This track tells the story of a conversation between two people, with very different characters.
It also tells the story of how my musical output soars when I have lots of other work to do for university. :/
[audio:http://test.pbc.wa.edu.au/music/The%20call.mp3]I came home one afternoon really stressed out: it hadn’t been the best day, let alone the best week. The house was empty; I dumped my things and sprawled on the couch. As I sat, I realised just how soothing a few moments of quiet can be. With the opportunity to simply relax, I felt all the stress begin to fall away. This song is how I felt when it was quiet at home.
[audio:http://test.pbc.wa.edu.au/music/It%27s%20quiet%20at%20home.mp3][audio:Ink%20and%20parchment.mp3]I have wrapped my heart in ink and parchment,
and cast it into your sea.
Him the Almighty Power/Hurl’d headlong . . . /To bottomless perdition, there to dwell — John Milton
(Although it wasn’t inspired by that quotation, it fits well with the track, in my opinion.)
This is an orchestral piece in loose ternary form (you could argue for a loose rondo form, too). There are lots of time signatures all mixed together, and often layered on top of each other. It’s scored for a Romantic-sized string section, flute, clarinet, oboe, bassoon, french horn, trumpet, timpani, tam tam, cymbals, snare, bass drum, and harp.
[audio:http://test.pbc.wa.edu.au/music/Perdition.mp3]A very simple waltz which crescendoes throughout.
[audio:http://test.pbc.wa.edu.au/music/Hold%20me%20close.mp3]Dawn. Another day at sea. He’s lost count how many days it’s been. Fifteen? Sixteen? Not much water left now.
He lies on his back in the lifeboat, listening to the rhythm of the boat: the splash of the waves, the idle flapping of the hastily rigged sail, the ropes on the mast.
The sun climbs higher.
His vacant eyes stare up at the harsh blue sky, the angry white of the sun burning his pupils unnoticed. An albatross hangs in the air in the distance, turns towards him, circles his boat.
The hours pass, and the albatross is gone. Just him, the sun, and the rhythm of the boat.
[audio:http://test.pbc.wa.edu.au/music/Drifting.mp3]I decided to take a break from my more serious musical projects (and my studies) and write a piece based around the very first duet I learnt on the piano. I wanted to make something fairly cheesy, but still fun to listen to. It kinda morphs from cheesy chip into cheesy fifties jazz.
[audio:http://test.pbc.wa.edu.au/music/Heart%20and%20Soul.mp3]
Reflections on what’s going on in my life at the moment. I feel as though I’m on the threshold of not only a new chapter, but a whole new book. I’m finishing uni this year and getting married soon after – I can see the landmarks up ahead, and I feel as though I’m on the brink of forever. Whilst everything ahead is positive, there’s always some sadness in losing a lot of what I have at the moment. But part of living is making sacrifices and moving on.
[audio:http://test.pbc.wa.edu.au/music/Standing%20on%20the%20brink%20of%20forever.mp3]
This is my first project using Mobile Processing. It’s essentially a MIDI drum machine, with five preset drums: kick, snare, open/closed hihat, and cowbell. Each row represents a ‘tick’, and when you press play, each tick is played in turn. It has been tested on a Sony Ericsson K800i.
Note that at the moment, you can’t change the tempo, can’t load or save patterns, can’t have more than one pattern, and can’t choose which drums to use. I might include those features in a later release. For the moment, though, it’s a fun way to waste a few minutes.
A musical project.
The first thing you’ll notice is that this is atonal. I did initially work with a fixed key (E minor, in fact), and experimented with a variety of other keys, too; everything from simple triads to pentatonics, seventeen tone equal temperaments, and even a completely random set of frequencies, but overall, I think that a three octave span of twelve tone equal temperament frequencies is the most effective.
The sounds are generated on-the-fly; they are simple sine waves with a decay. Internally, the x-coordinates of the particles are broken into a series of ‘frequency bars’. Particles move along, building up energy, and eventually release this energy as a musical tone; the frequency is determined by the bar they are in. The frequencies are randomised.
Left clicking will create a ‘beat-particle’ for the frequency bar under the cursor. These particles will emit a tone every 2, 4, or 8 quantisations. Right clicking creates a ‘pulse-particle’, which emits a tone every x quantisations, where x is randomly determined.
Also in the code, but not enabled in the applet, are ‘orbit particles’ – these are the same as normal particles, but they choose a normal particle to follow as quickly as their current energy level will allow them to. They have a 5% chance of changing their target every tick.
If you run the applet, you will probably notice that the audio and the visuals are not perfectly in sync; unfortunately, this is a drawback of the Java sound API in conjunction with all of the maths and rendering going on every drawing cycle (at around 60 frames per second).
Download a post-processed MP3 created using this applet