3 ms·

The Impossible Music of Black MIDI

28 points by mattdennewitz 13y ago

xmonkee 13y ago
Awesome. I wonder how much the youtubification is ruining the audio in the songs.
- pohl 13y ago
  There are moments when, in the first video, the video update stops happening, and there is obvious audio clipping involved. In the second video, the audio cuts out completely for me about mid-way through. I think both compositions break the limits of MIDI software that is being asked to render them.
beat 13y ago
Very cool. I was turned on to the music of Conlon Nancarrow a zillion years ago in college, by a music professor. Nancarrow is often called one of the fathers of electronic music, but he never understood it. After all, he never wrote for a synthesizer or sequencer in his life! Nancarrow's music is very dense and intellectually intense, but it's also very emotional, full of humor and love. It's not (always) cold the way a lot of process-driven composers like Schoenberg were cold. Nancarrow's own player pianos were customized with steel and leather hammers to get an even more powerful sound. The recordings in his studio are amazing, but I imagine it must have been far more intense live.
bitwize 13y ago
And then there's Peter Ablinger: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=muCPjK4nGY4 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=muCPjK4nGY4
losethos 13y ago
Somebody on my side. This is original. God wants something special, limited to His temple. It's not a law. God says... C:\TAD\Text\2CITIES.TXT t how?" "I am going to tell you how. It will depend on you, and it could depend on no better man. This new denunciation will certainly not take place until after to-morrow; probably not until two or three days afterwards; more probably a week afterwards. You know it is a capital crime, to mourn for, or sympathise with, a victim of the Guillotine. She and her father would unquestionably be guilty of this crime, and this woman (the inveteracy of whose pursuit cannot be described) would wait to
klipt 13y ago
If you throw enough sine waves together, you can get anything, but I'm not sure how many of the sounds produced in those pieces are really new. A lot of it just sounds like white noise, or percussion, or tremolo notes. Also midi output is heavily dependent on the synthesizer. More so when you're throwing so many notes together like this.

28 points by mattdennewitz 13y ago

xmonkee 13y ago

Awesome. I wonder how much the youtubification is ruining the audio in the songs.

pohl 13y ago
There are moments when, in the first video, the video update stops happening, and there is obvious audio clipping involved. In the second video, the audio cuts out completely for me about mid-way through. I think both compositions break the limits of MIDI software that is being asked to render them.

beat 13y ago

Very cool. I was turned on to the music of Conlon Nancarrow a zillion years ago in college, by a music professor. Nancarrow is often called one of the fathers of electronic music, but he never understood it. After all, he never wrote for a synthesizer or sequencer in his life! Nancarrow's music is very dense and intellectually intense, but it's also very emotional, full of humor and love. It's not (always) cold the way a lot of process-driven composers like Schoenberg were cold. Nancarrow's own player pianos were customized with steel and leather hammers to get an even more powerful sound. The recordings in his studio are amazing, but I imagine it must have been far more intense live.

bitwize 13y ago

And then there's Peter Ablinger: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=muCPjK4nGY4 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=muCPjK4nGY4

losethos 13y ago

Somebody on my side. This is original. God wants something special, limited to His temple. It's not a law. God says... C:\TAD\Text\2CITIES.TXT t how?" "I am going to tell you how. It will depend on you, and it could depend on no better man. This new denunciation will certainly not take place until after to-morrow; probably not until two or three days afterwards; more probably a week afterwards. You know it is a capital crime, to mourn for, or sympathise with, a victim of the Guillotine. She and her father would unquestionably be guilty of this crime, and this woman (the inveteracy of whose pursuit cannot be described) would wait to

klipt 13y ago

If you throw enough sine waves together, you can get anything, but I'm not sure how many of the sounds produced in those pieces are really new. A lot of it just sounds like white noise, or percussion, or tremolo notes. Also midi output is heavily dependent on the synthesizer. More so when you're throwing so many notes together like this.