I gave a workshop in December on writing music sketches for Android devices in Processing.
And in preparing it, I discovered that there's a new audio library that's standard in Processing 3.0, called Sound. That works on both desktop and Android apps.
So in
the last couple of days I decided to try an experiment.
I got a
Processing draft of Gbloink! I'd done a few years ago, that didn't play
its own sounds, just sent OSC messages to a PureData patch - which
worked but was a faff to set up - and swapped out the OSC messages for playing
simple notes using this new Sound library.
And, it works.
Obviously, it's not a sophisticated sound at the moment. And not even as rich and varied as old Windows MIDI from the original Gbloink! which is now 22(!!!) years old.
Nevertheless, it's a promising start. It feels like finally it might be possible to produce a reasonable new version of the program that can run more or less out of the box, and be fun and pleasant to listen to.
I'll be working more on this over the next few months. And on some other "Sound Toys" I've made, that have only ever existed as slightly klunky experimental versions for live use, but weren't packaged for general consumption.
I have a feeling that this year, that will change. And I'll finally have something fun for you all :-)
If you want to try the new Gbloink!, it's currently available for Windows and Linux from this page : http://gbloink.com/play.html
When I find someone with a Mac who can make the Mac download, I'll make that too. And, obviously, I'll be working on getting it onto Android. That's the real holy grail of this.
Inspired by a Quora answer I gave today. Do I listen to my own music?
I’m currently in a phase of listening heavily to my own music. Particularly my work-in-progress.
And really enjoying it.
In
fact, I’m probably not sufficiently objective or critical of it. I find
the slapdash sketchiness of it charming rather than problematic. ;-)
It
does what I want from music, it has the kind of tunes I like, against
the kind of instrumentation I like, and rhythms I like, and
experimentation I like. Without anything that I don’t like. Or which I find unnecessary.
Now, at the same time, I wish it was better.
I wish it was more skilful. I wish it was less repetitive. (It is, I
have to admit, very repetitive, made on looping DAW software). I really
wish I was better at music. I wish it was more sophisticated. More
elegant. More trendy and more admired. And certainly I wish it was
better mixed and mastered to sound better on other people’s sound
systems.
But I no longer wish it was different.
I don’t wish it was somehow closer to genre norms, or more like artist
X. It’s exactly like artist ME, in the kind of messy between-genre that I
make. And that’s exactly what I want to make and want to listen to.
I
struggle to be objective. I see flaws. But I don’t know how to improve
on them. Every time I go to change something I feel that I’m losing
something as well as gaining. And that’s hard to handle. I know that
hurts the objective quality. I’m sure everyone else will hate the music
because the flaws glaring at them.
That’s
the (possibly not very) strange paradox. I simultaneously don’t trust
the music is good enough for anyone else to like. But it’s the only
thing that I could like this much.
Particularly cleaning up old sketches and half-finished tracks and polishing them into something that rest of the world might actually want to listen to.
This week I launched my new EP on BandCamp.
Friday, March 16, 2018
Improvisation using some of my new software for BSBLOrk.
I'm really enjoying playing with Protoplug for scripting your own VST plugins in Lua.
This sketch uses 3 scripts with the plugin.
My own Waveflavours synth (playing the ever-evolving drone chords). The default "midi chordify" (that chord isn't programmed, it's being generated automatically from single notes) and another self-written variation that chooses random notes from a chord which is driving the u-he's "Triple Cheese" plugin.
All these scripts are hosted in FL Studio, which is also providing the drums.
Protoplug is really exciting to me, because I can finally turn FL Studio into something scriptable, and which I can use more like the way I was using Sonic Pi, to experiment with algorithmic composition.
Update : You can find my scripts for ProtoPlug on GitHub
Anyway, for Rick Astley’s song I didn’t want it to sound like Kylie or Bananarama so I looked at the Colonel Abrams track Trapped and recreated that syncopated bassline in a way that suited our song. It gave it the extra dimension that made it successful.
