Makes me wonder what my own priorities would be for preservation -- between the algorithm, the code, and the output. My house is on fire and I can only save the score, the violin, or one specific recording, which do I choose?
I'd opt for the score. Unless the violin was a rare Stradivarius! However, even without a fire, our current behaviours reveal our priorities and the value we place on our work.
I have a friend who fled a fire in California. He ran to his car with his two young kids under his arms and an instrument. I checked with him: he did take his kids before the instrument!
Fascinating! I didn't know Reich anticipated time-stretching. In popular music, I first heard it from jungle producers in the early 1990s. I think Goldie's first records were mindblowing. Not sure if he ever heard Reich, but there must be some connection.
I don't think Reich was alone in this interest, but time-stretching would have been very niche. In Writings About Music, he described a tape loop he had of an African girl learning English by rote that he tried to time-stretch at MIT.
'The loop was slowed down on a vocorder at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology to approximately 10 times its original length, in gradual steps, without lowering its pitch. Although the quality of the speech reproduction on the vocorder was extremely poor, it was still possible to hear how "My," instead of merely being a simple pitch, is in reality a complex glissando slowly rising from about c#' up to e', then dissolving into the noise band of"sh," to emerge gradually into the c#' of "oe," back into the noise of "s," and so on.
I agree with Goldie's albums, funny you mention them, as I've been thinking a lot about the effect of some of that music, and how intensely and creatively they used sampling. You only had to shift the radio dial a bit from the mainstream and you'd hear its sound coming from nearby pirate radio stations, like this moody urban sound just emanating through the streets of London and Bristol. The feeling only lasted a few years, but it was a very powerful and wonderful moment where technology melded with the spirit of the times.
What a wonderful and profound reflection, Dom! This happens to be a question that I indirectly consider with my students every year when I introduce them to the preservation and transmission of Homer's poems to the present day. From the initial act to transferring them from oral (actually sung) compositions into writing to the preservation and editing of manuscripts to translation and their transmission to our time. It's pretty mind-blowing. Thank you.
Thanks Donald, it's very interesting to consider the transference systems in an oral culture. In Indian classical music - though there are some written records - it requires generation after generation to renew its love of the music for it to continue. I am not sure the extent of what has been lost, but what has been transferred is quite astonishing. A logically consistent, complex, and vast system of music. Through wars, pandemics, and occupations these survived. Anything that survives that long deserves some consideration and respect.
Watching Slow Motion Black Birds, I feel we might just now be at the technological point to timestretch the video without changing the speed at which their wings are flapping.
Definitely agree preservation is tragically difficult in the digital era. I'm a bit more of a pessimist. I've been printing out photos more recently. I was also contemplating making a book out of my website which will presumably go offline shortly after I die and stop paying the hosting bill. It feels a little pompous, and of course it's out of date as soon as it's done, and no one other than me has it.
One thing that does keep better than software are text files. I still have files I grabbed from various sources maybe 25 years ago, when articles were shared as files through peer-to-peer systems similar to mp3s. Many things will be lost but still sitting in someone's hard drive somewhere although in the trade-off between the easy copying of data and the easy storage of books, who knows what will win.
Also, I'm not sure about calling Reich's piece an 'algorithm'. I'd say an algorithm is a set of instructions that are so specific that it's unambiguous as to how they're carried out. Whereas a 'score' leaves space for interpretation.
When I read Reich's instructions, I expected a single (non-looped) sound which started at normal speed and slowed down, whereas Chris Hugh's found a different interpretation, with each iteration of a loop being slower than the previous.
Interesting on the difference between scores and algorithms. It strikes me that in this case, Chris Hughe's interpretation is technically 'wrong' in that 'very slowly' indicates that it is a continuous process. Other than perhaps 'many times' I can't see much ambiguity in the instructions. I'm curious what would make it an algorithm for you?
Vers le blanc (1982) by Kaija Saariaho is another score that strikes me as being an algorithm. Besides the non-specification of the instrumentation, I cannot see room for any ambiguity.
The very fact that time stretching is so easy now has made it almost uncool. I started recording in the days of tape on the mid 70s and everything took a lot of time to achieve a different sound. The options we have now overwhelm us all, sometimes to the detriment of the music we are creating. Archiving is also so difficult for the multimedia artist as files are huge and of course as soon as you stop paying for you cloud storage you loose the lot. You die and so does your artistic legacy.
Unless there's music inside someone all the technology in the world is just a distraction. In the case of Slow Motion Sound, it clearly came from a process within Reich because you hear it again in Four Organs and Music for a Large Ensemble. I prefer that technological approach, although someone like Gavin Bryars stumbling upon an incredible tape loop shows other approaches can lead to deeply moving music.
Beautiful thoughts
Makes me wonder what my own priorities would be for preservation -- between the algorithm, the code, and the output. My house is on fire and I can only save the score, the violin, or one specific recording, which do I choose?
