On February 23rd, 1924, Lejaren Hiller was born in New York City. Hiller would become recognized as one of the pioneers of algorithmic composition. In 1957 he wrote the first major computer assisted composition. The Illiac Suite was composed using University of Illinois’ Illiac computer.

Actual work on this problem was started in September, 1955, at which time the present authors decided to collaborate to write the intial computer programs for producing music. The inital set of instructions was designed to cause the Illiac to generate simple cantus firmi; that is, simple diatonic melodies to be utilized subsequently to produce simple polyphony. Both authors had worked previously on Monte Carlo-type problems in connection with another research project and thus had had previous experience with coding problems of this type for a computer. In fact, a sizable portion of the basic programming techniques of the earlier music codes for the Illiac was adapted from this earlier research. The work as previously outlined progressed very smoothly, so that, by the following spring, we had accumulated enough material to begin the assembly of a musical record of the research results in the form of the Illiac Suite. By July, 1956, the first three movements of the suite had been completed with the exception of what is now the Coda of the third movement. A performance of this much of the suite was given publicly on August 9, 1956, at a concert at the University of Illinois in Urbana, Illinoid. This performance, which was privately recorded at the same time, was by a string quartet … and three instrumentalists … This concert attracted considerable attention because of its novelty, and representative reports of this event both prior to it and afterwards in the popular press can be cited to indicate the extent and nature of the reaction which occurred. [1]

Hiller also collaborated with John Cage on HPSCHD, a monumental multimedia concert that premiered on May 16, 1969 at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champagne.

Austin: Now that you have finished HPSCHD, what are some of the special things you remember about your association with John Cage?

Hiller: We were both interested in investigating certain compositional techniques, and we found that the computer provided a meeting ground upon which these ideas could be thrashed out and modified as our compositional plan gradually evolved. It was a dia- logue. The piece represents somewhat of a departure for both of us. I think one of the reasons the project interested John is that the work sessions were a con- crete illustration of one thing he has said he’s always been so interested in: the process of composition it- self. We were involved with composition as process right from the beginning, because it was the act of composing upon which we were focusing attention. Both of us sought to discover and to exploit an area of overlap of compositional attitudes. [2]

Notes

[1] Lejaren Hiller and Leonard Isaacson, Experimental Music: Composition with an Electronic Computer, (New York: McGraw-Hill Book Company, Inc, 1959), 5-6.
[2] Larry Austin, “An Interview with John Cage and Lejaren Hiller,” Computer Music Journal. Vol. 16, No. 4 (1992): 15-29.

Last October Mike McFerron hosted another MusicBYTES concert at Lewis University. The bi-annual event featured a short program of video pieces, and was referred to as a mini-concert by McFerron. It took place in Ives Hall in the Orson Fine Arts Building on the Lewis University campus. McFerron presided over the concert, casually dressed in a brown sweater and jeans. After introducing the event, he kicked it off with a piece called Graveshift by Per Bloland and Arie Stavchansky.

Graveshift - Through a rain-streaked cafe window, surveillance of a street scene is digitally transformed into a fluid chaos comprised of paranoia, ghostly figures, and alterations of reality. Echoes of a forgotten song float above the milieu, now gaining and now losing coherence. It is an image plagued by distortion, but this distortion emerges from quietness, and recedes once again into the same.

Then we saw Confined 10-01-2 by Paul J. Bohelho and Russell J. Chartier.

That was followed by Made In… by Hsiao-Lan Wang and Benoit Granier.

Next up came McFerron’s Prelude to You Brought this on Yourself.

Prelude to You Brought this On Yourself is the result of the collaborative production of a play by George Miller, my colleague at Lewis University. In his play, Dr. Miller sets in context the true story of a young female high school student who suffered enormous ridicule and even physical assault for the sole reason that she was openly homosexual. The principal of the High School where this occurred justified the assault by explaining to the parents, “she brought this on herself.”

