Contents
instruments
- MU Midi Controller Wacom instrument - http://www.musicunfolding.com/MU_MIDI_Controller.html
- M<– not sure about this one unless i can get it to work with sound samples. better yet just make instruments in MaxMsp.
- out of tune piano
- voice
- FieldRecordings
imaginary instruments
- Whistler - http://www.stratfordisland.com/whistler/
Tom Waits: I’m usually more concerned with how things sound than how they look on the page. Some people write for the page and that’s a whole other thing. I’m going for what it sounds like right away, so it may not even look good on the page. But I’m still a word guy. I’m drawn to people who use a certain vernacular and communicate with words. Words are music, really. I mean, people ask me, “Do you write music or do you write words?” But you don’t really, it’s all one thing at its best. Sometimes when you’re making songs you just make sounds, and the sounds slowly mutate and evolve into actual words that have meaning. But to begin with, most people who make songs just start out with [Waits makes noises].1
Everybody does something different to a song, that's the tradition.
I’m seriously considering the semi-challenge Michael has given me to make a song. I have never made a song. This is terrible. I will make it not because I have any song inside me dying to get out, but because I am curious what my song would sound like.
Research
- WikiPedia:Category:Musical_forms
- MIT open courseware intro to western music [1]
My Heros
- FM:Colleen [2] [3]
- LJ:gubia [4] handmade music from ecuador. music that sounds like drawings.
- Joanna Newsom [5]
- Anni Rossi [6] Track 15! very vocal
- Konono [7] great kit.
- Beau Brun/Cagesan [8] where the main artist is a bird. next, a tree.
- FM:The+Books [9] not only do they have a cool name, they use collage techniques heavily.
the funny thing is that for the most part i love all this heavily composed, informed sound and i that i will probably never be able to emulate. i mean, my process is primarily emotional/intuitive (random?) i am not trained at any particular thing and i mostly love to mash things up. also, i have no time :/
What to do
consider warming up with covers of JazzStandards
The question of meaning and synesthesia
while i cannot claim to be a true synesthetic, i have always noticed certain things about the feeling of images and colors, juxtapositions which makes me understand how its desirable to put certain things together in a certain way. i feel that i am losing this as i get older... things become more confused. certain colors have a feeling is all i can say. if i can feel it then i want to be able to express that to others. so it is with sounds. sounds have not only feeling but when sung attain a kind of holy vibration. see also:SwirlingGuitaur. In other words, i need to make my own instruments and form of notation (because i do believe all songs should be repeatable though not in some abstract spreadsheet systemic kind of way) but not necessarily write my own words or meodies. but rather to attain an expression of that which i already love, already feel. this will have to stand in place of actual musical training. for now at least.
see also: InsectsForGent, SongBook, FieldRecordings
casiontone emulator http://www.polyvalens.com/vl1/index.html
Software
not sure to what extent i want electronics involved. but software is also good for learning about music.
- use MaxMsp to control QuartzComposer - http://lab.neongolden.net/archives/188
Garage Band
it came on the computer. maybe its a less geeky/fiddly way to make what i want.
- intro tutorial
http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=304765 - tips
http://www.apple.com/support/garageband/hottips/
Hardware
- DS! MIDI! WIFI!
http://dsmidiwifi.tobw.net/
a sort of summary
- HomebrewDS hardware
- Soundman micro
- pro mirco
- upgrate for maxmsp/jitter
- mp3 recorder
- time