10-composing-sonic-form

Composing Sonic Form

Sound composition can be tackled at different levels.

Waveforms

• Composition = Sequence of raw samples
• Physical Waveform
• Processing Libraries: Minim
• File Formats: WAV, RAW

Timbre

• Composition = Sound of an Instrument
• Combination of Frequencies
• Attack, Decay, Sustain, Release (ADSR)
• File Formats: SoundFont
• Processing Libraries: Minim, Beads

Notes

• Composition = Sequence of Notes
• File Formats: Midi, OSC
• Libraries midiBus, oscP5, Beads

Samples

• Composition = Mix of Samples
• Granular Synthesis
• Libraries: Beads

The Gestalt of Sound

Experiments

• Timbre

  • Reversed Notes
  • Harmonics

• Form + Gestalt

  • Good Continuation
  • Melody Separation
  • Natural Sound Separation

• Grouping

  • Repetition
  • Similarity
  • Temporal Proximity

The Sound of Code

• SID files — C64 executables using the SID chip

  • Sid Play (OSX) and jSidPlay V2 (Java 8.0)
  • Any C64, or C64 emulator
  • More info on the SID 6581 here + here

• ByteBeat — Music from very short Programs

  • Video I, Video II, Video III — more info here and here
  • HTML5 Version — more info here
  • Flash Version

Gestalt Coding with Sound

• Alex McLean

  • Acid Sketch Code + Video
  • Texture Video
  • Body Code (with Kate Sicchio)
    Code + Interview + Video

• Martin Kaltenbrunner

  • Reactivision — toolkit for tangible multi-touch surfaces
  • Reactable — Product Page
    TEDx Video — Talk by Martin Kaltenbrunner

Demo

Here are a couple of demos for your inspiration:

• Music Visualizer — using Minim + Frequency Analysis (FFT) to visualize music
• Drum Sound — by Asher Salomon (via OpenProcessing
• Vibrating String — by Asher Salomon (via OpenProcessing)
• OSC to TTS — turning OSC signals into sonic events

Exercises

The exercises can be found here.

Solutions

Solutions will be made available here.

Links

Workshops

• Changing Rules While They Are Followed
  Live Coding the Embodied Loop — NODE13 Talk by Alex McLean
• Sound as Data — Processing Workshop by Marius Watz.
  (to play with it you need to create a Music folder inside the repo!)

Processing Libraries

• Minim — Music Programming in Minim (PDF)
• Beads — Sonifying Processing Website + Book (PDF)
• MidiBus
• oscP5

Literature Online

• Illusion Songs — Blog by Meara O'Reilly
• Gestalt theory: Visual and Sonic Gestalt — Article by Alex McLean
• Artist-Programmers and Programming Languages for the Arts — Alex McLean's PHD Thesis

Books

• Tanz in Körper und Gehirn (Sonification of Biological Rhythms) — by Gerold Baier
• Composing Music with Computers — by Eduardo Miranda
• Principles of Vibration and Sound by Thomas Rossing & Neville Fletcher