Fun to ponder
Thanks Chris,
I'd opt for the score. Unless the violin was a rare Stradivarius! However, even without a fire, our current behaviours reveal our priorities and the value we place on our work.
I have a friend who fled a fire in California. He ran to his car with his two young kids under his arms and an instrument. I checked with him: he did take his kids before the instrument!
Fascinating! I didn't know Reich anticipated time-stretching. In popular music, I first heard it from jungle producers in the early 1990s. I think Goldie's first records were mindblowing. Not sure if he ever heard Reich, but there must be some connection.
Thanks Stephan!
I don't think Reich was alone in this interest, but time-stretching would have been very niche. In Writings About Music, he described a tape loop he had of an African girl learning English by rote that he tried to time-stretch at MIT.
'The loop was slowed down on a vocorder at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology to approximately 10 times its original length, in gradual steps, without lowering its pitch. Although the quality of the speech reproduction on the vocorder was extremely poor, it was still possible to hear how "My," instead of merely being a simple pitch, is in reality a complex glissando slowly rising from about c#' up to e', then dissolving into the noise band of"sh," to emerge gradually into the c#' of "oe," back into the noise of "s," and so on.
I agree with Goldie's albums, funny you mention them, as I've been thinking a lot about the effect of some of that music, and how intensely and creatively they used sampling. You only had to shift the radio dial a bit from the mainstream and you'd hear its sound coming from nearby pirate radio stations, like this moody urban sound just emanating through the streets of London and Bristol. The feeling only lasted a few years, but it was a very powerful and wonderful moment where technology melded with the spirit of the times.
Topic close to my heart. I’ve a screed of my own in this, but need to boil it down. And find a way out of the darkness.
What a wonderful and profound reflection, Dom! This happens to be a question that I indirectly consider with my students every year when I introduce them to the preservation and transmission of Homer's poems to the present day. From the initial act to transferring them from oral (actually sung) compositions into writing to the preservation and editing of manuscripts to translation and their transmission to our time. It's pretty mind-blowing. Thank you.
Thanks Donald, it's very interesting to consider the transference systems in an oral culture. In Indian classical music - though there are some written records - it requires generation after generation to renew its love of the music for it to continue. I am not sure the extent of what has been lost, but what has been transferred is quite astonishing. A logically consistent, complex, and vast system of music. Through wars, pandemics, and occupations these survived. Anything that survives that long deserves some consideration and respect.
Watching Slow Motion Black Birds, I feel we might just now be at the technological point to timestretch the video without changing the speed at which their wings are flapping.
Definitely agree preservation is tragically difficult in the digital era. I'm a bit more of a pessimist. I've been printing out photos more recently. I was also contemplating making a book out of my website which will presumably go offline shortly after I die and stop paying the hosting bill. It feels a little pompous, and of course it's out of date as soon as it's done, and no one other than me has it.
One thing that does keep better than software are text files. I still have files I grabbed from various sources maybe 25 years ago, when articles were shared as files through peer-to-peer systems similar to mp3s. Many things will be lost but still sitting in someone's hard drive somewhere although in the trade-off between the easy copying of data and the easy storage of books, who knows what will win.
Also, I'm not sure about calling Reich's piece an 'algorithm'. I'd say an algorithm is a set of instructions that are so specific that it's unambiguous as to how they're carried out. Whereas a 'score' leaves space for interpretation.
When I read Reich's instructions, I expected a single (non-looped) sound which started at normal speed and slowed down, whereas Chris Hugh's found a different interpretation, with each iteration of a loop being slower than the previous.
Thanks for your thoughtful comments Tim.
Interesting on the difference between scores and algorithms. It strikes me that in this case, Chris Hughe's interpretation is technically 'wrong' in that 'very slowly' indicates that it is a continuous process. Other than perhaps 'many times' I can't see much ambiguity in the instructions. I'm curious what would make it an algorithm for you?
Vers le blanc (1982) by Kaija Saariaho is another score that strikes me as being an algorithm. Besides the non-specification of the instrumentation, I cannot see room for any ambiguity.
Great read Dom.
Thanks Simon!
The very fact that time stretching is so easy now has made it almost uncool. I started recording in the days of tape on the mid 70s and everything took a lot of time to achieve a different sound. The options we have now overwhelm us all, sometimes to the detriment of the music we are creating. Archiving is also so difficult for the multimedia artist as files are huge and of course as soon as you stop paying for you cloud storage you loose the lot. You die and so does your artistic legacy.
Unless there's music inside someone all the technology in the world is just a distraction. In the case of Slow Motion Sound, it clearly came from a process within Reich because you hear it again in Four Organs and Music for a Large Ensemble. I prefer that technological approach, although someone like Gavin Bryars stumbling upon an incredible tape loop shows other approaches can lead to deeply moving music.