I've actually managed to do quite a lot of music-related stuff in 2016. From organizing MusicHacking events in Brasilia, to more music for dance, to technoshamanic remixes to podcasts and more.
This year I want to explore more raw, self-built, "ataripunk" style electronics.
And more free software. How do I produce more, "finished" music using things like Faust and Sonic Pi and Ardour and qtractor etc.
And electronics?
I want to get more of it out there and people listening to it.
Speaking of which, if anyone ever felt the need to own any (or all six) of the official gbloink!tunes albums while making a small contribution to my future works they are now all up on BandCamp :
One thing that I'm pondering is how to represent my music.
For a while I've depended on SoundCloud as my main music showcase. But actually I want to write more about making music. Particularly with Sonic Pi and Faust and other free-software.
Where should I do that?
Well, how about a blog called "Composing"? Even if it has been mainly for political venting in recent years.
So ... here's the question ... should Composing return to being my main music / music-software etc. blog?
One reason my activity declined here a bit (apart from Google doing an appalling job of keeping Blogger a cool and relevant platform while things like Medium and WordPress rolled over it in terms of ease of use and functionality) is that I don't like to be so dependent on Google or give them primary control of my content.
If I do choose to focus on music here in the next year ... I'll need to have a back-up / mirroring strategy. Maybe RSS-grabber but ideally something that creates content I own first, and mirrors it here.
And enlisting a world-class vituperator to help him express his rage. :-)
Meanwhile there's a 30 year retrospective album of Momus songs coming out, selected by the man himself.
Thoughts on the tracklist.
I see why Lucky like St. Sebastian has to be there, though I'd like to see Little Lord Obedience or The Rape of Lucretia rather than Paper Wraps Rock.
From Poison Boyfriend I don't particularly dig Murderers, the Hope of Women. Would rather see Eleven Executioners, Violets or the haunting Islington John. The other two are obviously the right choices. (I'm a big fan of Sex for the Disabled, but understand its historic moment is over.)
Great selection from Tender Pervert and Don't Stop the Night.
Morality is Vanity is an excellent song.
Hipopotamomus? Meh! Bluestocking is throwaway. Marquis of Sadness is much wittier and has all the "perv" credential Momus might want here. Personally I used to like Ventriloquists and Dolls but began enjoying The Painter and his Model more. Hipopotamomus itself and Monkey for Sally are far more musically striking and disturbing. Song in Contravention is more beautifully lush. This is a weak selection from one of Momus's best albums.
Too much Voyager. Voyager and Summer Holiday 1999 are classics. Cibachrome Blue if you want to capture the overall feel. But Spacewalk is excess to requirements. (And I think Afterglow is better if you insist on 4 tracks from this album.)
Platinum fine. Enlightenment is a good song ruined by a couple of horribly clunky lines that spoil what would otherwise be emotionally powerful. Rhetoric, nah! I'd have Breathless instead. And I love Christmas on Earth. Shame not to find a way to fit it in.
Not enough Ultraconformist. Last of the Window Cleaners obviously has to be there. But there are underrated classics like Ultraconformist itself and The Mother-in-Law. The Cheque's in the Post is a bit of a crowdpleaser that doesn't charm me much.
Philosophy of Momus is one of his weaker albums. As close to "filler" as Momus gets. He's right about Sadness of Things and Cabinet. I'm not sure Microworlds adds much. 20 Vodka Jellies, OTOH, is another "bit random" collection, packed with pleasurable upbeat tunes. London 1888 and End of History are obviously big songs. I'd have been inclined to try to find space for a couple more. There are plenty of greats to choose from on this album.
Ping Pong was wildly hyped. But I think he's right to just stick with the much covered I Want You, But I Don't Need You and The Age of Information (an incredibly prescient piece of internet philosophy)
Born to be Adored is great. I don't like Old Friend, New Flame. But I see why it's pretty definitive of Momus and the Analog Baroque moment.
