Electro acoustic music project

Mcjmetroid

The idea of the assignment is to make an electro-acoustic piece and do a live performance. I haven't selected the topic yet but it's a final university project and so far i'm interested in it.
You also have to be a classically trained pianist which I'm sure I have enough experience in.

So regarding just piano my question is simply have you seen any good example of people doing this sort of thing before? Anyone I can research for reference and just to get started. Any good software I should consider buying now to help.

I love composing music and create plenty uses my sythesizer but it's never done anything quite like this before.

Also I apologize,i wasn't sure whether to post this in here or experimental music so sorry if it's in the wrong place.

and thanks for any helpful information

ebaysellerrob

check out massive attack maybe or some of the other trip hop bands like portishead...

jtsuited

massive attack wtf???? he said electro-acoustic. Not mid nineties trip hop.

OP check out Steve Reich's phasing piece on youtube and go from there.

ebaysellerrob

fine then how about a lil bit of lamb (check out gaberial) and massive attack are still releasing albums....they started in the 90's if that is what you mean

jtsuited

ffs. do you know what electro-acoustic even means?

ClutchIt

jtsuited wrote: »

ffs. do you know what electro-acoustic even means?

Bit harsh?

jtsuited

ah to be fair, to be that far off and not know what electro-acoustic music is is pretty shocking.

i57dwun4yb1pt8

this is gonna be a good one , I can feel it
:pac::pac::pac::pac::pac::pac:

Anima

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=85D-s_DPNyw

All you need to know about this area of music...

jiltloop

ebaysellerrob wrote: »

fine then how about a lil bit of lamb (check out gaberial) and massive attack are still releasing albums....they started in the 90's if that is what you mean

Lamb and Massive really aren't electro acoustic by the way.

Mcjmetroid

lol after looking at this page that I'll have to research on my own but thanks for "trying" anyway.

splitrmx

jtsuited wrote: »

ffs. do you know what electro-acoustic even means?

What does electro-acoustic mean?

ZV Yoda

splitrmx wrote: »

What does electro-acoustic mean?

Well, back when I was a lad (back before the interweb was invented), electro-acoustic was a type of guitar.... so I suppose electro-acoustic music is what you get when you play one of those guitars.

For those of you who don't know what a guitar is, here's a pic

studiorat

+1 on Trevor Wisheart.
Check out his book "On Sonic Art". Not a big fan of his music though.

Electro-acoustic music can mean a few things which are related. I can be music specifically for performance over loudspeakers. It can also be a music that is performed specifically for it's timbre rather than it's melody, see what's his face the french dude, Pierre Schaffer. EA also resides mainly in academic circles. Even people who perform EA can't decide what specifically constitutes electro-acoustic.


Using a piano you could perhaps develop a piece for piano and electronics using perhaps Pure Data or Max msp.

Other peeps worth checking out are Gerard Grisey, Iannis Xenakis (sp?), Stockhausen (of course), John Chowning (invented FM synthesis), the San Fransico Tape Music centre, Can (the band). There's loads of it out there...

krd

studiorat wrote: »

+1 on Trevor Wisheart.
Check out his book "On Sonic Art". Not a big fan of his music though.

Electro-acoustic music can mean a few things which are related. I can be music specifically for performance over loudspeakers. It can also be a music that is performed specifically for it's timbre rather than it's melody, see what's his face the french dude, Pierre Schaffer. EA also resides mainly in academic circles. Even people who perform EA can't decide what specifically constitutes electro-acoustic.


Using a piano you could perhaps develop a piece for piano and electronics using perhaps Pure Data or Max msp.

Other peeps worth checking out are Gerard Grisey, Iannis Xenakis (sp?), Stockhausen (of course), John Chowning (invented FM synthesis), the San Fransico Tape Music centre, Can (the band). There's loads of it out there...

Or Electo-acoustic could mean singer songwriter music - with an acoustic guitar and a few electronic sounds.

Songs about knitting your own cardigan and wetting your bed, with a few bleeps thrown in.

Mcjmetroid

studiorat wrote: »

+1 on Trevor Wisheart.
Check out his book "On Sonic Art". Not a big fan of his music though.

Electro-acoustic music can mean a few things which are related. I can be music specifically for performance over loudspeakers. It can also be a music that is performed specifically for it's timbre rather than it's melody, see what's his face the french dude, Pierre Schaffer. EA also resides mainly in academic circles. Even people who perform EA can't decide what specifically constitutes electro-acoustic.


Using a piano you could perhaps develop a piece for piano and electronics using perhaps Pure Data or Max msp.

Other peeps worth checking out are Gerard Grisey, Iannis Xenakis (sp?), Stockhausen (of course), John Chowning (invented FM synthesis), the San Fransico Tape Music centre, Can (the band). There's loads of it out there...

thank you this was an extremely helpful post.
This is pretty much on the lines of what I was talking about. ONly thing i'll say about max msp is I have studied it already and it's quite a hard program to use and there is very little help on-line for it I found.

Is pure data similiar to max msp? It sure looks it from what i've seen.

I was never much on the programming languages in general. I rather like using a program like Csound but well see happens.

studiorat

Pure Data uses the same data flow paradigm as Max. In fact it was developed by the same person Miller Puckette. PD has plenty of tutorials online especially the Floss manuals and the PD mailing list which Miller himself contributes to. Oh Yeah! and PD is FREE!!!

