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!
Showing posts with label Fibonacci. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Fibonacci. Show all posts
Saturday, October 20, 2007
Friday, October 19, 2007
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.
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.
Thursday, October 18, 2007
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...
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...
Wednesday, October 17, 2007
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.
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.
Tuesday, October 16, 2007
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:
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:
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:
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:
Monday, October 15, 2007
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.
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?
So - today I begin! Stay tuned.
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?
- 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.
- 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).
- 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.
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