about
i started the piece in december with the idea of being literal about it, so i converted a picture of sarah and i into an audio representation by using a program called coagula and looped it over itself repeatedly. i wanted to build a synth piece up out of that, but i wanted to maintain the robotic feel of the digital loop so i used a generative program called sounder.
now, i want to explain a little about this program because it's used a little bit more melodically on this recording than it is used elsewhere, and if you weren't clear about it then you might accuse me of pretension.
i've explained a little about the program already:
sounder takes advantage of some obscure midi qualities to transport the act of triggering a note into the physical world. imagine a midi tennis ball that triggers at different intensities based on how hard the ball is thrown at a wall. now, imagine a frictionless space where that ball can bounce around indefinitely. sounder virtualizes this reality.
it also allows you to program the notes being triggered, which can be thought of something like a tone row. the result is notes improvising over tone rows; notes are not triggered randomly, but relative to the physics of the ball - including the ball's velocity, speed and kinetic energy. user control is substantial over both the physics of the ball and the size of the room.
this was then meant to merge into a produced pop song with a classical guitar part driving a sequencer, and it does indeed open up into that. what i found when i was done, though, was that the pop song is a little bit repetitive and doesn't really hit a high point. i couldn't figure out how to finish it, and decided maybe it wasn't worth finishing.
in 2015, i'm still not sure how to finish it, and that's convinced me that it's both not worth finishing and, in fact, done. i also think it's worth a listen, despite it's flaws, so i'm releasing it in the space it was ejected from.
i do not remember why i called it "ostrich", but it's stuck all these years so there it is.
written and recorded over dec, 2002.
credits
from
flying,
track released December 15, 2002
j - classical guitar, effects, synth, drum and other programming, light-sound synthesis (coagula), generative programming (sounder), sound design, digital wave editing, production, composition
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