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RE: Mathematics, Prime Numbers, & Looping with the EDP



I agree about the praxis part (can I say praxeological? Heh heh)...I like 
to introduce or talk about ideas like this as "experiments of thought" but 
quite frankly I don't have the patience or time to mathematize my 
improvisational and performance approach.  I barely have enough time to 
brush my teeth before a gig. For me at least, that sort of thing sucks the 
life out of my effort of free improvisation, but I do appreciate and am 
fascinated by those who apply these number theories and systems to music. 
One's brain must be wired a certain way to get off on that!  Anyone watch 
that US TV series Numbers? That's the sort of guy who would apply Cantor's 
theory of diagonalization and infinite sets of infinity to music!

I like your idea of transposing your loops with various number sequences. 
What software are you using? Mobius? I finally got Mobius working great 
with my Behringer MIDI controller, but I just can't use it at the same 
time as my VST host and VST effects on my laptop...massive processor hogs.

Kris


-----Original Message-----
From: Per Boysen [mailto:per@boysen.se] 
Sent: Wednesday, June 22, 2005 4:10 AM
To: Loopers-Delight@loopers-delight.com
Subject: Re: Mathematics, Prime Numbers, & Looping with the EDP

On Jun 21, 2005, at 16:17, Hartung, Kris wrote:

>> How about creating a looped piece by using the multiply function on 
>> the EDP and the series of prime numbers (only numbers that are 
>> divisible by themselves or 1).  For instance, you hit Record and lay 
>> down a 1 measure groove, then hit Multiply and record a 2 measure 
>> harmony over that groove from the beginning of the measure....hit 
>> Multiply to play the sequence, then hit Multiply again and record a 3 
>> measure texture part, again from the beginning of the first measure, 
>> and repeat this process with 5, 7, 11, 13, 15, 17, 19, etc measures 
>> adding various textures, melodies, etc. After a while you might have 
>> to write the song out on paper to keep track of the loops.


As usual a very interesting post from Kris ;-)   I have been thinking  
about such matters too but never succeeded to use  anything similar in 
praxis. In the early eighties I happened to record a radio piece of Iannis 
Xenadis (Sandré) that brought me under the spell of numbers in music. I 
used to calculate different tuning systems and melody/ scale patterns with 
pen and paper while traveling but nothing sounded good and inspired me to 
really use musically. I only had instruments, imagination and a four track 
cassette tape porta studio to try things out, though. Maybe the mistake I 
did was to implement the series tonally? I see Kris is referring to timing 
in his post.

Anyway, since Echoplex, Repeater and recording software came around the 
world has changed quite a bit! I must say that today I like hands- on 
experimenting in real-time much more than mathematical experimental 
thinking ;-)  When recording live into looping software on my laptop, I 
like to create midi sequences that re-pitch the loop according to certain 
number series. This praxis can easily become overwhelming in complexity, 
since what you play will be doubled in harmony and if you are brave to 
layer a second line you will soon end up with four different paths to 
relate to in your performance. That is too complex for me, so I usually 
restrict the real-time transposing scale to something simple like a quint 
note circle, simple octave jumps or a diminished chord (is that how you 
say it in English? The chord like for example C, D# and F#). I also have a 
whole note scaled pattern, i.e. creating a whole note scale if I should 
loop a long single note. What it would throw back at me if I dared to 
record a chromatic scale, I don't even dare to think about!!!  ;-)

It was David Torn that, on this list, inspired me to start researching how 
to play with dynamically transposed live loops. You could do that with a 
Repeater, but starting out with MIDI cc#'s according to the manual I did 
not get it right until Bill Walker told me that it also works with plain 
MIDI note messages (a tip for you Repeater owners).

Greetings from Sweden

Per Boysen
www.looproom.com (international)
www.boysen.se (Swedish)
--->  iTunes Music Store (digital)
www.cdbaby.com/perboysen