nooooooo!!!!

Yes, i know... no new minute today. Well the story is that since tuesday my right underarm is hurting like a son of a bitch. I'm afraid that it might be a bad case of RSI. Because of the pain i had no choice but to give it rest. That means i haven't been doing much of anything lately. Right now i'm at my job learning to use the mouse with my left hand. This really sucks because if it is RSI i don't think it will ever go away. Hopefully it will improve a lot. I don't know what i'm talking about though. Anyway that is the story behind the lack of posting. Jeff, i owe you a bottle of wine.

Japan-in-a-dishpan: Minute 3

LawrenceMinute0021:

LawrenceNotes:
The latest news from Japan is that Jeff is away for a couple of days. Roaming the Japanese land ever searching for a heart of gold. That means ipso facto: no more sounds for me! We'll have to see what happens these next few days. I'll try to keep up the posting.

Mainly i mashed up the super awesome volcano music that Jeff supplied for this minute. Added some beats and a bass. There are some tuning issues however. Quite bad here and there actually, but generally bearable - at least to my busted ears. Will work on it some more if i feel like it.

Anyway i was planning on making a minute that celebrates the beautiful women of japan. Judging by Jeff's words there are quite a few in the good region of Fukuoka. So in the next few days i might try something to that effect. Who knows though... maybe more noisy stuff awaits!

Finally, more sounds from Japan

Sorry 'bout the late posting, was up in the mountains for a few days at some hot springs. No internet, no mobile signal. Sounds, however, were sampled. The first is pretty simple - just the sound of me walking down a gravel country road in kimono and old-school japanese wooden sandals:

FukuokaSound006 - Clogs on road:


FukuokaSound007: Announcement on Bridge


FukuokaSound008 - Cheezy music from the Volcano Museum (google maps - see where this sound was recorded):

the intermission minute

Yipes! I'm looking at the time and it ain't lookin' pretty. This means i won't be able to use any of your sounds today, Jeff. I'll make it up to you later though! In the meantime you can listen to this. I was programming some stuff in Reaktor and when i thought it sounded interesting i recorded it. Today's intermission minute are these bits and pieces patched together. This is just raw output of this idea i'm working on but it's far from finished so well... hear fer yerself.
LawrenceMinute0020: aloof sequencer

Japan-in-a-dishpan: Minute 2

LawrenceMinute0019: transgression

LawrenceNotes:
Mankinds transgression into a new form of being...
Developed from the Fukuoka-files 3 to 5.

FukuokaSounds Continued

Just a few more sounds for the mix:

Little bell at a shrine by the sea (google maps - see where this sound was recorded):




Up in the mountains - crickets outside the cabin: (google maps - see where this sound was recorded):

Bonus material - Chapter 01 - find out how it all started!

Well, look at that - bonus material! It's the story behind the battle: how it all started. For some reason there is no mention of either UltraJeff-Pan or MechaGodzilla and also a lot of new plotlines are introduced that apparently play no role whatsoever in the battle itself. What can i say? There were script problems from day one...

Anyway this is kind of stupid i guess. I used today's Fukuoka ingredient number uno and started layering effects on top of it until it was no longer recognizable. I took a liking to the result. It's kind of trippy. I sprinkled some random monster movie samples on top and there you have it: today's bonus material.
LawrenceMinute0018: UltraJeff-pan vs. MechaGodzilla! Chapter 01 - Leading into the fight

Japan-in-a-dishpan: Minute 1

LawrenceMinute0017: UltraJeff-pan vs. MechaGodzilla! Chapter 02 - The battle

LawrenceNotes:
This here minute depicts the epic battle between UltraJeff-Pan and MechaGodzilla. Apparantly aliens had built MechaGodzilla to conquer earth. But not if UltraJeff-Pan could help it!


