Searching for New Sound - Music Composition ideas

I developed a pure data patch that is installed on the mobile phone and the gyro signal sends to the computer for audio processing, then sends to the PA system for performance. By moving the phone, the gyro picks up the three-dimensional acceleration signal, pitch, yaw, and roll, in meters per second (m/s). There are three important elements: two patches, one running on the phone, one on the computer, and a GUI interface on the phone to control the computer remotely.  The phone side patch The patch first receives the gyro signal, the measurement sends to the phone GUI for me to monitor. The acceleration signal (m/s) is in small digits. I use mathematical expressions to scale up the digits to translate into midi note numbers.   The basic construction of a gyro (pic. 1) Since it is measuring the acceleration, when I stay still, the digit is around zero and it is scaled up around midi note number 45. When there is movement,  the gyro detects acceleration signals, more vigoro...

 People prefer piano to use equal temperament and string instruments to use just intonation. It can be understood that the mechanics of the instruments: the piano is hard to adjust during a performance and strings are good at their agility. It can have the same conclusion when we examine the timbre of the instruments. Here is the harmonic series comparison between a piano and a violin playing on the same note A2. In the piano, the harmonic strength is strong on the first 3 harmonics but decays rapidly after 1kHz; the violin carries a more spread of harmonic strength. It maintains strength even over 1kHz until 4kHz. In other words, the strings instruments have louder upper harmonic partials compared to the piano. In real practice, the string instruments are often played with vibrato, which generates even more complex harmonics compare to a piano. I use Pure Data to generate the purer sound for clearer comparison and easier to switch between different temperaments and tuning as well ...

 The trinity here is not about the Christianity faith, but similar to the idea of the Christian doctrine of it defines God as being one God existing in three coequal, the core and fundamental definition, temperament, tuning, and timbre (TTT) are the basic building blocks of music, yet, underrated and even neglected in our music education system. TTT correlates with each other. A note is played, it carries out a series of frequencies, the harmonic series. The series multiples from the fundamental frequency with a series of integers (1f 2f 3f 4f 5f 6f 7f 8f 9f 10f 11f 12f 13f...). The loudness of individual particles, and different patterns, creates different timbres. View the series in a different way, the combination of the integers creates intervals. The combination of the beginning of the series sounds more harmonious and vice versa; simple ratios sound pure and vice versa. The pure perfect 5th interval is based on the ratio of 2:3 (2nd and 3rd harmonics at the same time), Pytheo...

Partch portrayed the Greek theatrical art form that weaves poetry, music, acting, and dance into a profound and moving unity, comparing the similarity of Japanese music drama and Chinese opera, to show the ideal corporeal musical form that Partch pursuit. Japanese drama, Noh, from the Japanese social-religious culture, was an amalgam and refinement of the epic recital. Noh developed from and into many forms, the vocal and bodily mechanics of which consisted of dancing, reciting, chanting, and outright singing. Noh eventually brought Kabuki. 'kabuki' can be read as "sing" (歌), "dance" (舞), and "skill" (伎) can be understood as "the art of singing and dancing". The actors mostly focus on acting, gesturing, and occasional reciting. The musical part, singing, and instrumental playing is often played by the onstage ensemble and choir (Actors may sing in Hoh theater, but not as much as we understand in typical opera). The actor and singer are se...

Partch's application of just intonation through a system he called Monophony in which all intervals emerge from one fundamental pitch, rhythm and melody have their origin in the spoken inflection of the text, and performance is based on one voice. His elaboration of Monophony means more than the monophonic texture we normally understand.  Partch discusses the origin of music as monophonic songs. It can be traced to all ancient cultures and modern music cultures that still have a strong connection to ancient practice. China had a tradition of poets/musicians positing a strong connection between words and music, the singer and the poet, which is also reflected in his music. The music with lyrics, songs, usually carried concrete ideas or massage. Important ancient and near-ancient cultures-the Chinese, Greek, Arabian, Indian, Africa, in all of which music was physically allied with poetry or the dance and even further cooperate drama and story. It is Partch descibes as Corporeali...