This composition is not a commentary on religion, media, politics, or homosexuality. Above all, it is not an attempt to glorify, condone, or condemn homosexuality. Instead, this work is a commentary on a society’s intolerance of a human voice seeking neither audience nor acceptance - only existence.

Written in 2008, this fixed media composition features singer Jillian Kelm.

Then NGC 1999 by Samuel Pellman and Miranda Raimondi.

And Becoming 3-2 by Evan X. Merz.

The second to last piece was flutter arrhythmias by Charles Norman Mason and Sheri Willis.

flutter arrhythmias was originally conceived as a site-specific three screen installation which enveloped the viewer on three sides. It was installed at the Islip Museum of Art, Carriage House in New York in 2008. It was inspired by sounds from the installation space: the train in the distance, the birds, and the combination of mechanical and natural sounds.

Finally, the concert closed with Boop Boop Beep by David Morneau.

Despite some brief technical difficulties, the short concert flowed smoothly. The program was a diverse, but even mix of well-traveled composers such as Per Bloland, and less familiar composers. The audience was a small group of around 100 Lewis students and local musicians.

On this date in 1934, Laurens Hammond received a patent for an “electrical musical instrument”. This instrument would go on to become one of the most commercially successful electronic musical instruments. Even today, Hammond organs are ubiquitous, and their sound is iconic.

Inventor Laurens Hammond designed and manufactured a variety of instruments: clocks, an
automatic shuffling bridge table, and eyeglasses for viewing 3-D film. Then, in 1933, he bought
a used piano and began to design an electronic organ.

Unlike Theremin, Trautwein, and Martenot–and the other electronic-instrument inventors who
were motivated by the adventure of invention and a fascination with discovering new ways to
make music Hammond was motivated by profit through sales. His goal was to sell organs to a
mass market. Like most businesspeople with a similar goal, he approached the problems of
design, manufacture, marketing, and sales with a cool-headed eye toward reducing expenses
and increasing revenue.

The designs for his organs reflected economy in manufacture. For example, after analyzing
concave pedal-boards in other organs, Hammond leveled the pedalboard in his design and
omitted the pedals that were played the least often. The sounds in his organ were generated by
additive-synthesis tone-wheels that were refinements of the mechanisms that Cahill had used in
the Telharmonium.

The Model A organ appeared in June 1935. Hammond’s marketing was pervasive and intense,
initially aimed at churches throughout the country. But his organ’s distinctive sound was soon
found to have just the right quality for jazz and blues–and eventually for rock. [1]

But the organ that most of us are familiar with is the iconic Hammond B-3.

…by far the most popular model was the Hammond B-3, the first one of which came into being [in 1954]. It is an organ with two 61-note keyboards and a range of built-in effects, including chorus mode, percussion, vibrato and adjustable attack and decay effects. It has a set of foot pedals covering two octaves and two sets of nine stops or drawbars for each keyboard.

The B-3 has a specially designed external tone cabinet, the Leslie, which had rotating speakers in order to produce the vibrato effects of the organ. Taking the instrument on the road has always represented something of a challenge, because with its solid walnut frame, four legs, a base and a built-in stool, it weighs 400 pounds.

As Alan Morgan noted in his liner note to the 1963 Verve album, “Any Number Can Win”, Jimmy Smith bought a secondhand hearse in which to transport his B-3. But because, in the USA, such vehicles are not permitted to use the freeways unless they are actually taking a deceased person to the burial ground, when Jimmy and his sidemen went on the road, they dressed themselves in mourning attire. [2]

Notes

[1] “The electronic century part I: Beginnings.” Electronic Musician. Vol. 16, Iss. 2 (2000):74-84
[2] “The History of the Hammond.” Crescendo & Jazz Music. Vol. 41, Iss. 4 (2004):25

A new piece on Arts Electric attempts to answer that question.

