composition

This video captures a demo of Arvo Pärt style Max/MSP algorithmic composition.

via akihikotube

Melody Box (App Store link) is a monophonic synthesizer & sequencer for the iPhone and iPod touch.

If you’ve used Melody Box, leave a comment with your thoughts! Read more…

iComposer (App Store link) is a new music creating tool for iPhone that can record what you’re humming, transcribe your humming into notes on five line staff and play the results back with 130+ instruments.

Features:

• Record what you are humming and transcribe the melody to five line staff.
• Playback with 130+ different instruments, including piano, organ, drum set, strings, guitars, reed, brass.
• Edit music score with multi-touched staff editor.
• Compose up to 8 voice parts simultaneously supported by multi-tracks editing and mixing.

Demos of iComposer’s vocal note recognition are available at the Soundplayground site.

If you’ve used iComposer, leave a comment with your thoughts!

Eric Ross’s Composing For the Theremin is an interesting and concise article that reviews the unique challenges and opportunities of writing music for the theremin:

To write for the theremin effectively one should know its strengths and weaknesses.

The theremin is a monophonic instrument; which is to say, it can only produce one pitch at a time. It has about a five-and-a-half octave range. Its low range can sound like a cello or string bass, mid range to upper range can be vocal-like and the top end is brilliant and piercing. But with effects or MIDI you can extend both the range and timbre of the instrument.

Theremins work on the principle of heterodyning—that is, mixing the output of two radio frequency oscillators to produce a beat. When this frequency is over 50 Hz or so, an audio signal is produced which is then amplified.

The theremin is played by changing the alternating magnetic fields that surround two antennae. The resultant waveform is variable. One hand controls pitch, the other volume.

The theremin is difficult to play well. There’s no keyboard or fret board for reference. Spatial perception is only part of it. One must have a good ear, since ear training certainly helps in hitting the intervals correctly. It’s important to be relaxed physically and concentrated mentally to hear the note before it is played. You’ll need to make the right adjustments instantaneously to hit the note cleanly in the center of the pitch. There are several different styles and finger work that can be used to do this. Some players concentrate on the right hand which produces pitch, but the left hand which controls the volume and attack is equally important. In a way, the right hand is the artisan and the left hand is the artist.

See the full article at the New Music Box site.

via MusicOfsound, Image: Usonian

Nodal, a generative music application, has been updated to run on both Mac and Windows.

The video above features a live performance of music created using Nodal 1.1 by Peter Mcilwain.

Nodal uses a novel method for the notation and playing of MIDI based music. This method is based around the concept of a user-defined graph. The graph consists of nodes (musical events) and edges (connections between events). You interactively define the graph, which is then traversed by any number of players who play the musical events as they encounter them on the graph. The time taken to travel from one node to another is based on the length of the edges that connect the nodes.

Version 1.1 beta version of Nodal is now available for download. It’s free, but future versions will require a registration fee. Details below.

If you’ve used Nodal, leave a comment with your thoughts! Read more…