Tuesday, August 7, 2012

ABCDEFG...

Example (With Beat): http://www.mediafire.com/?m4amlmxa4bcdv01
Example (Raw): http://www.mediafire.com/?uud6i2wlzu89evd

Fun little experiment that popped into my head while listening to/studying the opera  "Einstein On The Beach" by Steve Reich. Utilizes a phasing effect in a manner a bit different than Mr. Reich's. It will be detailed here:

First, a simple rhythm is chosen. It could be anything, but it will work best with asymmetrical beats: a 4-to-the-floor beat wont work very well. Due to this, I selected a common reggaeton beat:

OxxOOxOxOxxOOxOx

O = Beat
x = Rest

Now, I look at the number of beats (here there are 8 on each bar), so I chose, to create the phase, a sequence of the first 7 letters on the alphabet (ABCDEFG), which would create a phase of 1. I then "mapped" each the letters onto the beats. It is hard to explain, but simple in concept:

Beat: OxxOOxOxOxxOOxOx
Sequence: ABCDEFG
Results: AxxBCxDxExxFGxAxBxxCDxExFxxGAxBxCxxDExFxGxxABxCxDxxEFxGxAxxBCxDx

And so on. This results in a pattern which repeats every 128 objects. In order to add even more variation, I associated each letter with a pitch in my audio example above, to create an interesting phasing melody. By the way, I didn't mention earlier, but both of the above audiofiles should loop seamlessly.

This technique seems very adaptable/expandable, and I encourage you to try it if you'd like! Here is shorter example (no audio), using syllables of words instead of letters:

Beat: OxOOxx
Sequence: POSS-IH-BLEE-MAY-BEE (Possibly Maybe)
Results: POSSxIHBLEExxMAYxBEEPOSxxIHxBLEEMAYxxBEExPOSSIHxxBLEExMAYBEExx

A bit silly, but it may have possible applications in the future. Enjoy :)

No comments:

Post a Comment