L4COUR
commented
6 years ago Thank you for your very elaborate and interesting take on my use of Steve Reich's phasing technic, and the insight of your knowledge of the the composer. in regards to your suggestions, I do think you make a very good point as to my limited use of interactive elements, which i hope to learn more on how to incorporate. the idea with a slider seems great, and as you point out maybe giving the user of the program some more control over the audio-files may make them feel as if they are actually the composers and trying to manipulate with the playback rates.
cheers! La Cour
Hello there!
I think I am especially fond of this program, because.. you know it's Steve Reich. This program is heavily inspired by the use of digital audio techniques of which I cannot and shall not try to describe. The effect however, is that one audio loop is slightly offset in relation to the other, and this creates a unique listening experience, where the loop of one audiofile becomes an evolving composition in relation to the other sound file. Or the other way around, it does not matter. Both audio files combine and become something more. This is something Steve Reich has explored extensively.
I will come back to this, but let me first describe this code. You have channeled one sound file to the left ear, one sound file to the right ear. The one on the right is slightly offset, and from that the effect comes by itself. As such, the sequence is a continuous loop with a lot of initial and important parameters. You have then added a visual layer in the form of your throbber, or progress bar. It becomes an indicator of the time of the sound files, and thus it is also offset to one another.
All in all, visuals and sound complement one another, and this results in this fine program. Steve Reich absolutely adores very small motives of music, and through repetition of them, combining them, transpositioning them, and ultimately creating something more and unique. I really like this as it is essentially the same concept, but transmitted through the physical enactment of the piece by individual people. It then enters the same field as the dance of "come out" (not the audio itself), as it is through co-dependence that it can actually become possible to achieve this music experience. Once again, the piece uses very short motives, but through slight alterations over a long time, combinations of motives and the eventual transposition of two played motives in relation to one another, Reich creates a very meditative piece of music. It requires minimal efforts in some ways (loop of motives, only small alterations), yet it also demands highly skillful musicians, who are firstly able to transposition their own playing in relation to another musician, and secondly able to follow a collective beat extremely precisely (or else the purpose of the piece is lost). Not only that, these music pieces are really long.
It is different from your, and from Come Out because it is realized through human playing. In Come Out and your throbber, the music is set up with set conditions and parameters, and then executed. Ultimately, I find it fascinating to listen to.
If I have any suggestion it would be to make the process of transposition faster. Not as in making it immediately be offset by a large amount, but to achieve both sync and "dissync" throughout listening to it. Perhaps it would cool to add sliders to the piece, letting the user manipulate the different sound files as they are channeled through a different speaker each. Manipulation would here simply be the adding of effects and alterations as the sound is looping. This would demand the user to be musically active, while interacting to have any hope of producing something awesome.