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RE: [microsound] laptop improv attempts so far



On Wed, 17 Nov 1999, Philip Sherburne wrote:
> the laptop performer to a corner.  i saw jake mandell last night, and while
> it was intriguing to watch him work (tapping his feet, he was obviously
> "working," at least as much as the beat-matching DJ works or plays the
> decks), in the end it distracted from listening.  i found myself constantly
> trying to watch his motions, thinking, "is that him now?  is he doing that?
> or is that the program?"  

For the past few months I've been woodshedding this immensely peculiar
sequencer for palm pilots, called "hedgehog." Making a sequencer for a
handheld device is one of the most corrupting things in our domain here
since you are in effect defining the spec to your own performance tactics
as you debug it. "Well, if I was playing this, I'd want to stick the track
listing on this window..." -- and for better or worse, there is little
'prior art.' Oh: http://www.crudites.org/soundventures/software/hedgehog

But I understand the electronic performance problem deeply. I have at
times all but shelved it because I feel that the last thing someone wants
to watch is a musician tapping on a 160x160 pixel screen while bobbing his
head up and down. But then I perk up and say: "well, at least they won't
be hiding behind a powerbook..." They can posture as much as they want,
put their gear on the floor behind them and exchange the boring palm
stylus with a neon-green stirring stick -- and "rock out." Maybe it'll be
kind of nice; and the best part is I won't have to lug my rackmount
computer anywhere anymore.

And as far as the normalized sequence performer problem goes, there is an
option to slur notes and stutter drum hits based on a Poisson distribution
-- to keep the fans 'guessing' as it were. God knows I could have used
that in Cubase now and again. And of course lots of room in a 2-d matrix
for drawing controller changes live, making the hands move. And maybe
future RRKirks in the wings can juggle two or three pilots at once.

What I'm saying is that technology, just as it stuck us with Powerbooks
and Spark/Hyperprism/(Audiomulch/Acid), will probably pretty soon
outinvent itself to a different model. You know, I heard the Media Lab has
some interesting equipment... ;)

[p.s. If you read this and are interested in music application UI design
and have ideas, please get in touch, I could use some input directly about
Hedgehog above there but other things as well.]

-brian

Brian Whitman
bwhitman@xxxxxxxxxxxx
http://www.netspace.org/users/bwhitman