So we start out with MechaGodzilla and UltraJeff-Pan duking it out tearing up Fukuoka as they go along. All of the sudden they pause for a moment and look each other in the eyes. Can they not be friends instead of enemies? Can this not be a world of love instead of hate? But then UltraJeff-Pan zaps MechaGodzilla with his Ultra Attack Beam striking a fatal blow. The rest of the minute is UltraJeff-Pan shaking his fists in the air and doing his gloating dance while MechaGodzilla's smoldering and lifeless remains are lying at his feet.

Barring the two FutureBeats i made in Reaktor everything came from the two building blocks Jeff supplied on monday. Of course the samples were first duely mangled, maimed and twisted before use. Jeff wouldn't want it any other way. Sick bastard.

More Ingredients for the mix: FukuokaSounds

Just some sounds - the first two are tunes that are played for the blind at street crossings so they know when to start walking, the third is some train station noise that I found kinda interesting. Hope it works out!

1



2



3

Minute 17 - The Building Blocks

In japan now, recording bits of interesting noise now and then as per lawrence's experimental instructions! I'm going to have more interesting things later in the week, but for now here are few moist tidbits.

1.JeffIngredient017a: Walking into a japanese electronics chain. Big Camera, methinks.



2.JeffIngredient017b: Sounds from the subway. Not all that interesting, but i thought that maybe parts of it could be sliced into nifty noises.


Good luck lawrence! Better samples shall follow...

Japan-in-a-dishpan: This weeks guidelines - a quick overview

Very tired right now. So here's a quick overview of this weeks guidelines. Might add more later if i feel so inclined. Because JapanJeff is right now riding his bike and eating all the sushi he can eat (you bastard!), we're going to have 'Japan-in-a-dishpan' week here at The Daily Minute.

Basically how i envision it is as follows. JapanJeff will post audio-fragments of his adventures. On Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday it is my task to somehow use those recordings in my minutes for that day. It should be noted that this puts an extra strain on JapanJeff. He can't go around haphazzardly recording everything. He is responsible for the material i have to work with so he should aspire to search for interesting dynamic sounds that can somehow be crafted into something else.

He is allowed to post as many fragments as he wants as long as he feels that they could lead to interesting results. Even though we respect that he's on vacation we do encourage him to post music if he makes any. It would be interesting to hear if his surroundings have a direct influence on his creative output. I wonder what JapanJeff sounds like...

Fibonacci week - 21/4: the ultimate Fibonacci minute?

LawrenceMinute0016:

LawrenceNotes:
It's the last and final Fibonacci minute. It's extremely late. I started working on this minute only a few hours ago so it was kind of rushed. Not sure how this will sound to me tomorrow. Anyway i deemed it necessary to end our Fibonacci extravaganza in style. So instead of using only 21/4 time i added all the other Fibonacci times signatures as well!

Fibonacci week - 13/4

JeffMinute016: From the airport in Seoul

JeffNotes:
I don't understand Korean, but I think she's saying something about taking care when stepping off the moving walkway. Oh, and 13/4 is a bloody difficult time signature.

Fibonacci week - 8/4: The continuation minute

LawrenceMinute0015:

LawrenceNotes:
Well it's time for my contribution. It's Fibonacci week this week at The Daily Minute and if you've kept up you'll know today is 8/4 day. Realizing that Jeff's post yesterday and mine the day before couldn't be topped i decided i would do something minimal tonight. Just to avoid ruining this Fibonacci mood we've got going on. I wanted to do something that would blend in with it's surrounding minutes so that we can have a nicely rounded package when the week is done. I love how our minutes explore this concept of beauty in nature. Well here is a minute that hopes to connect the previous minutes to the forthcoming minutes!

Okay, well i have been yanking your chain here a little bit. It's actually a very rowdy minute. Not very befitting of our Fibonacci-week. I actually did want to do another soundscape sort of thing. What i had sounded terrible though and it was getting late. So then I thought: 'screw this!' and very quickly manufactured this piece of lamentable dribble. That's what you get when i become ornery. Sorry! Oh, how i fear the guilt-trip that Jeff is going to lay on me...

Fibonacci week - 5/4: Shame and embarrassment

JeffMinute015: lame and unfinished

JeffNotes:
Geez. It's already noon the next day and I haven't posted my minute from yesterday. According to the rules of the game, that means I owe Lawrence a bottle of wine. Well, so be it! There is an explanation though, however lame it may be.

