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Fractal Visions MusicNew (March 2004)!I now have a page on the Soundclick music web site. At time of writing this, I have 17 tracks on my page. All are available in lo-fi and hi-fi streaming audio, and at the moment, they are all also available as free MP3 downloads. Twelve of the tracks make up the 'Algomusical Offering', which is now complete. You need to register on the site, but registration is free. Musicians can register and create a band page to upload music to. If you register as a listener, you can access all audio streams and any free downloads. There are hundreds of great unsigned musicians there - so it is well worth taking the time to register. The link below will take you straight to my page there: I have been involved in music to some degree for most of my life. I studied violin and composition at college, and was semi-professional/freelance for some years. I took 'time out' from most musical work for several years due to personal family reasons, but am enjoying the work on the relatively new area of algorithmic and fractal music. So what is algorithmic music? Simply put, it is music that is composed using an automatic process (which can include computer software). It does not include automatic performance. It can be random, semi-random, fractal, or produced by some other complex computed means. As well as the mass of good MIDI sequencing and composition software that is available, there is a lot of excellent fractal/algorithmic music software available - much of it is free- or shareware. I am a member of the CN Fractal Music Group at Yahoo! It is a lively, friendly group dedicated to the subject. Although you have to be a member to post to the discussion, you can read the discussion and download tracks by members without joining. One of the group's members - Dave Strohbeen - has generously donated web space, help and time for members of the group to post mp3 tracks at the CNFractal Music Forum Warehouse. There is a lot of good music there and if you are interested or curious, I can highly recommend having a browse there and downloading some of the tracks. Links for my tracks can be found below. The Algomusical Offering project is intended to be a suite of pieces using the theme by Frederick the Great of Prussia that spawned Bach's 'A Musical Offering', as well as some of Bach's counterpoints as a starting point for new music. The themes are put through various algorithmic processes. Bach's 'Musical Offering' is a wonderful display of his creative genius. It is a collection of pieces, including some short canons, grand fugues and a trio-sonata - all from the 8-bar theme that Frederick the Great threw at him during a musical soirée at his palace in Pottsdam. I can highly recommend it - I still get the same thrill, and a sense of awe, listening to it now that I did when I first heard it - 35 years ago! The idea of producing a work - or set of works - based on the same thematic material, but in a modern idiom has been one that I've carried around since I was a student at Trinity College of Music, London. I'm finding now that algorithmic musical set-ups provide a fertile source of ideas and the means to get them down. So far, I have done four of an intended 8-10 tracks. At the moment, only two of them - the third and fourth - are on the CNFractal Music Forum. If you go there, I am registered on the site as 'marcf28'. Eventually, I hope to produce a CD with the full suite, as well as some other tracks. To download an archive .zip file with more information about the music, and some of the source MIDI files, including full versions of some of Bach's work, Click Here. My Available MusicHere are some of the tracks that I currently have on CNFractal Music Forum Warehouse click the title to download. I have removed links to tracks that are now on 'Soundclick'. (Links for all the software mentioned, and much more can be found on the music links page): Scorpion
Toccata The 'Scorpon Toccata' is a remaster of one of my first fractal compositions. It has a much 'cleaner' sound now. The name comes from the particular zoom and location of the spiral in the Mandelbrot set image, created in 'Mandelbrot Music'. I set out to write a prelude to the toccata, but when I'd done it, I thought it sounded better after the toccata - so the prelude became the 'Scorpion Postlude'. This track is subtitled 'Jazz goes to chaos'. There are two saxophone parts, bass and drums. It's 'frenetic'. A tiny fractal piece for extended 'virtual' piano. A 'fractalisation' of the traditional Christmas carol (added 20 December 2003). The notes of the three phrases of the carol are made into 'user-defined scales' in 'The Music in the Numbers'. A simple instrumentation of bells and glockenspiel 'imply' the harmonic feel of the tune rather than stating it. This is a short 'piano' piece done in the abovementioned 'Joyballs' tool in 'KeyKit'. When I did this, I was unaware of the full functionality of the tools. It was done as a kind of homage to the minimalist composer, Steve Reich, whose music I have long admired. A tiny, light-hearted 'mouse-jam', also done in 'KeyKit', using a tool called 'Picture This'. A picture is loaded (for this, 'Warp Grid', which is in Gallery 14 here), and lines drawn across it. The tool generates musical phrases based on the pixels it reads along the lines. Heterophonies
I - Notturno The three 'Heterophonies' tracks are a homage to one of my favourite living composers - Pierre Boulez. They were done in 'KeyKit' using a series/12-tone row. Phrases were generated, overlaid, stretched, transposed and randomised. The process was a bit like 'sculpting' MIDI phrases into three different tracks. Please use the link on the left to email me. From the 'Contact Me' page, you can email with comments, questions or any kind of feedback. There is also a separate link to subscribe to the Fractal Visions newsletter. |
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