Back to the bent piano wire instrument

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Trying to figure out how to integrate this instrument into the work so far. It sounds more like a steel drum to me.

Mix the spring back in with the percussion

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Drop the sample a few octaves

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Here we have the .080" twisted piano wire instrument samples taken down a few octaves. Here's a picture of part of the instrument. It's made of .080" piano wire (very thick tempered steel wire), which is bent with a pair of plyers and a blow torch into interesting shapes. The wires are then brazed onto a steel plate, and magnetic transducers are attached to pick up the vibrations. Csound is used to drop the sample by 1, 2, or three octaves.

A few more notes for the balloon drums

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More notes for the balloon drums, including arpeggios instead of just repeating notes. I'm still trying to figure out how to have the 8 against 13 appear more rarely and not repeat so much. Indeterminate is not purely random, after all.

A bit more time

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Stay the same for a few bars, then change. The rhythm is 13 against 8. It doesn't sound as different as you might expect.

Just the balloon drums and the dry spring

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I keep removing more and more of the sounds to get more clarity. I deleted the bent spring and the welded piano wire sounds for now. I'll add them back. Or maybe piccolo?

Some Samples

Richard Boulanger is collecting samples to include with some Csound generating software. I volunteered to include the Finger Piano, Balloon Drum, and spring instruments I have been using, since I recorded them myself.

Here is a zip file.

Licensed under creative commons attribution 2.0.

Just a little more sparce

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I've reduced the frequency of the notes a bit. I also need to calm down the percussion. I need several different densities to be able to play with.

Busier than before

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Trying to get the repetitions to work.

A bit more of the steel drum melody

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Each note has a small glissando applied to it now, either up by a 17:16 or down by a 15:16. Just enough to not notice too much.

Upsampling

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Upsampling is the deliberate munchinization of a sample. In this excerpt, I've upsampled the bent wire instrument and it sounds more like a steel drum.

Add the Balloon Drum Chorus

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This version adds the balloon drums and a very wet spring modified by a slow glissando, up or down or both. The drums are samples from a 4' long 4" sewer pipe with a balloon membrane. I take the sample up a few octaves, add five or six hits for every note at different octaves, separate the hits by a few milliseconds, and change the amplitude in different ways. The balloon drum is the only tuned instrument in the piece so far. I had to dump the oboe.

Oh boy the Oboe

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Need something very high for the melody. Not set on the Oboe, maybe a piccolo.

Squeaker

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Add the squeakers.

Down the well

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Increasing the audio location spread, the pitch climb, and the space between the notes.

Around in 13 steps

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13 beats to a measure that is. Rising each measure by the 53rd root of 2.

Spring at hand

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Samples of an instrument made from bent piano wire, plucked with the fingers, amplified with a hand wound guitar type pickup. Sounds a bit like a steel drum in this version.

Source Code for Csounders

For those who like to peer behind the curtain:

• Preprocessor Source Code: sing53.mac
• which creates the input to Csound: sing53.csd
• which is reprocessed by Csound to add crescendo and decrescendo effects: sing53.csd
• Finally, it is convolved by Csound with an impulse response file of Teatro Alcorcon in Madrid from Angelo Farina: convolv.csd
• Converted to MP3: version 1 slower version 2
  

Enjoy.

Whisper Song in 53 EDO - now 5.26% slower!

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Some of my friends at the Make Microtonal Music Yahoo Group have suggested that perhaps the piece was a bit too relentless. Today I slowed it down by the 53rd root of 2 times four, or 5.26%. Perhaps it's a bit easier to absorb. I'm not sure.

Whisper Song in 53 EDO

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I think this one is finished for now. This is a piece for Finger Piano, Bass Flute, Cello, and Dry Spring. The Dry Spring is an amplified percussion instrument I made back in the 1970's for live performance. All the sounds are made with Csound as a sample based synthesizer. Tuning is 53 tone to the octave equal divisions of octave (53-EDO)

The structure is kind of like a theme in C major, with a bridge in E minor, A minor, D minor, G minor. The E is a 5:4 above the C at 1:1, so a circle of fourths ends up on a G that is slightly flat. I solve that one by sliding up a step from 30 to 31. See the notes in Sagittal notation in the chart on the right. Each is moved around by the 53rd root of 2, the single step of 53 EDO, a ratio of 77:76. These steps are so small that it is hard to notice that the key has modulated by one, two, or three steps, and then back down.

One section at the end includes a longer bridge that includes the keys shown on the left. They start at kind of an A flat, and move up by fourths until they hit the G a 3:2 above the C at 1:1.

The finger piano samples are from an instrument I made in the 1970's also, when I was playing more live. It has a nice solid base and piano like middle, and harp like highs. By truncating the envelope, I can make it sound more like a Fender Jazz Bass with plastic strings. This envelope is shown below.

The end includes arpeggios of the finger piano with an envelope like the chart at the bottom.