See, I was working on this minute last night, and at some point I fell asleep there at the computer. My body just knocked itself out, told me it was time for unconsciousness and did what needed to be done. Then in the morning I woke up with drool on my face and that horrible panicky feeling you get when you realize that you didn't set your alarm. Had to throw on some clothes and run out the door in a rush, hence the lack of uploaded minute.

Anyway, I was planning on doing a whole lot more with this one - still am, actually. Perhaps the only benefit that I can see coming out of this is that if you're interested, it shows a bit of what the process is like when i create music - the minute's rough, unmixed, loose and messy. Usually I do a minute like writing a short story or something - blurt it all out just to get the ideas down, then edit away until a cleaner form starts to appear. Anyway, this is an unfinished minute. And even if it were finished, it would still be a huge letdown after lawrence's minute of genius yesterday. At any rate, more will follow.

Oh, and that voice at the beginning is the train conductor saying that we've arrived in Eindhoven, the city where I work. Was frantically clicking away on the laptop trying to make changes when the train was arriving this morning.

Fibonacci week - 3/4: the whitney files

Here is the second minute in the Fibonacci series. The third requirement for this week's minutes states:

The Fibonacci sequence gives rise to some of the most beautiful forms in nature - requirement 3 is that our minutes attempt to convey some of that same beauty. Grace & elegance are our watchwords here [...]

Now i thought about this for a while and it occured to me that when we think of beauty in nature we often think of static, mathematical, graceful and elegant structures such as the one Jeff posted earlier this week. When i think of nature though i think of a primal force violently forging connections and ripping them apart again. Things are in a state of perpetual change - creation and disintegration. We live in a world of conflict and struggle. This to me is the essence of nature.

In a way my minute is an attempt to portray that chaotic struggle. I had the formation of rocks in mind: minerals crystallizing from magma at temperatures between 600Cº and 1200Cº, and from the surface to depths of 30 kilometres or more. Extrusive rocks resulting from magma reaching the surface either as lava or fragmental ejecta. My minute portrays how matter can explosively combine leaving a bang and how it can slowly disintegrate again after that.

To evoke such a complex thought i felt i had to do something a little different today. Instead of doing an ordenary musical minute i worked on an audio-visual minute. The inversion of John Whitney's ideas concerning music and animation that Jim Bumgardner came up with suited my purpose well. You can find his awesome implemented flash version here.

Whitney was particularly interested in converting musical ideas into animation. He made a number of films based around the simple idea of harmonic relationships. Here's an apt quote from the man himself i found on Bumgardner's site:

An early intuition about how to control total dynamics led me to activate all graphic elements through a motion function that advances each element differentially. For example, if one element were set to move at a given rate, the next element might be moved at two times that rate. Then the third would move at three times that rate and so on. Each element would move at a different rate and in a different direction within the field of action. So long as all elements obey a rule of direction and rate, and none drifts aimlessly or randomly, then pattern configurations form and reform. This is harmonic resonance, and it echoes musical harmony, stated in explicit terms. I tried this procedure in several films, and was gratified by the consistency of the confirmation it demonstrated.
– John Whitney, “Digital Harmony”, pp. 38

Following Bumgardner i replaced graphical elements with musical elements and worked out a patch that would assign a triggering frequency to the base element and then a frequency to every other element which is a multiple of the base frequency. Because today's fibonacci number is 3 i used only multiples of three. This particular configuration leads to some really interesting patterns. How the elements combine and fall apart in an ordered yet chaotic fashion - at least to me - resonates with my earlier thoughts.

Each element gets it's own pitch-sequence, a random generated amplitude within a defined range and an envelope. These parameters are used to control a sine-oscillator. The audio of the oscillators combined is fed into an echo/delay effect.

Simultaneously these parameters are being fed into a display unit. There is a graphical element for each musical element. Each graphical element follows a given trajectory with a set speed. When they cross the starting line they trigger their corresponding note. The caterpillar movement of the elements is my own little design.

