David Cope

This is a very interesting piece by David Cope, a composer and currently a professor at UC Santa Cruz for music theory and compositions. The piece, aptly named “Invention”, is an entirely computer-generated composition taking the style of Bach and randomly generating a song out of it. Take a listen and it really does sound like a Bach piece. (Random fact: Did you know Mozart used dice to write some of his compositions out when he got stuck?)

Here’s another piece he did using the patterns of Scott Joplin, the ragtime king.

Learning ChucK…

From here on out, it's ChucK-in time.

Random Piece Done with C++

Did this in a few hours or so…it’s not the most melodic of pieces, but it was fun to toy with nonetheless.

I did this piece using a few sine, saw, and square wave generators which were supposed to be produced at a random frequency everytime I compiled it. As for the white noise, it was set with a biquad filter so that it would provide a constant “rythmn” so to speak. There’s a sample of Mario’s jump in here too, which I was messing around with its playback rates. Aaand, there was some echo and reverb somewhere as well but meeh…this wasn’t meant to be top 40 or anything.

My “Studio”

My makeshift studio....excited to use it at CalArts!

My brand new Axiom Pro 49!!

Can't forget the Wheat Thins

Exercise: Synthesizing a Kick

…which I did from a plain sine wave and am proud of!

CalArts Interface Concert

Basically…..amazing.

After about an hour and a half of driving through crap in LA all the way from Irvine, I finally made it to CalArts. The concert hall was dark but I didn’t really know why but I was just in time to see the awesome laser controller called MLGI. It’s a 5 laser controller that is controlled by gestures…Remember that ddr-like game where you swipe your hand over and under this disc to a beat? It’s JUST like it except that the height controls parameters within the Reaktor. It was definitely an awesome experience although maybe in the future it could be worked on so that it could have more lasers. Next came the brick tablet and that was also very cool. The instruments just had an organic feel to it and both of the players were complimenting each other very well. Lastly we got to see a quartet of Arduinomes and that was also very very cool….weird little tidbit: the Monome was actually invented by a CalArts graduate aka Brian Crabtree! After hearing that plus the laser controller plus the brick table (I arrived too late to see the other ones)I just couldn’t believe what I was going to be learning in the coming years.

It’s a short post and I’m really sad that I missed the first few interfaces but I will hopefully meet them during school and see their inventions in action!

Staying at UCI and Advice from a DJ

So

I tried to quit my classes here at UCI but it only ended up with them saying that I’d only get 50% of my money back…which I was not willing to do. So now I’m taking easy classes and – lucky how I found this – a Music Tech class taught by a shakuhachi player Ko Umezaki. He’s a young, enthusiastic teacher and tries to give life to the class as much as he can…not that there’s much life to it to begin with. The class is about programming music using C++ and, although quite dry, can have amazing possibilities. We’re learning basics on how to create measures, notes, durations, etc. but I’m sure later on this stuff can get mind-blowing, and if not here at UCI then I’m sure at CalArts.

I’m still so excited for CalArts. Right now I’m working with a producer and helping her build her label up here in Los Angeles and doing some A&R and marketing. It’s peon work, but I feel that I can learn a lot from her and the whole building a label experience. It’s very exciting, to say the least.

In the meantime, I still muddle about with production. It’s very hard to find sounds that will work and sit well with your bassline but I hope it ends up ok eventually. Once done, I’ll try posting it here for you all to listen

I also did some thinking today about this music business in general. I feel that that most people in the industry nowadays are all too concerned with SUCCEEDING in the music industry and trying to MAKE IT in the music industry and leave their mark….a kind of aspiration that seems to be the driving force in their music-making… and it even seems to have grown on me and I’m beginning to realize this. What made it more uncomfortable is that they all seem so self-absorbed with the whole djing/producing process and caught up in all the glamor of a dj rocking stages and clubs around the world. However, it may also be their egos that I can’t stand, they all seem to try and market themselves as a product to the industry and although it’s a winning business model, it just doesn’t feel like it has any real connection to what this industry should really be about….When I told the producer I work with about my confusion, she flat-out said,

“Honestly, do not worry about ‘success’ so much, focus on your work, and what you want to create. It’s not about success. When people see you’re only out for success, and you’re not passionate about what you’re playing, or who you’re working with, the people who matter will see it.”

