Explanation about technique used in writing my 6-part invention

Download the article by clicking this link. You may have trouble downloading it with some versions of internet explorer. In that case use chrome or firefox instead.

You can hear the result of the tutorial in my previous post.

6-part Invention

What? Not another one??

In a previous post I explained what technique I used to write a Canon in 5 parts without much sweating. I've been experimenting a bit more with the technique and here's the result of one of those newer experiments: a 6-part invention.

Structure

As it goes with such pieces it's interesting to highlight the structure of the piece. The piece starts with a theme. The theme is repeated at different starting pitches (basic fugal treatment), and counter-subjects are introduced which are really just the theme in canon to itself. The canon is left to play in 3 voices at a few different starting pitches, and then gradually morphs into a different canon with a different theme. The new canon is also given some basic fugal treatment, and finally both canons sound simultaneously forming a 6-part super-canon with two themes playing simultaneously in 3 different time-delayed versions each. The piece rests in peace after a soothing final chord.

How did you make this?

The piece is generated using the techniques explained in my tutorial on writing canons, with some cool twists. I intend to fully explain the creation of this piece including the full score and algorithms in a new tutorial that will appear in a separate post. Stay tuned :)

Enough already... let me hear what this is all about

Ok.. ok... Here it is:

And here it is as well:

Tutorial on my technique for writing a canon

I promised to write a tutorial on how to write a canon like the one I posted in my previous post Canon in 5, and I did.

The tutorial is 12 pages long, but most of that space is taken up by white-space and examples. You will probably get the most out of it if you already know how to read music, although strictly speaking it is not a requirement to already benefit from the material in the tutorial.

You can get the tutorial in .pdf format by clicking this link. You may have trouble downloading it with some versions of internet explorer. In that case use chrome or firefox instead.

You can listen to the result of the tutorial here:

Drop me a note if you've been able to use the techniques explained in there.

Canon in 5

So I've been experimenting today with an idea I had on how to write a canon without needing to know a lot of music theory. I want to explain the method I used in a later post, but here's the result of a test drive with a short theme repeated 5 times.

To conceive this 5 part fugue using the method I invented (or more likely: rediscovered :-) ) was a matter of a few minutes. The creation of the score and the rendering to audio and video took a bit longer.

You can hear the synthesizer version here:

You can download the score by clicking this link. And here's a preview of the score:

Enjoy!

Rain Dance

Another day, another piece!

LMMS madness struck again... I tried to make something different from my usual style and the result - love it, or hate it, is here.

I've embedded some soundscapes into the music (reused from http://freesound.org)

• oceanwavescrushing by Luftrum (CC attribution)
• kinder auf dem spielplatz by fieldmuzick (sampling+)
• thunderstorm2 by erdie (CC attribution)

Call for contributions: YouCoLeLe Twilight

YouCoWhat?!

Maybe you remember my enthusiastic blog post with respect to tunestorm. Unfortunately, the submission deadline has long passed and the organizers do not seem to find the time to broadcast the submissions. That's not exactly the way to make and keep people enthusiastic - perhaps quite the contrary.

I still very much like the concept of a tunestorm: let a group of people create music around a common theme, each in their own style. As a variation on the tunestorm theme, I thought of trying something similar, from now on called YouCoLeLe.

"YouCoLeLe" is an acronym and stands for Youtube Composer's Legendary League. The idea is for people to create music around a common theme, put that music on a site like Youtube or SoundCloud, and tag it with "YouCoLeLe <Theme>" where <Theme> should be replaced with the theme the music was created for. This way, people can contribute without really having to obey a strict deadline. Nevertheless, each time a new theme is chosen, a target date is set, after which a compilation of "contributions so far" will be made. One important difference with tunestorm is this: even if this blog dies or I don't find time to update it anymore, anyone can still find back the contributions by searching for videos/sound streams tagged with "YouCoLeLe ".

So what's the first theme?

The first theme is Twilight. It's up to you to interpret the assignment as you like. The target date is set to 1 september 2012.

What are the constraints?

I don't want to restrict your creative freedom too much, meaning that you are free to create something that in your opinion illustrates the theme. You are free to chose your instruments or musical style. You can create songs or pieces or soundscapes... whatever floats your boat. For your own sake, just make sure that you have the right to use whatever materials you happen to reuse. Legal reuse of material available under creative commons license is highly recommended by the way: that way the new contributions also become available under creative commons license, and who knows: perhaps someone else will reuse your material in their creation. If you create original work of your own of course you can choose not to release it under a creative commons license (although I would highly recommended for The Greater Good.)

Are you going to keep babbling or can we hear some music?

As it happens (surprise, surprise), I have made an entry for "YouCoLeLe Twilight" which you can hear here:

If you want to play it yourself, you can download the score by clicking on this link. Or you can browse the score (without the poem, due to copyright restrictions) here:

Finally...

Feel free to drop me a note with a link to your contribution. Don't be scared to contribute - it's for fun only. It's not a competition, and the whole thing is not meant to judge your work, although it can be a way to find an audience and a way to get feedback on your work if you are looking for that. Better indicate it explicitly in that case.

Unless big disasters happen I will create a compilation of contributions on this blog after the target date. As I see it now, the contributions would be listed with my personal comments on them (if the author indicated they wanted comments), ordered according to the date on which I became aware of the contribution. Should I forget to do so, feel free to remind me of my promise!

I hope to see (m)any contributions :)

Learn to read notes faster!

Introducing SpeedSightRead

Next to making music I also enjoy programming. I've started a small program called SpeedSightRead which tries to help you improving your sight reading speed. This is free and open source software licensed under the GPLv3 license, meaning that you can use and modify it anyway you like (as long as you also make your new code free and open source software). It will display random notes (from a selection of possible notes that you can configure) and ask you to either type the correct name or click the correct piano key. It has been tested on Windows and Linux systems, but probably also can be made to work on other platforms. Get it here! There's an installshield available here for people using a windows systems. If you use another operating system, you will need to read the instructions on how to build and run the program from source code. It's not as difficult as it looks :)