To record it i used one of those nifty programs they have nowadays that allow you to record anything happening on your computer screen. I have had a hard time striking a balance between size and quality. I ended up with a file of 8 mb but the quality is pretty bad. If i find out how i'll upload a better one.

Let me end on one last thought. Rocks and their formation may seem pretty static to us. But that is merely because we humans are simply too small and we live too short a life to appreciate the immense forces that are at play here. To really appreciate it you must behold it from afar and live a million years. Blinking your eyes should last a century. This minute even though it's just a minute actually represents vasts and vasts amounts of time. Remember that when you listen to it ;-)

Well without further ado i present you the Fibonacci minute #2:

Fibonacci week - 2/4

JeffMinute014: Fibonacci001

Is this 2/4? or 4/4? How does one tell the difference in the absence of a beat? I'm a bit of an idiot when it comes to theory.

Moving the Goalposts

Ok, so Lawrence & I have been talking, and we think we're going to try something a little different around here just to mix it up a little bit. Here's the scoop:

As you know, we make minutes. That's just what we do, 6 days a week, and on the 7th day we rest. This is all fine and dandy, but we've been at it for two weeks now and were thinking we might switch things up a bit. Henceforth day 7 is not simply our day of rest - it is also a day of sober contemplation and planning.

See, we're gonna take turns. Every other Sunday one of us will assume the role of Kommandant and will lay down the rules that govern the next week of minutes. These rules will, as always, be enforced with an iron fist (e.g. the ability to lay serious guilt trips on one another). There's only one fundamental precept: every day must bring with it a new minute.

Soooo... with that in mind, here's the concept for Week III. Ready?

1. Alternating minutes. Day 1 (monday) will be done by Jeff, Day 2 by Lawrence and so on and so forth until Saturday. Alternating days will give us each a bit more time to work, because requirement 2 is difficult.
   
2. Fibonacci sequence. This is Fibonacci week here in minuteland, and each day as the sun rises the sequence moves on to the next step. What does this mean? It means our time signatures are determined by Fibonacci numbers (skipping 1, conveniently) - I'll start with something in 2/4 time, Lawrence does the Tuesday minute in 3/4 time, Wednesday = 5/4 time, Thursday 8/4 time, Friday 13/4, Saturday a real challenge at 21/4 (is that even possible? Well if there's anyone that can pull off 21/4, it's Lawrence).
3. The Fibonacci sequence gives rise to some of the most beautiful forms in nature - requirement 3 is that our minutes attempt to convey some of that same beauty. Grace & elegance are our watchwords here, not spine-crushing beatz. Emulate this:
   

So - today I begin! Stay tuned.

Week 2 upshot!

Week 2 has come to a close, and to tell the truth I'm pretty happy with how things went! Not a bad week. Lawrence & I have done some talking and are planning on unveiling a new set of operational guidelines tomorrow, so things may soon be a bit different around here.

Our goals, however, remain constant! Give to the world a new minute each day, a minute to chase the doldrums away. And so on. Stay tuned for our upcoming paradigm shift.

-jeff

One of these!

LawrenceMinute0013: Pimenco where art thou?

LawrenceNotes:
SHAMBUCK MCGIGGLES

JeffMinute0013:

JeffNotes:
the gig went well! man, damn shame you weren't there... perhaps we hang out sunday night though? anyway, this minute came about after having a long slow drive back from the show. should really fade out in the end instead of the abrupt ending, but perhaps that's a change to make in the future. g'night..

12 - exhaustion

JeffMinute012:

JeffNotes:
my god. so tired i'm actually typing with my eyes closed. i am seriously exhausted. must buy some drink tomorrow. ok, that's my dream mind typing. time to sleep.

LawrenceMinute0012:

LawrenceNotes:
I've been working on a patch the whole day for my minute but seeing the patch ain't done yet i started rummaging through the ol' dusty archives and dug up this golden oldie. It's my first experiment with looping!

