soft pencil and rub the lead into the grooves of the nut, providing some much need lubrication. This means that the strings will no longer catch and shouldn’t lose their tuning. Do you know what? It worked. The guitar now stays in tune when I use the tremelo. I had a similar problem with my trusty old Fender Fat Strat when I first bought it and have been using the lead pencil trick for years.
Maybe I should record my next video guide for the XTSA? It is rather a clever guitar, you know.
Hurrah!. My faulty D-Link modem has been replaced. How cool is that? I bought the modem over a year ago and it crapped up the other week when I tried to upgrade the firmware. I contacted D-Link and they replaced it without question. Now that is what I call customer service. By doing this, they have insured that I’ll buy D-Link products for the rest of my natural life.
On Saturday, I worked on some more jingles for the Iain Lee Show on LBC 97.3. He challenges the listeners to send in their own MP3 tracks and I responded the other week with a re-recorded version of “Mr Straight”. This time around I sat down I recorded from scratch. It has been quite a good exercise really because it has got me back into writing lyrics and considering recording “proper” songs again instead of solely instrumentals. Anyway, I hope he plays these two new jingles over the coming week.
Got a big letter from Ernst & Young about the collapse of Highbury House. As a creditor, I get all this bumf – like I am interested. I am only interested in getting my money. It was too early in the morning for my sleep-addled brain to read all this stuff, so the Missus read it on my behalf.
“You’re fucked,” she said delivering her summation with a succinctness I appreciate over my cornflakes.
Oh well, if by some fluke of luck I do get the money owed to me, I’ll buy my loyal reader a drink.
Today, I also got a letter from my bank with a invalid cheque in it. This was from one of my many eBay sales and this is the first time I’ve ever had a cheque returned. The reason? I don’t know. The jargon was BankspeakTM and it just said “Refer to Drawer”. What? I, the drawer, says that this cheque is fine. Cash it, you swines. Well I’ve already sent the CDs off to the chap who paid with this cheque and I am hoping that he is filled with the milk of human kindness and will issue another, more valid cheque. The funny thing is that when I looked at the cheque originally, I remarked to The Missus that I thought we’d have trouble with it. I think it was because this guy’s handwriting seemed to be of that of a three-year-old. It should have been in multi-coloured crayon to top the effect. Oh well, easy fucking come, easy fucking go? No?
Got another payment from CDBABY. My music has been literally flying off the shelves and the digital download side of things has become a nice little earner. OK – before I could only afford a couple of packets of replacement guitar strings a year with my earnings, but now I can buy those and perhaps some bass strings and some customised picks with my name on. Whoo-hoo! I have arrived. But seriously, every quarter the money is increasing. This surprises me because I am a nobody and I keep wondering to myself what I could achieve if I attempted to become a somebody. The Missus says I need to get some more music out there pronto. She is absolutely right, as per usual.
I also managed to get one of my tunes played on the radio. It was real radio, none of that Internet rubbish. It was the Iain Lee Show on LBC 97.3 and you can hear it if you buy today’s podcast. I was credited as “Darren from The Loughton”. Hearing my own music (albeit in a cut-down and modified manner to fit in with the humour of the radio station) was quite thrilling and the production sounding so flipping good. I actually blushed with embarrassment when The Missus cheered when it was over. Iain Lee said it was brilliant on his show and actually said it was “genius” in an email back to me. Quick – widen the doors, my head is beginning to swell…
🙂