Shortly after Xenakis settled into his work as a civil engineer with Le Corbusier, he began his music career by looking for someone with whom he could study. After being turned down by Nadia Boulanger, Arthur Honegger, and Darius Milhaud, he followed the advice of Annette Dieudonné, a friend of Nadia Boulanger, who suggested that he seek advice from Olivier Messiaen. Noting Xenakis’ background in mathematics and civil engineering, Messiaen advised him not to study harmony and counterpoint but rather to develop his mathematical ideas. Xenakis attended Messiaen’s class at the Paris Conservatory regularly through 1952 and less regularly in 1953.

Among many related and various theories and skills, civil engineering articulated for Xenakis the phenomenon of underlying complexity, as found, for example, in a multiplicity of miniscule causalities that are too numerous to be individually traced and, consequently, can be understood only as distributions and probabilities within a statistically-described whole. In 1953, he applied the principle in music by calculating the trajectories of individual stringed instruments, notated as lines rather than notes, in his orchestral composition Metastaseis. It was his first significant composition, and it proved seminal for other ideas and other projects—among them the Philips Pavilion and the UPIC system—throughout his life.

Read more at Arts Electric.

Note: Be patient. The first few minutes are music only.

Nowhere. is a high-definition video presentation filmed across seven states over the course of seven months. It is inspired by the filmmaking of Ron Fricke and Godfrey Reggio in its employment of non-narrative structure, use of time-lapse photography, and observational technique.

I saw this project as a personal challenge to create a film with production values that are as comparable as possible to the works of the filmmakers mentioned above, even with a limited amount of funding and equipment. The film was shot entirely on a Canon HV20 digital video camera and features music that was recorded and mixed on my home computer and in the computer music studio.

The resulting film seeks to uncover where we find the greatest wealth of beauty in our habitat by observing the way we live and the how we affect the land we inhabit. Through its poetic structure, the viewer is allowed to question both the aesthetics and meaning of our environmental impact and discover where the lines between garbage and grandeur are distorted or ultimately realized.

Guillaume Loizillon just posted Phono Photo No. 6, an online exhibition of images with music.

Connecting two writings : one with the light and one with the acoustic wave.
Sound doesn’t comment the picture and is not either its audible side. However, the connection between the two elements requires a rebuilding, a drift of the sight and listening.

Components
A photography : in all the possible extension of the word
A phonography : sound recording, editing, mixing, synthesis…
A title : sometimes
One or more signatures
Minimal interactivity : clicking on the photography makes ear the phonography

Enter the ambient world of Osmos: elegant, physics-based gameplay, dreamlike visuals, and a minimalist, electronic soundtrack.

Your objective is to grow by absorbing other motes. Propel yourself by ejecting matter behind you. But be wise: ejecting matter also shrinks you. Relax… good things come to those who wait.

Progress from serenely ambient levels into varied and more challenging worlds. Confront attractors, repulsors and intelligent motes with similar abilities and goals as you.

DarwinTunes is a computer program developed by Dr Bob MacCallum, a bioinformatician at Imperial College London. In the first instance DarwinTunes does three things. It stores a lot of computer-generated songs on a server, presents the songs to the world via a web interface, and allows people to listen to and rate them.

So far this sounds rather like the online music services on offer today – but there is an important difference. Whereas the songs on Last.fm, Pandora, Spotify, etc are made by singers, songwriters and bands, DarwinTunes makes its own songs, and the songs get better through time.

DarwinTunes does this by evolving new songs. Each song in DarwinTunes is based on a bit of computer code. These bits of code periodically “reproduce” to form a new population of daughter songs. However, the daughters are not the same as their parents. First, parent songs have “sex” – they exchange bits of their code so that their daughters are unique mixtures of their parents’ codes. Second, daughters “mutate” – they contain random changes in their code. The result is that every generation of songs is subtly different from the one that preceded it.

These processes are analogous to those make genetic variety in living things; we think that that they are also at work when humans make new songs. They are not, however, enough for evolution. Many daughter songs will not sound very good; in fact, they may sound worse than their parents. (In the same way many mutant animals are very unhealthy.) In order to get evolution we need a way of identifying attractive songs – and ensuring that they increase in the population. In short, we need a selective force. And we have one: you.

Read more at DarwinTunes.com.