GeeksDreamgirl has an interesting take on using Dungeons & Dragon dice to stimulate your musical creativity.

Here’s her take on two of the more important dice:

d8

The d8 is perfect for learning scale degrees and practicing sight-singing.

Your first step is to grab a piece of staff paper and write out the scale you’re going to sight-sing in, numbering your scale degrees:

1. do
2. re
3. mi
4. fa
5. so
6. la
7. ti
8. do (upper)

Now, throw your d8 several times, writing down the resulting notes on the paper. You can start on do if you want. Once you’ve gotten a line of notes, sing it! Add rhythms or alternate octaves if you want to add a challenge.

d12

The d12 is Schoenberg’s dream die. Music majors, rejoice! Now the dice gods can determine your tone row for you.

The d12 is also excellent for all you wind players who have to do scale competencies in order to pass band. Pair it with the d4 for maximum torture… I mean, practice value.

1. C
2. C#/Db
3. D
4. D#/Eb
5. E
6. F
7. F#/Gb
8. G
9. G#/Ab
10. A
11. A#/Bb
12. B

Roll for your key!

Aleatoricism may have had its heyday in the 60’s, but it’s still an important tool for many electronic musicians. I like the idea of bringing more ideas from gaming into electronic music.

Image: Hugh Nelson

xoxos has introduced Hyperion MIDI VST, a semi-modular MIDI processor suitable for a wide variety of tuned algorithmic applications. LFOs and counters are used to easily create dynamic MIDI sequences and change them on the fly, or to modulate other components of the architecture.

Hyperion produces glissandos or subtly varying sequences for up to three parts on three separate MIDI channels using a simple chord function. It can also be used as a phrase arpeggiator to make sure that you never play out of key or out of sequence.

You can preview the output of Hyperion MIDI below.

Features:

• Semi-modular architecture, each component can be driven by a selection of other components precedent to it in the modulation hierarchy.
• Each component has a source that it counts, and a source that resets it, for instance a sequencer might count measures and be reset by MIDI NoteOn (’gate’) events.
• Structure your sequence in groups that can be modulated, ie. the 8th measure counts
  backwards etc.
• Output is recallable, and translates between scales and tempos.
• Output can be transposed using a MIDI keyboard and triggered with MIDI gate events, to
  function as a complex phrase arpeggiator.

A manual with detailed information is available for download.

Hyperion v1.0 sells for $25 USD.