The People's Choice Music 1997
with Komar & Melamid
From a poll of American musical preferences in 1996,
lyrics by Nina Mankin, music by Dave Soldier. Komar and
Melamid were making paintings determined by national
surveys. I wrote the survey and wrote the Most
Wanted Song and the Most Unwanted Song.
See portions
of the survey, or buy
the CD and see them all displayed.
Performers: Ada Dyer, Dina Emerson, Ronnie
Gent- Vocals; Christine Bard - Percussion; Vernon Reid -
Guitar; Andy Snitzer - Saxophone; David Soldier - Banjo,
Violin, Drums, Keyboards, Liner Notes; Rory Young -
Drums, Engineer; Lisa Haney - Cello; Norman Yamada -
Conductor; David Watson - Bagpipes; Yuri Lemeshev -
Accordion; Dave Grego - Tuba; Mary Bopp - Organ; Vitaly
Komar & Alex Melamid- Bass drum
This survey confirms the hypothesis that today's
popular music indeed provides an accurate estimate of
the wishes of the vox populi. The most favored ensemble,
determined from a rating by participants of their
favorite instruments in combination, comprises a
moderately sized group (three to ten instruments)
consisting of guitar, piano, saxophone, bass, drums,
violin, cello, synthesizer, with low male and female
vocals singing in rock/r&b style. The favorite
lyrics narrate a love story, and the favorite listening
circumstance is at home. The only feature in lyric
subjects that occurs in both most wanted and unwanted
categories is "intellectual stimulation." Most
participants desire music of moderate duration
(approximately 5 minutes), moderate pitch range,
moderate tempo, and moderate to loud volume, and display
a profound dislike of the alternatives. If the survey
provides an accurate analysis of these factors for the
population, and assuming that the preference for each
factor follows a Gaussian (i.e. bell-curve)
distribution, the combination of these qualities, even
to the point of sensory overload and stylistic
discohesion, will result in a musical work that will be
unavoidably and uncontrollably "liked" by 72 plus or
minus 12% (standard deviation; Kolmogorov-Smirnov
statistic) of listeners.
The Most Unwanted Music is over 25 minutes long, veers
wildly between loud and quiet sections, between fast and
slow tempos, and features timbres of extremely high and
low pitch, with each dichotomy presented in abrupt
transition. The most unwanted orchestra was determined
to be large, and features the accordion and bagpipe
(which tie at 13% as the most unwanted instrument),
banjo, flute, tuba, harp, organ, synthesizer (the only
instrument that appears in both the most wanted and most
unwanted ensembles). An operatic soprano raps and sings
atonal music, advertising jingles, political slogans,
and "elevator" music, and a children's choir sings
jingles and holiday songs. The most unwanted subjects
for lyrics are cowboys and holidays, and the most
unwanted listening circumstances are involuntary
exposure to commericals and elevator music. Therefore,
it can be shown that if there is no covariance—someone
who dislikes bagpipes is as likely to hate elevator
music as someone who despises the organ, for
example—fewer than 200 individuals of the world's total
population would enjoy this piece.
The pieces are either "unconscious music", where one
composes without being aware of creating the music , or
"prosthetic music" in which you attempt to control your
brainwaves (e.g., closing your eyes is a classic way to
control alpha waves).
TV
show (hour long) from WHYY in Philly (March 2009)
featuring a version of Trio for Brainwaves and
Percussion, a solo by Dave, and discussion
played by Chuckie Joseph, Rich Robinson, and Adwoa
Trio
for Brainwaves and Percussion: original version at
CUNY, 2008
Features Valerie Naranjo (gyil, an African mallet
instrument), Barry Olsen (hand drums), Benny Koonyevsky
(cajon, a musical box), each triggering brainwaves: this
is all in real time with no overdubbing.
Part 1: the players move their hands to play the
instruments, but don't actually touch them, but the
cortical brainwaves trigger the notes
Part 2: the play their instruments at a range of
tempos, and the EEG signals trigger sounds in part
depending on their activity
Part 3: the players try to sync up with Benny's beats
from his brainwaves
Part 4: the players imagine playing, and try to move
their hands while sitting on them
String Quartet #3, "The Essential" First
movement, Fourier Transformations:
brainwaves control all of the pitches in the scherzo of
Schoenberg's 2nd quartet Second
movement,Breathe the air of other
planets:
brainwaves advance through different sections of the
same piece
Performed and thought by: Mari Kimura, Curtis Stewart,
violins, Heve Bronimann, viola, Dave Eggar and Ha-Yang
Kim, cello
Alpha
wave mix "prosthetic" solo where I try to control samples
from my string quartet by producing alpha waves from
the back of my cortex: it's like playing the piano
with boxing gloves
This
radio program (40 minutes, Septermber
2011) titled Timeless Music made for
Vicki Bennet at WFMU radio, explains
the physical dimensions of music and how to manipulate
them, with musical examples.
For recorded music, the dimensions are air pressure
amplitude and time: for composed music, frequency and
time. We play with these dimensions, for example using
fractal patterns with partial dimensions, so that issues
like tempo become undefined and the length of music
ambiguous.
The show includes explanations / illustrations of how
to make deliberate fractals in music, Fourier transform
music and an straightfoward explanation of white noise.
The math music includes:
the variations on Chopin's Minute Waltz, just below,
using integrals, derivatives, averages, and more.
My third string quartet, "The Essential" with
mathematical variations on the second movement of Arnold
Shoenberg's Second Quartet: it can be heard and the
score downloaded from Scores.
It includes a derivative movement, an integral (very
short), a fractal movement, and a Fourier transform.
Olivia Porphyria, a fractal on Haydn's name, from
Organum can be heard and the score downloaded from the
Scores page.
Here are scores for two fractal pieces for trombone and
two guitars, Fractal
on the Name of Haydn and Fractal
on the Name of Bach and there is a solo piano
version on the Scores page.
The most straightforward is the Fractal Varation in "The
Essential Quartet" (Scores
page) which is easier to follow and is equivlanet to a
Koch snowflake.
Why haven't integrals and derivatives been used to
compose? Here's a mini-lesson on making a derivative or
integral version of a musical theme:
use a C major scale, CDEFGABC
assigning a number to each note,
here starting at 0=C, the scale is
0,2,4,5,7,9,11,12
for a first derivative, subtract
each note from the preceding note,
(0),2,2,1,2,2,2,1
which using the original scale
tones would be
C,D,D,Db,D,D,D,Db: voila'! the
first derivative
to integrate the derivative add
each number to the previous,
(0),2,4,5,7,9,11,12: which
returns the original scale
integrate the original scale, and you'll see that
integrals of the music rapidly go beyond the range of
hearing! Examples are in the Essential Quartet and the
Chopin Variatins below, both with very short integral
movements.
Celtic Knot Music
explains a new project in development with Brad Garton
and his brilliant students at Columbia Computer Music
Center, and only one piece is ready to hear, but the
means to make them is explained
An old joke is on the order of "it takes him twenty
minutes to play the Minute Waltz". Here is a live
performance of a collaboration with the late Frederic
Chopin and living electronic musician Sean Hagerty. Dave
Soldier performs the Minute Waltz on the grand piano at
Le Poisson Rouge very very slowly, lasting more than
twenty minutes, while Hagerty stretches the sound of
each piano note out over time.