 Cantonese opera, San Francisco, H. Partch, these three things may sound irrelevant at the first glance. However, these three things documented the very first scene of Chinese music exported to America. In California, where Partch was born, living and dead, Gold Rush first lured them in 1848, Chinese immigrants had come to the United States to work. About 175,000 Chinese immigrants who entered San Francisco through Angel Island between the great earthquake in 1906 and the Exclusion Act's repeal of many Chinese in 1943 by the Magnuson Act. The immigrants also brought with them a desire for entertainment from home, a desire musicians and touring companies eagerly filled as Chinatown prospered.  Chinese opera was regaining its foothold in Chinatown in the 1920s; Cantonese opera flourished from this early start until the 1890s and reached its peak in 1920’s. Mei Lanfang and Ma Shizeng toured the United States in 1930 and 1931–32, respectively. Chinese music kept resurfacing throug...

Li Po (Li Bai)（701－762）is considered one of the most important poets of the Tang Dynasty and when you study Chinese he is the most known poet, Li Po's work has influenced poets and artists across the world, including Ezra Pound, Gustav Mahler, and Patch as well. His talent was recognized by the emperor. Emperor Xuanzong gave Li Po a position at the Hanlin Academy, where he provided poetry and scholarly advice to the Emperor. However, he did not stay longer than 2 years in the position. Mainly his personality could not work with politics and his poems offended the aristocracy. In the later of his life, wars and rebellions devastate the whole country, he ended up as an alcoholic. His poems are romantic and expressive, at the same time, full of sarcasm to the injustice. Partch's parents had spent the years 1888-93 and 1895-1900 in China as Presbyterian missionaries, exposed to the Chinese culture (Gilmore,1992). Partch's mother even sang Chinese lullabies. It is funny to find ...

Confucius (c. 551–479 BCE) was a Chinese philosopher, poet and politician of the Spring and Autumn period who was traditionally considered the paragon of Chinese sages. What is the intrinsic value of art? Confucius considered poems to have four main functions. Poem is an ancient art form. The ancient Chinese poems were not only for reciting. They can be sung as well, beyond literature, a kind of musical art as well. The first function, enjoyment, is for readers to observe beauty and enjoyment. The second function, reflection, reflects the social or moral problems in society. The third function, empowerment, music as activities gathers people around as emotional exchange. The fourth function, criticizing the social problems. In short, art can educate one and even change society. It demonstrates that the ancient Chinese considered that art is very functional. For music, the concept of lǐyuè ( 禮樂) reflects courtesy and music are closely related.  Courtesy is more than just politeness ...

(Following up from the last article of improvisation on an existing melody.) Toccata is a musical form for keyboard instruments, written in a freestyle or improvising on very limited material, mostly just a mode or scale, since the Renaissance period. It was used as a help for singers to find the right pitch and mode before the church service. It is quite virtuoso as well. I made a pure data gamelan patch that the program will randomly select the notes for the gamelan scale (D E F A Bb) (see more ). This is the only material for me to improvise to echo the random pattern of the PD patch. My source material is only the gamelan scale. My improvisation was based on the scale and adding notes around the scale to decorate and create contrasting sections. The beginning melody is decorated with chromatic neighboring notes of a center tone. The second section is based on Bb major scale. The third section is based on the pentatonic scale. The fourth section, on Bb major scale, I change the...

 Think about the concept of improvisation in Western music, the first thought possibly is jazz or a cadenza in concerto (although lots of late romantic composers wrote out the cadenza.) The practice of notation has been solid for centuries. The notation has been developed into more and more sophisticated. The general impression of western is all written out elaborately and has little room for performers to interpret. This contributed to the rise of the independent identity of "composer". The composer as the central figure of a piece has all the explicit control of all the details. Traced back to the Renaissance period, the score is definitely cleaner and did not offer so much detail that we would expect today. The role of a composer in that period was a musical material provider. In many cases, the role of composer and performer were hard to separate. Speaking of improvisation, there are different levels of it. How many materials provide for the performers? How much is the un...

Hába characterizes the quarter-tone gamut as separated into two fields, one half comprising the twelve conventional pitches, and the other half, shifting all the twelve notes by a quarter-tone, the twelve quarter-tone pitches. In harmony, Passages occur in which chords composed purely of conventional pitches alternate with chords composed purely of quarter-tone pitches. Two fields are not always rejecting each other when he equally divided a perfect 4th (5 semitones)into 2 equal intervals, equal 2.5 for each, the 0.5 quartertones always step into the other field. Sometimes, this fourth interval can be further divided into 2.5+2+0.5 or other permutations. This kind of splitting a fourth can be traced to ancient greek tetrachord, a scale of four notes, bounded by the interval of a perfect fourth. A chord across both fields, the chord spell like a flatter dominant 7th chord. the 7th harmonic on harmonic series is quite flat (-31cents). This chord combines both fields sounds better accordi...

