Hi all,

I just would like to share three of my recent compositions using Pure Data.

Best,
Gilberto

Hi Gilberto. Thanks for sharing your pieces. Deviation kind of reminds me of the shepard tone because of the descending scale, but I like the in and out of phase feeling of it, it gives a nice texture to the composition. Ascension have the kind of be floating-in-space feeling, or at least I sense it that way. The panning is very well done in all three but I think that in this one it has a more important role. The arrow of time is very interesting. At first I thought that all the piece would be a loop were new sounds were to be added, but it proved to be better. I like how it sounds the constant beat of some arrows while other ones keep in random-like patterns.

By the way, what kind of synthesis did you used on Deviation and The Arrow of Time? is it physical modeling?? the sounds have a very natural feeling to me.

Hi Daniel,

Thanks a lot for your comments, I really appreciate them. Deviation does not use any type of physical modelling (I wish!), it simply uses some very good cello samples. I used Pd to generate MIDI information, which is then sent to a DAW where the playback and the MIDI score are generated, and later I manually translate that MIDI score into a human readable score -- as this piece is supposed to be played by real musicians live. This what I am sharing is just a demo then.

Take care and thanks once again,
Gilberto

Thanks for your response!! Actually I didn't knew you could do that with pd!! So basically pd is working as a midi controller for the DAW. It must be really hard to read a piece like that, but fortunately there are people that can do it. Thanks for sharing the info.

@Daniel-Daowz Hi Daniel,

Indeed that is basically how it is working. You can very easily set this up: you generate MIDI messages via Pd and send the MIDI out. On Linux, I use JACK to route it to my DAW and that is as simple as that. As for the score, it is a bit difficult to read indeed, but I notated it in proportional notation (that is, no rhythms and each bar last for a precise amount of time). I am currently looking for good four cellists to attempt it in some concert here.

But about difficult score, well, most of my pieces are actually acoustic produced with different methods than the ones I shared here (I mainly use Pd for my electronic works), but they are also pretty hard (and if not even harder) to read and to play. Nevertheless, I do come across people interested in this type of music and that are not put off by the difficulties, so I just learned not to be bothered by it.

Take care,
Gilberto

@gsagostinho Thanks for the explanation. Normally I work with windows because my linux computer is a netbook so it really has strong limitations, but I'll check out about jack on windows.

Proportional notation, ok now I get it. Sometimes it can be difficult to find musicians willing to play music in contemporary languages, maybe because you have to use extended techniques not normally taughted at academia, but I think that that is exactly the interesting thing, that you have to be in search for new sounds with your instrument all the time. I hope you find the cellists soon enough.

@Daniel-Daowz Hi Daniel, on Windows you also should be able to route MIDI data. I remember that when I use to work with Windows and Max I used a program called LoopBe1 to route MIDI to a DAW, and it was a free program. Take care! G.

@gsagostinho Oh thank you. I'll check it out then!!

Great music! I like Arrow of Time especially, would love to hear it performed.

@Matt-Stalcup Hi Matt, thanks a lot, I am glad you liked my work! I also would love to hear it performed live and using 8 channels.

Take care!
Gilberto

8 channels? that would be awesome!!

@Daniel-Daowz Thanks! Yeah, that's the idea, I would like to have a single clock per channel, surrounding the audience. We do have such system at my university, but I still didn't have a chance to try this composition there yet.

Hi all,

I finally had a premire of Deviation and I'd like to share the recording here:

This is a recording of a live concert performed by members of the Ostravská banda (Andrej Gal, Juho Laitinen, Balazs Adorjan and Matthias Lorenz) at the Ostrava Days Festival 2015. Janáček Conservatory Hall (Ostrava, Czech Republic) on the 29.08.2015.

Cheers,
Gilberto

These are really great!

@waxmoon Thanks a lot!

Good work, quite reminiscent of Ligeti, isn't it?

@LucienR Thanks! As for Ligeti, I do immensely like his work, but I don't really see what you mean by these pieces being reminiscent of it. In which aspect and which piece do you talk about?

I talk about Deviation, I didn't think of a piece in particular but if you ask me I'd say the third movement of the second string quartet, come un meccanismo di precisione

@LucienR Well, maybe you could argue that there is a similar texture as to that movement of his Second String Quartet, but I mean, any group of atonal pizzicatos notes would pretty much fall in the same category. Technically speaking, there is very few if any Ligeti in this particular piece, in my view. If anything, one could compare the techniques I used on it with some of the works of Nancarrow, although I don't think he ever user any form of randomness when composing.