Stars Forever is so varied musically and tied up to its concept (song-portraits of patrons) that it would be hard to get a "representative sample". About 70% of the Stars Forever songs are great and the two he's chosen are from that 70%. But they aren't particular stand-outs. The most interesting thing about Tinnitus is that it's really looking forward to the Folktronic style he goes on to explore in the next album. And mysteriously NOTHING from the Folktronic album makes it into this compilation. Is he just going for a twofer? Trying have one song represent both Stars Forever and Folktronic? Looks like it. He's already on disk 3 and only half-way through his spectacular discography.
Plus there ARE two songs from Folktronic : Pygmalism and Going for a Walk with a Line. And these obviously HAVE to be in the collection as they're two of his best songs from this period (if not two of his best songs. full stop.) But they're from the "extras" part of the disk, not Folktronic proper (at least that's how I read them). Perhaps it was hard to find one. Finnegan the Folk Hero of HTML is a bit twee. Psychopathis Sexualis maybe?
Oskar Tennis Champion is one of Momus's greatest albums. Certainly the extremely inventive beginning of his "modern" (2000s+ ) style. It deserves to be well represented. No arguments about Beowulf and The Laird of Inversnecky, though I'm surprised by Scottish Lips. I'd have thought Is It Because I'm A Pirate? would be the obvious third here.
He's right to skip quickly over Otto Spooky. In my opinion, Momus's least pleasurable album. Even though it has Bantom Boys and Cockle Pickers which are ambitious experiments. Life of the Fields is arguably a kind of last hurrah of of the Folktronic style and maybe appears for that reason. It's so so though.
Ocky Milk, in contrast, is like Vodka Jellies, another compendium of big, enjoyable tunes (that also manages to competently incorporate quite a lot of his weird experimentation). It's under-represented here. Though perhaps hard to do justice to it.
Of course, now he's having to rush. We're half-way through disk 3 and we're only starting on the really new stuff. Home produced albums which tend to have more songs on them than those made with expensive studio time in the 80s. The lush Joemus collaboration Widow Twankie deserves its slot here. Hypnoprism is woefully under-represented. As is Thunderclown. In comparison, two songs from Bibliotek seems generous. Though Erase, Momus's experiment with another folktronicesque genre - Hauntology - is worthwhile. Two each from Bambi, Terpsicore and Glyptothek are fair. Though I'd prefer Catholic App, Unreconstructed or Spore to The Hiker. (System of Usher is fantastic.)
And I wish he'd found room for Old Nick at the end. While Momus's last-of-the-album mawkfests (Ex-erotomane, Gibbous Moon) are often legendary, and The Vaudevillian is the uber-tearjerker of an ending, Old Nick's sly twist on the convention is equally fulfilling, and somehow sums up the Momus project better.
Anyway looks a great compilation for those who don't know or have Momus's ouvre. (I pretty much do have all these tracks, most of them legally.)
As always, it's a mixed bunch. But some tracks I'm already liking very much.
The GhostBoxish Bathyscaphe :
System of Usher :
The Brutalist :
Catholic App is a classic Momus twisted take, satirising the end of privacy.
I probably disapprove of Unreconstructed (after unwrapping its layers of irony) but it's musically and lyrically clever.
Spore is a salacious zero-g love-song with a luscious tune.
If Thunderclown was anything to go by, I'll probably get into the rest after a couple of listens too. Even at his most antipathic or discordantly "experimental" Momus's songs are always wriggling with little earworms.
Oh yeah, I'm on a roll, at the moment, of actually "releasing" stuff I've been doing over the last few months.
This one's really exciting for me : a version of Gbloink! that's written in CoffeeScript / Javascript and running in the browser. Longer story over on the Gbloink! site.
Try it here ... but be aware it's still pretty experimental. However, it is Gbloink! And it runs in the browser. w00t!