 Tablature of 53-TET keyboard correlated to notes in ET. The note on the staff only means the key number/place of the keyboard in 53-TET, it is not the original sounding pitch in staff (pic below). The letter above the note is the actual sounding pitch approximately in ET. H. Partch used marking the straight ratios, and colour coding, on the fingerboards, for the performer to have a direct visual notice of finding the note, rather than just listening. I borrow the idea of it. Partch's Chromelodeon, an organ tuned with just intonation, the colour demonstrates the ratios on the keyboard. The notation that the performer actually read is a tablature.  When the player sees an "F#" in the lower part of the treble clef, for example, he plays it automatically. However, he will not hear "F#" but rather a low "Eb" (11/7). At first, the sounds are strange, but, as suggested above, the player's eyes and fingers are too well correlated to let that strangeness d...

 Recently I am writing for a piano trio (violin, cello, and piano). First, I work out the harmonics on the string. I found the two adjacent strings of the pitch of A string on the cello and G string on the violin. The harmonic series, the natural vibration of the string, finds the 4th to  7th harmonic form a dominant 7th chord. Combining the natural harmonics of A and G strings, it forms a Lydian-Mixolydian scale on G, sees the example. Sound an octave higher The natural harmonic is played on the string, thus, the tunning deviates from the equal temperament and the digit shows how many cents deviated. It is quite special that the G octave is different. Although I can lower the g string a bit by -31 cents to get a perfect octave, I wonder it is hard to tune with the piano's ET. Composers worked with bitonality, polyrhythm, but I work with bi-tuning systems, equal temperament, and overtone tuning.

 In the traditional western music aesthetic of playing in an ensemble, it is important, for every player, to have a unison attack, clear and precise. In a small ensemble, the leader cues the rest of the group; in the orchestra, the conductor gives the precise signal for starting. However, it is not the case in the music of the East. For example, the Chinese opera, the ensemble often closely follows the singer. The time interval is very short enough a quarter of the beat. In Japanese Kabuki music, there is a natural tendency for the voice to sing "out of time" with the shamisen. This is not called a syncopation but rather a form of "neutrality".  Malm, 1963 In both cases, one explanation is that it allows the words to be heard clearly without being covered by the percussion or when all other instruments play a similar melody. Other than the offset attack time, the attack pitch is often not on the accurate pitch, get to the right pitch by bending the note. When changi...

 Recorder, a musical instrument, not the audio recording device, nowadays, it is a popular instrument for school children as an easily accessible instrument to learn music. It can be traced back to the mid-20th century, German composer and music educator Carl Orff popularized it. The descant recorder is used in the school system, however, the children always overblow and its range is high, ending up as a squeaking instrument to the general public.  The alto and tenor recorder were good solo instruments before the baroque period and they were often played in a small ensemble setting. The expressiveness of the instruments compares to all other contemporary instruments in history. Sadly, after the baroque period, they were mostly replaced by the flute. Until the contemporary period, recorders were picked up by contemporary composers as searching for a new sound. Thought recorders are not any new instrument, but new materials, playing techniques, mechanisms offer a new sonori...

 Chinese calligraphy calls a double articulation in reference to pictorial art: the vocabulary correlates to the represented object, on the other. For instance, the character for the sun (日)is based on a sequence of brushstrokes that follow a systematic and combinatorial order, while it suggests an actual image of the sun. As a Chinese language user, the picture is inherent in our language which can transpose to composer's notation in Chou's music. Chou is also an accomplished calligrapher. According to Everett (2007), the process of writing the word, the brushstroke in calligraphy, is affecting the look of the character even the same character. Chou treated calligraphic stroke as a type of articulation: with the same note, we can have different articulation to play it, same as brushstroke. The rhythm of music is the speed of a brushstroke. The structure of the character is the texture in music. It has great potential by reading the calligraphy as a score, which echoes the wes...