[microsound] suite for PC speaker (mp3 downloads)

[tom gillis <tom@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

I've been lurking on this list for a few weeks now and wanted to post some
mp3's of some music that I've been working on.  The recordings here:
http://www.erstwhile.net/audio/index.php?pdir=1bit&page=audiomenu

are some output from a generative music application that I wrote in QBASIC
about 7 years ago on my 486DX, after my soundblaster died on me and I was
left with only the beeper on my computer to compose music with.  The result
was a study in trying to create polyphonic music using a single, crude
oscillator.  This was accomplished by playing trills as quickly as the
soundcard could handle them (around 200 alterations per second) and playing
a complex melody spread out over several octaves so the ear perceives 2 or
more different "voices" playing in counterpoint (inspired by a particular
movement from a Bach suite for unaccompanied violin (though I don't remember
exactly which one offhand)).  The algorithm for the overall structure of the
works is loosely based on a dodecaphonic technique outlined by Charles
Wourinen in his book "Simple Composition", which combines groups of notes,
and then groups of those groups, to create a composition of nested,
self-similar patterns.
The result inevitably sounds like a primitive video-game rendition of some
short-attention-span punk-prog band like Lightning Bolt.  The 4 mp3's are a
recording of 25 minutes of output from the same initial tone row, and can be
listened to continuously as one composition.
Feedback would be appreciated, and if anybody one here is interested I can
post more recordings of different tone rows, or make the executable
available for download (it's about a 50k DOS executable that should run
under windows XP (the machine I developed the program on still runs
Win98)and will work on any computer w/ a PC speaker.)

Thanks for listening
--tom



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