Piano Phase - First Section

Piano Phase

Pulsar (No Pulse)



Who says I don't do cover versions? Well it's sort of a cover version in that there is no way I can play even one Piano that consistently let alone playing two with a gradual slipping of phase. I couldn't even use the standard VB timer as a tick because it was just too coarse to be any use. Had to dig deep into the CPU clock to manage it. So the bottom line is that this is simply 12 notes played in succession by two clock signals ever so slightly out of synch. Piano Phase actually has three sections, of which this is the first. I don't have the score to get the other two parts though I know that the last part is just a subsection of the first. One day Rodders.

The second piece is almost as simple though I actually did press all the notes in real time. It uses a VST which simulates a massively long tape delay - including tape noise and stretch and flutter if you want it - which is basically Frippertronics but without all that tedious mucking about in Hyperspace with massive tape loops wound over broom handles and the like. In standard mode it doesn't actually produce any sound until it's been through the delay once so part of the beauty is the randomness and guesswork it involves. I just need to get some programmatic access to the instruments and I can take the weak point out of the whole set-up - ie me. The other clicky sound in the first few minutes of this one is from some notes I meant to cut before I rendered it which were an attempt to use the sound of a real pulsar in it. I will try again when I get that sound processed into something a little more suitable. This be the Star.



And now all very apt (or maybe just a tenuous link) my son's hero, Marcus du Sautoy presented yet another Horizon Programme yesterday. This was on The Search for AI and managed to avoid loads of Gee Whizzery, so much so that it gave over about ten minutes to watching said Maths Superman trying to tight-wire walk to illustrate the suggestion that machines will have to have attached bodies in order to achieve anything close to human consciousness. I suppose this undoes some of the idea of human's being downloaded into some sort of global machine. It looks like we'll have to make substitute bodies for ourselves, something like The Borg.