Music: the Quest for Motion
(First version, subject to revision).
On monday 11, sept. 2012, the Dorkbot workshop held a session in Paris, with three musicians-composers working on gesture, motion, using diverse electronic devices controlled by Arduino cards and programming with graphical languages.
Olivier Sens, from double bass to software
He was a contrabassist, he is today a programmer. And more than that, he has created a programming language,Usine, similar to Pure Data and Max MSP, with their mainly graphical interface use. He claims that Usine is "ten times faster" for the programmer, with not exactly the same functions, nor the same kind of logic. Pure Data and Max are based on message exchanges between patches, Usine send flows. Usine counts presently some 3 000 users. The patches include a lot of random functions, then opening on generative art.
As says Sens, a strictly determinisic musician is boring. A purely random musician will not be accepted by other musicians (if even the audience). Then, he aims to simulate "deterministic players who sometimes have bugs". He says that rapidity in coding is crucial to creation, in a world where groups have very limited rehearsal time (three hours...). Hence the programming of a part must be done in some minutes. That pushed him, for instance, to make his interface modifiable and possibly reduced to one to three patches. As for his personal and physical engagement in music, he was driven this because he felt the limits of playing just an instrument. A heavy exercising time daily (up to 7 hours), and the limited expression possibilities of a given instrument. With programming he got a much wider perception of music, and a more global one.
"When your are playing, you must concentrate on yourself and lisen to the other players mainly in relation with your actions. Now, I can listen to the whole group on stage, somehow as if I were outside" (Our free translation of his words). Of course, that was paid by a loss of the bodily relationship with the material instrument, particularly intense with a contrabass, which demands ample arm moves and sends strong vibrations in the whole body and specially the belly. Asked about live coding, he remains rather skeptical. Though not at all a scientist by education, he did not find programming so difficult, even to drill deeper on real time performance and then in the intricacies of C++. Not everybody could say that !
Pierre Mourles, the augmented accordionist
Pierre Mourles went along a rather similar axis, starting from professional accordion playing to develop an "augmented" instrument. Technically, its a classical acoustic chromatic instrument, equipped with : - two microphones, for the classical use of the instrument, - a pressure (piezoelectric sensor) bar, for beats (previously he was hitting the accodion itself, with limited results and potential damage to a precious instrument), - a button box, with five potentiometers, playing a role similar (but more progressive) to a box of effects ; this box is connected to the computer through an Arduino card. - programming in Pure Data. Mourles remains clearly a stage player, not a programmer. He could have done more simple using an off-the-shelf Midi accordion, but so losing part of the rich affordances of an acoustic accordion, and without the creativity his DIY digital electronics gives him.
Cyrille Martraire, composing by blocks placing
A third approach has been taking by Cyrille Martens. Here also, a set of patches and music generators is developed on a computer. But the music is not composed by patch placing on the screen, but by sensor blocks or mirrors disposed around a rotating laser beam. An Arduino board provides the interface.
------- Extracts from the announcement
Dorkbot donne la parole à des artistes pour parler des aspects techniques originaux de leurs réalisations.
Dorkbot #41 : "Geste Musical" Où nous verrons que la créativité des musiciens ne se limite pas à la production musicale. Ils sont nombreux a construire leur outils informatiques ou autres, à programmer de nouvelles interfaces adaptées à leurs besoins spécifiques...
Olivier Sens, musicien et créateur du logiciel USINE, Cyrille Martraire, concepteur du Beam Beats, un outil rythmique pour le moins original, et Pierre Mourles, augmenteur d'accordéon. Olivier Sens, contrebassiste reconnu, mais aussi codeur, auteur d'une suite logicielle originale de traitement du signal audio, qui se taille un petit succès dans le monde de la musique live... On essaiera d'en savoir plus sur cette aventure qui à vu un musicien créer un outil aussi abouti. http://www.sensomusic.com/wiki/doku.php?id=fr:users:senso
"Usine est un programme universel de synthèse et de traitement sonore temps réel. Il poursuit le travail commencé par des logiciels comme Max ou Reaktor, en intégrant la notion de patch (feuille de travail). Dans Usine les éléments sont simplement plus macroscopiques, ce qui permet de fabriquer des objets sonores très rapidement. Le logiciel est donc mieux adapté aux musiques improvisées, dans lesquelles le temps de réaction est primordial. Usine contient également de nombreux modules d’analyse des sons provenant d’instruments extérieurs. Il s’adapte automatiquement à l’environnement sonore et donne ainsi la sensation d’écouter et de réagir au jeu des autres musiciens. Usine intègre un espace de travail particulièrement optimisé pour la production et la manipulation sonore dans le cadre de concerts ou de performances. "
Cyrille Martraire / Beam Beats : http://cyrille.martraire.com/tag/beam-beats
Beam Beats": un séquencer rythmique interactif et tangible qui traduit la géométrie des balises disposées au sol en rythmes et polyrythmes grâce à un faisceau laser tournant. Cet instrument MIDI expérimental s'inscrit dans l'étude des auto-similarités dans les polyrythmes. Mots-clés : tangible, interactif, physical computing, Arduino, laser, instrument de musique, MIDI, hardware, séquencer, rythme, polyrythme, expérimental, auto-similarité, controllerism
Pierre Mourles Musicien et compositeur, Pierre Mourles développe, entre autres, un travail autour de l'augmentation de l'accordéon. http://flavors.me/sangu Il creuse dans ce sillon le rapport entre intensité/amplitude du geste acoustique et celui de son augmentation. A partir d'un savoir faire et d'une démarche artisanale, il invente sa propre utilisation de l'instrument à travers une économie de moyens et une utilisation d'outils open source. (Pure-data, Arduino) En utilisant les patchs fournis librement par la communauté PD, ces outils lui ont permis de créer un dispositif réactif et adapté à la mobilité du musicien. Sans être chevillé à la machine et à l'écran d'ordinateur, il crée un réel dialogue entre la production acoustique de son instrument et ses prolongements électroniques.
9/16/2012
DICCAN'S PARTNERS:
Paris ACM Siggraph, the French chapter of ACM Siggraph, worldwide non-profit organization of computer graphics.
Les Algoristes, an association of artists using their own algorithms in their work.