Turning it up to 11

JeffMinute011:

JeffNotes:
This minute is brought to you by the makers of the 7/4 time signature.

LawrenceMinute0011:

LawrenceNotes:
I was working on the last bits of today's minute when i decided to check if Jeff had posted anything already. He had so i checked it out. Quite frankly it was the most amazing minute i have ever heard! Unfortunately my computer couldn't handle the sheer awesomeness of it all and crashed at about 80% of the song.

This is why i lost some of the later changes made to my minute. Because it's getting late already i figured i wouldn't bother redoing it. Instead seeing Jeff told me a little recording secret that those fat cat producers don't want you to know about i thought i would try it out for myself.

Basically the whole idea boils down to recording vocals at a comfortable pitch and then repitching them to the wanted key by slowing down or speeding up the play-back rate. I sang some random (and really stupid might i add) lyrics and then pitched it down. Unfortunately it didn't turn out as magical as Jeff's previous endeavor did. In fact i sound like a damn fool! Hear this mess for yourselves!

[Later that day:] I just realized something! Jeff recorded his in 7/4 time. Mine is just a boring ol' 4 to the floor... however... the loop is 7 measures long! Isn't that bizar? What i did is less obvious to the ear but when i started working on this minute it was a deliberate choice. We both independently felt the need to use this magical number in our compositions on the same day!

My oh my - it's the tenth entry

Yay! We've reached the second digit!

LawrenceMinute0010:


JeffMinute0010:

JeffNotes:
Damn, fell asleep doing this last night, just woke up and have no time to fnish! Oh well, maybe i'll work on it later, make it into a real song. Nonsensical lyrics as usual.

Minutes! Get them while they're still fresh!

LawrenceMinute0009: beware of the ultra-cheese!

LawrenceNotes:
God... that panflute... what was i thinking!?

JeffMinute0009: sweet dreams

JeffNotes:
Well, this one sort of expresses what I should be doing right now, consider it's 6:48am and I'm still sitting here in front of the computer. Gonna be a long day...

Crap! I just listened to this and realized it sounds just like that Ray LaMontagne song, what's it called?... umm... Be Here Now. Err, except mine sounds crappier. But it's like exactly the same sort of song, what a disappointment. Here, check this out, I'm a total subconscious plagiarist:

My god, it's even in the same key! How freeky. Seriously, I wasn't intending to do this when I started, I just recorded the 1st guitar part pretty randomly, then thought it would sound cool with some piano on top. Then once that was in there I just thought it could use some high breathy strings, i used these samples I have of cello harmonics being played.

It's seriously so strange to be absorbed in making something like this for a while, then suddenly listen to the finished piece and realize that you've unwittingly ripped off another song almost note-for-note. May be hard to believe, but I honestly didn't mean to do this...

Monday minutes...

LawrenceMinute0008: loud and obnoxious

LawrenceNotes:
I suspect that this week won't be a good week minutewise and this minute reflects that. There's a lot of stuff i need to do and unfortunately i can't record a minute in six minutes and make it sound awesome like Jeff can. MinuteForcast: cold and cloudy.

JeffMinute0008: soft and sweet

JeffNotes:
how laid back and relaxed can hip-hop get? more chilled out than this, I'm sure, but I'm still learning. (oh, and i meant to say breeze through the boards, not breathe. can't be bothered to rerecord these minutes though. Quantity over quality, the motto goes.)

Week 1 Roundup!

1 week and 14 minutes behind us! There have been some crappy minutes (see minute 7) and some great ones (I'm quite fond of Lawrence's 2nd and 6th minutes actually), but the best part, at least for me, is just getting into the habit of being musically creative on a daily basis. Strangely satisfying.

Anyway, prepare yourselves! More minutes are on the way!
-jeff

Well time for me to chime in. This past week has given us some good minutes. Jeff's psycho-pr0n and his venture into the realm of polyrythm are my personal favs. Oh, and I've also taken quite a shine to his quiet minute #5. I guess my efforts have been okay so far bar my 0007. Let's see what next week brings!
-lawrence

Damn you minutes!

