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projects & technology
Below are demonstration
videos for various composition algorithms, programs and interactive
music systems written by V.J. Manzo
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TI:ME Action
Research Project
(2010)
computer-aided composition with
high school non-music students
this project was funded through
a competitive grant by
TI:ME
Description:
Interactive music
systems can be used to facilitate self-directed composition and performance
activities for high school students. In the present study, original software was
developed to allow students without formal music training to compose and perform
original music while acquiring or strengthening knowledge of musical concepts
like harmony, rhythm, and timbre. The resultant data suggest that participants
did many of the same things a traditional composer would do while composing
which included exploration of multiple diatonic tonal centers, conceptualization
of some formal organization of pitch material, paying attention to themes and
development in musical time, and experimentation with timbre and harmonic
texture.
The participants expressed that they gained some understanding of traditional
musical vocabulary such as timbre, tempo, and harmony, by using labeled controls
within the software that changed these musical variables in real-time, allowing
them to hear the results instantly. The self-directed composition activity did
not involve any direct teacher instruction, yet yielded compositions that were
both interesting to the students and harmonically sophisticated. Similar systems
used with the guidance of a teacher could help facilitate discussion about music
concepts as students encounter them in their own compositions.
The data also suggest that students' perceptions about their school music
program, in which these participants were not involved, changed for the positive
and that they would want to be involved in the school music program if they knew
that technology like this were commonly in use.
DOWNLOAD: automata
-automata [Windows / Mac]
© 2010 clear blue media |
View the automata website:
automata
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automata
a cell phone / web-based
interactive music system
Description:
Automata is an
interactive music system designed to give individuals without any formal music
training the opportunity to compose and perform an original piece of music. A
user sends a blank text message from their phone to automata [at] vjmanzo
[dot] com . Automata
gets the numbers from that person’s cell phone and equates each digit (0 – 9) to
one of the scale degrees of a major scale (1-8, 9 = 2, 0 = 3). The user can
then impose a rhythm and tempo for which these scale degrees are played
sequentially, determine they key and build chords from these scale degrees, and
control the timbres used to synthesize these numbers. Up to four phone numbers
can be loaded before a new number replaces and old one.
more>
© 2009 clear blue media |
View the automata website:
automata
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EAMIR
Electro-acoustic Musically
Interactive Room
Description: EAMIR (Electro-Acoustic
Musically Interactive Room) is an interactive
music system that allows individuals with mild and profound disabilities to
create a unique musical expression without the physical and technical
limitations found in the study of traditional acoustic instruments (e.g. –
violin, guitar, etc.) while allowing individuals with some musical training to
help shape the performance in terms of dynamics, tempo, tonality, etc.
Through the creation of original software
written for this project, EAMIR allows students, including those with mild or profound
disabilities, to create music through the use of easy-to-use sensors such that
can be triggered by stomping on a floor tile, bending the fingers, or
waving a hand in the air. Each of these aforementioned gestures are mapped to a
meaningful series of musical events or sounds.
more>
This text will be replaced
DOWNLOAD:
EAMIR
-EAMIR [Windows / Mac]
© 2007 clear blue media |
View the EAMIR website:
eamir.org
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Modal Object Library
A Collection of Objects
to Control Modality
The Modal Object Library is a
collection of algorithms to control and define modality. The first objects were written
for the language Max/MSP
in 2006 and became the basis of many of my algorithmic compositions and
interactive music systems including the EAMIR project. I have since expanded the
library and ported some objects to other languages including LISP and Pure Data.
DOWNLOAD: Modal Object Library
-Modal_Object
Library [Windows / Mac]
This text will be replaced
© 2006 clear blue media |
View the Modal Object Library website:
mol
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sim1:arco
interactive music system for violin & modified bow
Description:
sim1:arco is an interactive music system that allows a soloist to
harmonize what is being played with any quality of chord that is desired. On
a specially made bow are four buttons. As the performer plays, the
instrument’s pitch is tracked. The tracked pitch is the root of what is to
become the harmonized chord. Each of the four buttons trigger the harmonized
chord to be sounded with one of the four chord qualities: major, minor,
augmented or diminished.
