Automatic In C

I have another idea for something I will never get around to doing. Some years ago I created the first few bars of "Six Marimbas" by Steve Reich. I only had the first few bars from a book about minimalist music. However, Six Marimbas uses the relative volume of each of the six instruments to create a variation even when the bars are simply repeating. I repeated those few bars on the Sequencer and then simply rode the faders on the mixer so that all the various interplays showed up. I could make it last for ages and still keep coming up with interesting counterpoint. Yesterday I listened to a version of "In C" by Terry Riley. I don't have the keyboards anymore but the Midi instruments on my PC are quite good and I have programmatic access to them. I want to create a self-performing version of In-C with dynamic mixing of the instruments. All I need now is the 53 bars. In that split second, I have found it along with the performing instructions. Go here if you want to look at it but you will need Acrobat. Very interesting. I always thought that the order you played the bars in was random but everybody plays them all in sequence and should not get too far out of step with everybody else. How do I program that? Actually, I suppose it could not be any other way. How would you know how to finish?

Of course I could try and program 4'33'' or something by La Monte Young but it won't be this one :-

Piano Piece for David Tudor #1

Bring a bale of hay and a bucket of water onto the stage for the piano to eat
and drink. The performer may then feed the piano or leave it to eat by itself.
If the former, the piece is over after the piano has been fed. If the latter,
it is over after the piano eats or decides not to.

La Monte Young
October 1960

Back to more traditional music. Ryan Adams (Thats RYAN) has a song called SYLVIA PLATH which is quite fun. I have just stumbled across a site called Everything which seems to be an updateable list of well er ... everything a la Hitch Hikers Guide (The BBC have a version of this - H2G2 - now)