Csound of course would be a viable prospect too it has plenty of scope for live input and output, though I think setting up a GUI would be easier in Max or PD. One of my projects was to make a GUI for a Csound instrument which was tricky enough to say the least. I'm surprised though that someone would find something like Max difficult and still enjoy using something like Csound.

mailing list:
http://lists.puredata.info/listinfo/pd-list

millers book: The Theory and Technique of Electronic Music
http://crca.ucsd.edu/~msp/techniques.htm

Floss manuals:
http://en.flossmanuals.net/PureData

studiorat

krd wrote: »

Or Electo-acoustic could mean singer songwriter music - with an acoustic guitar and a few electronic sounds.

Songs about knitting your own cardigan and wetting your bed, with a few bleeps thrown in.

Isn't that electro-folk or folk-tronica or something?

Mcjmetroid

studiorat wrote: »

Pure Data uses the same data flow paradigm as Max. In fact it was developed by the same person Miller Puckette. PD has plenty of tutorials online especially the Floss manuals and the PD mailing list which Miller himself contributes to. Oh Yeah! and PD is FREE!!!

Csound of course would be a viable prospect too it has plenty of scope for live input and output, though I think setting up a GUI would be easier in Max or PD. One of my projects was to make a GUI for a Csound instrument which was tricky enough to say the least. I'm surprised though that someone would find something like Max difficult and still enjoy using something like Csound.

mailing list:
http://lists.puredata.info/listinfo/pd-list

millers book: The Theory and Technique of Electronic Music
http://crca.ucsd.edu/~msp/techniques.htm

Floss manuals:
http://en.flossmanuals.net/PureData

hmm this sounds interesting. I had never considered pure data before. I may give it a try. I have a good few weeks to decide on this yet.

I used csound about 2 years ago. As far as I remember I preferred it mainly due to the fact there was plenty of on-line help for it and it just made for sense to me. NO matter what I do i'm going to have to learn/relearn a program.

I've also heard of a program called super collider thats widely used? Is this recommended have you ever used it?
again sound for the help

Anima

I used Supercollider a bit in college. Its mainly used for a live setting so maybe that will suit your needs better.

I must say though, the syntax for the programming is awful and its not the easiest to use.

Mcjmetroid

Anima wrote: »

I used Supercollider a bit in college. Its mainly used for a live setting so maybe that will suit your needs better.

I must say though, the syntax for the programming is awful and its not the easiest to use.

hmmm Doesn't sound like one i'd like so.. To be fair i'm going to dislike just about all of them in some fashion. Just want the lesser of all evils.

Might give it a try anyway for the laugh and we'll see. thanks

Anima

I think PD is your best bet really. Its graphical and not terribly difficult to use. That or Max I think you should go for.

oootini

you can get a pretty decent edu discount on max. i think a 6 month licence will cost you 70 quid...or 200 for a full licence.

studiorat

Anima wrote: »

I used Supercollider a bit in college. Its mainly used for a live setting so maybe that will suit your needs better.

I must say though, the syntax for the programming is awful and its not the easiest to use.

It's something I've been meaning to try out for ages but never got 'round to it. I believe one of it's advantages is that you can code on the fly. If you google "live coding" there's plenty of chat about it. I guess the piano would make a good laptop stand if that were the case.

However I still remain to be convinced about laptop performance. Call me old fashioned but I'd rather watch the gestures of a musician than some guy sitting at a laptop who looks like he's answering his email. Even in an Electro-Acoustic setting I'd still prefer out of the box.. Computers belong at the mixing desk, not on the stage imo.

Mcjmetroid

OK so Say I'm going to use max msp for this. I have a bit of experience in this, just a tiny bit.

See I'm a little worried about the live performance, Should I create my backing electronic part in max msp and then mix it together on another program and on the day just load the sample using max msp while playing live piano over it?

or I wonder should I sort of improvise using about 9 different parts and some sort of live controller ( pedal or something) to toggle between them while playing piano live

I'm mostly just thinking aloud I've barely talked to my supervisor about this yet i'm sure she'll have a YAY or NAY for a lot of my ideas.

I'm also rather good at flash animation so I'm thinking a little implantation of that if I can.

Anima

Should I create my backing electronic part in max msp and then mix it together on another program and on the day just load the sample using max msp while playing live piano over it?

Kind of defeats the purpose I think. I'd imagine you should create a patch then feed your audio through it to create different effects and textures.

This guy does stuff like that, dunno would you call it electro acoustic as such but its close. http://www.keithfullertonwhitman.com/projects/playthroughs.html

Mcjmetroid

I believe i can use a fixed medium.. A lot of the examples I'm supposed to study used to use tape. But it sounds a bit too easy and unimpressive.

I'd love to work with sensors but they are quite expensive...

http://infusionsystems.com/catalog/product_info.php/products_id/28
This is also the cheapest option I could find, if anyone can think of anything else that would be cool too. Still look cool don't they

I believe what I might try is using a midi pedal to toggle between pre recorded parts.. mainly the "attack" parts it should give it more of an improvisational feeling. Could use max/msp to set up what it should trigger right?

Things like this. I'm been researching this all day. the Fact that i'm enjoying the research suggests to me that I should try this, despite my inexperience

studiorat

Using PD or Max you don't have to go down the route of sensors and controllers either. You can make the patch react to the sound itself. Playing higher or lower notes or playing louder or quieter can be make the program do different things as well.