I for one am, admittedly, one to want to ‘succeed’ in this industry. But after listening to her, I definitely want to change my persona and turn it around. Although it may seem counter-intuitive, I feel that my passion for music should always be my drive more than wanting to succeed in such a competitive field, and only then will I be successful to myself.

And I think that’s what really matters and that’s how I should look at things!

But after that talk, I just felt more driven, and it’s so surreal since I’ve never really felt this drive so relentlessly coming back day after day. My previous life as a Computer Science major was a droning sound in my life that never seemed to want to extend itself, but now it just feels great that I keep wanting to work on music everyday I wake up…and even now before I sleep!

Anyway, I should be looking into audio engineering and finish up my song…production is still very difficult but I know I am going to get much better at it sooner or later! Thanks to my boss producer for the great advice and I hope to keep learning great things in the future!

Acceptance Day and ADD-Spurred Thoughts

I decided to start this because I wanted to see where life would go now that I have been accepted into California Institute of the Arts and am now leaving a life of stable financial income and entering a world where hard work and crazy talent is rewarded…but with a little luck behind it as well. Art is art and that’s how it will always be: a kind of luxury that’s never needed but always wanted. However I felt that the community of people at CalArts – a tight-knit petridish of brewing knowlege – was something that I was looking for and something away from normal teaching standards.

So with that, I decided to quit going to a normal UC school and set out forth into this new life. All hopes to the best and I’m hoping that recording this in my blog will help others as well.

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And now my first thoughts of Calarts when I visited there for the first time on acceptance day…

For acceptance day…it was a very interesting day. My family came along with me and we were cordially greeted upon entering. Then we all gathered into the main lobby-like area for the Dean’s welcoming speech. He was very funny and understood the position we were all facing as artists. One thing I liked from what he said was that we had two paths: we could either be honing our skills as that type of artist and become the best in that field, OR we can take our skills to a whole new level and invent something new out of it. That kind of out-of-the-box creativity was exactly what I wanted and I was glad to hear that this college was very focused around that idealogy.

We then took a tour around the place, specifically, the music wing. The recording facility was pretty dark and gloomy but I think that I won’t be spending my time in there as much anyway. I particularly liked the other rooms where it had a bunch of tools and junk around for building your own controllers for 3rd and 2nd years! There were other interesting rooms like the gamelan room that was quite cool, and maybe I’ll look into that once I settle down here more.

The school itself was very tiny, even though I only saw the music side of it. It reminded me a lot of what my girlfriend tells me of her school in the midwest: closed in and not a very outdoorsy school. There were lockers and display cases and all that and it almost made me feel like I was in highschool all over again…..sans the movie theater sign that blared “BIJOU”, the triple-passworded recording facility, the mini-concert hall….etc.

The music department seemed to be color coded by green doors so I knew that that was where I was going to be living all my 4 years at Calarts…although dark as a cave, I felt that this environment was exactly what I needed. It had all the materials and resources I could ask for sans synthesizers!! darn! I guess I’ll have to build myself one…or maybe they’re hiding one…

Speaking of resources, later in the acceptance day (after the tour, that is) we met with our main professor. 6 of us gathered into a room and talked with Ajay Kapur, the head professor of the Music Technology Program. He sounded very knowledgeable despite his young age and for how long he’s been teaching (2 years). He went over how each year was going to go and it sounded very much tailored to what each of us wanted; specifically what I wanted: to be a very mind-blowing dj act and to be self-sustainable in a growing music industry. Although Ajay said to be prepared for amendments/overhauls to our original goals, haha.

After his talk, I was completely wowed and wanted to start immediately…however that was impossible and now I have to wait til September. What a wait. So now I am going to try and quit my classes at my UC and do work or something til September…I am absolutely excited.

I really liked this program from what it sounded because of how tailor-made and custom-made it is, I am very glad I got into this program. I had a pleasant lunch as well and had my parents talk to the professor to kind of ease their feelings about jobs. It feels like I might be able to get a decent job out of this if I play my cards right. I just really want to work hard and get their scholarships as well. I will work and I will triumph!

That is all for now really. I have to do a lot of cancelling and applying and a bunch of things to improve my production skills. I hope all of this works out in the end, and this is why I’m writing this.

I am a BFA1 Music Technology major at Calarts. Let’s do this!