In sustain mode, a chord will begin when a button is pressed while playing
the pitch intended to be harmonized. The chord will sustain until a new
chord is harmonized. With sustain mode off, the chord will sustain as long
as the button is held down and will release when the button is released.
A footswitch allows for a number of parameters to be changed. Pressing the
first button turns sustain mode on or off. Pressing the 2nd 3rd
or 4th button switches the inversion of the harmonized chord to
root position, 1st inversion or second inversion. The two volume pedals
control the overall output level of the instrument (1) and the accompaniment
(2).
The graphical interface allows the performer to see all of the available
parameters and their current values. This system was commissioned for the
American String Teachers Association (ASTA)
Chamber Music Institute
(CMI)
2008 conference at
Kean University.
© 2008 clear blue media |
View Quicktime
Full Screen
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Monochrome
Monochrome is an interactive
music system for composition and performance. Monochrome takes user input from
a graphic tablet (such as a Wacom tablet) and generates a piece in reaction to the
artists gestures on the tablet. The algorithm calculates user input such as
pen orientation and pressure to control pitch and velocity. As the artists
begins to fill the canvas, changes in modality and timbre occur in response to the
amount of shading that has occurred.
© 2006 clear blue media
DOWNLOAD: the original
Monochrome
software
-Monochrome:
EAMIR [Windows /
Mac]
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View Quicktime Video
Full Screen
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Lazy Guy
Lazy Guy is an interactive music
system for composition and performance. Using a webcam, Lazy Guy tracks a
color chosen by the user by mouse-clicking on the first window. This color is
then tracked and visually displayed in the second window. The orientation of
the tracked color will determine the pitch and velocity of a MIDI tone
generator much like a Theremin. Lazy Guy differs from a Theremin in that the
user may select from a bank of tones to play enabling Lazy Guy to perform in
various keys on the fly. Lazy Guy is best performed with a laser (hence the
name "lazy" Guy) color to be tracked.
DOWNLOAD: Lazy Guy
-Lazy Guy: EAMIR [Windows /
Mac]
Visit the
Electro-acoustic Music section for the piece
Optical String
which features this algorithm.
© 2006 clear blue media
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View Quicktime Video
Full Screen
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V-Bot
V Bot is program that composes and performs pop, minimalist music in
real-time. It was written specifically to create the type of ambient music
suitable for meditative, religious situations. V Bot takes the most common
four bar phrases of pop songs as they appear on the database
clicheprogresions.com (also designed
by Manzo). It plays the sustained chords from
the progression in the left hand and improvises a minimalist melody in the
right hand. When V Bot gets tired of what he's playing, he picks a different
one, or modulates, or changes tempo, etc.
DOWNLOAD: V Bot
-V
Bot [Windows /
Mac]
© 2007 clear blue media |
View Quicktime Video
Full Screen
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Pedalman
The PedalMan
software was designed to give musical freedom to performers who use MIDI
footcontrollers such as these Studiologic footpedals. This software, which is
shown here running on a small touchscreen computer, allows the performer to
select a tonic and mode for which to perform. Then, when the user presses on one
of the velocity sensitive pedals, the software builds up a chord from that pitch
based on the key that the user had previously selected. Non-chord tones become
secondary leading tone chords. The user can easily select different chord
inversions by pressing these pedals. The performer is not required to hold down
the pedal in order to sustain the chord. The chord will sustain indefinitely
until this pedal is pressed. The chord voicing itself can also be changed on the
fly.
DOWNLOAD:
Pedalman
-Pedalman [Windows /
Mac]
© 2008 clear blue media
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-poster_small.jpg)
View Quicktime Video
Full Screen
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Communicator
The Communicator was designed to
assist large church ensembles in the direction of improvised music in a
religious worship service over a large stage. The program sends music
directions across a stage through a network allowing each player to receive
information concerning the improvised direction of the song leader.
© 2006 clear blue media
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View Quicktime Video
Full Screen
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