LawrenceMinute0007:

LawrenceNotes:
Awful... plain and simple. But a minute is a minute. I just wish it hadn't taken me this long. Four hours of precious sleep wasted over this piece of garbage. Now that's deeee-pressing.

JeffMinute0007:

JeffNotes: A truly crappy last-minute minute. 1 minute, recorded in 1 minute. Please excuse the cheez, didn't know it was gonna come out that way when i started playing it.
And Lawrence - your minute is cool! Too bad about the lack of sleep, but I like the minute anyway. Autechre-ish in a way.

0006 - A reluctant minute

JeffMinute0006:


LawrenceMinute0006:

Minute 0005 (yes, 3 zeros)

JeffMinute0005:

JeffNotes:
Tired. Don't feel like making a minute, this is what happens when you make your music in 6 minutes before getting into bed. What's done is done, lyrics nonsensical on-the-spot stuff, I guess you can tell i've been listening to The National lately. Anyway, time to sleep. Goodnight.

LawrenceMinute0004:

LawrenceNotes:
I've been dead tired all day yet somehow this minute came from it. Quite the contrast i would say. Anyway i'm going to really regret staying up this late tomorrow. Rats!

photo by Sean Duggan (used without permission, lemme know if you want it taken down Sean).

Day 4. Oh, the humanity.

JeffMinute004: Rock! (a la interpol)

(the end's a bit messy/overdramatic, but oh well.)

LawrenceMinute004:

LawrenceNotes:
Seeing that polyrhythm is the hot new fad in Minuteland i decided i would experiment somewhat myself. I made a patch using a delay that can accurately derive any time signature from the midi-clock - even the strange ones. That means the timing should be airtight on this one. Unfortunately i can't boast that it's pure and uncut me. Sounds pretty bizar, huh?

It's the 3rd minute...

LawrenceMinute003:


JeffMinute003:

JeffNotes:
Well, this one is more of a dorky experiment than real music. Just playing around with overlapping time signatures etc., it doesn't sound all that nice but it's structured like this:

Piano = 1 note per measure
Viola = 2 notes per measure
Harp(muted) = 3 notes per measure
Cello = 4 notes per measure
Contrabass = 5 notes per measure
French Horn = 6 notes per measure
Triangle = 7 notes per measure
Glockenspiel = 8 notes per measure
Cymbals = 9 notes per measure

Would almost certainly sound better if I only used multiples of 2 and 3, but I think the 5 and 7 note-per-measure samples make it sound a lot more complex (or messy, depending on how you view it). And it was all played by ear, no quantizing, so it's not as clean-cut on the whole as it could be potentially. Screw perfection though, it's just an experiment.

The second installment!

I bring you this humble offering. Enjoy.

LawrenceMinute002:


JeffMinute002:

The Daily Minute: the project begins

So now we've decided to do this thing where we make a minute of music every single goddamn day of our lives. The two of us will hold each other to the proverbial fire, insofar as that if either of us fails to deliver a daily minute of new music, they shall be held to account by the other, and forced to buy the other bottles of wine and liquor and who knows what else in consequence.

Anyway, tonight was the first night of the rest of our minute-making lives! Have a quick listen, why dontcha?

LawrenceMinute001:


JeffMinute001: The Joy of Sex

The inaugural project: MinuteMusic V 1.0

So this is the thing that started it all: the original Minute Music Project. The system of MMP1.0 was as follows:

1. somebody makes a minute of music. can be any sort of music whatsoever
2. this somebody chops off the last 10-15 seconds of their minute and sends it to their collaborator (or opponent, depending on how you look at it)
3. the recipient receives the 10-15 seconds, listens, analyzes, holds it up to harsh scrutiny, then crafts a minute of music that picks up where those 10-15 seconds left off.
   
4. the recipient, flush with the joy and power of having just created a fresh minute, lops off the last 10-15 seconds of their new minute and sends it off to MinuteMan #1.
   
5. repeat ad infinitum.

So anyway, that's how it went, and this is how it sounded: