7. GEB-ish / experimental music MIDI files
Description
This article is from the Hofstadter and GEB FAQ, by TANAKA Tomoyuki tanaka@cs.indiana.edu with numerous contributions by others.
7. GEB-ish / experimental music MIDI files
are there samples of super-complex music (MIDI files)?
Hofstadter described such music as "Bach squared" in GEB.
i discovered MIDI files in summer 1998 and found it pretty
exciting at first, but soon discovered that there are very few
GEB-ish / experimental music MIDI files around.
i'm maintaining this section in the hope that it may stimulate
interest in this area.
http://www.computer.org/tab/cgm/cd.htm
excerpts (.wav files) from some of the projects
published in the July 1991 issue of IEEE COMPUTER and in
the book "Reading in Computer Generated Music".
(see also: EMI in this FAQ)
http://midiworld.com/collabor.htm Collaborative and Experimental MIDI
there were several pieces i liked in this page
--- Twilight.mid
[...] I collaborated in writing the aleatoric ("fractal")
software which we called AMBIENT, that produced the
initial sequenced tracks. [...] --- Francis Joseph Leach
--- The Sound of Mathematics
Prime Numbers Whole Tone Quartet by Daniel Cummerow
The music was determined prime numbers in base 5. The
digits were mapped to 4 parts using tones of the E whole
tone scale.
Bach's 3-part and 6-part Ricercar
[URL here]
the arranger (sequencer?) does a good job of assigning
distinct-sounding instruments to the voices.
too bad he had to give it quirky, syncopated arrangement.
when it comes to Bach, i prefer the "untouched by human hands"
approach.
the American version of the book "The Science of Musical Sound"
by J.R.Pierce came with a thin phonogram (LP) record.
the Jp version came with a CD containing the same material.
among the most interesting pieces to me were:
1. a Bach fugue played in three scales:
a well-tempered scale, Pythagorean scale, and [one more].
can this be done using MIDI?
(possible to make a GM (general midi) file xxx.mid so
that my SoundBlaster-compatible sound card can play it?)
2. a piece (a fugue?) written in a scale which divides an
octave into 8 equal intervals instead of the usual 12.
can this be done using MIDI?
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