“Ad Libitum is a simple web project designed to generate simple automatic (and pure random) counterpoints. It consists in three flash objects embedded in a html page, inside each module three cells try to connect random points, when a cell will reach a point it play an audio sample. Users could only turn on or off modules to get a thicker or lighter sonic texture. Samples are divided into three pentatonic sets, any set has a different timbre (one for each cell), because using pentatonic modes gives always consonant intervals (both harmonic and melodic) an euphonic soundscape is the final result.”
UPIC is a computerised musical composition tool, devised by the composer Iannis Xenakis. It was developed at the Centre d'Etudes de Mathématique et Automatique Musicales (CEMAMu) in Paris, and was completed in 1977. The name is an acronym of Unité Polyagogique Informatique du CEMAMu. Xenakis used it on his subsequent piece Mycènes Alpha (1978), and it has been used by composers such as Jean-Claude Risset (on Saxatile (1992)), Takehito Shimazu (Illusions in Desolate Fields (1994)), Aphex Twin [1], and Curtis Roads.
Physically, the UPIC is a digitising tablet linked to a computer, which has a vector display. Its functionality is similar to that of the later Fairlight CMI, in that the user draws waveforms and volume envelopes on the tablet, which are rendered by the computer. Once the waveforms have been stored, the user can compose with them by drawing "compositions" on the tablet, with the X-axis representing time, and the Y-axis representing pitch. The compositions can be stretched in duration from a few seconds to an hour. They can also be transposed, reversed, inverted, and subject to a number of algorithmic transformations. The system allows for real time performance by moving the stylus across the tablet.
Drumatic is a visual exploration of musical notation for drum sets. The book sums up my investigations on an alternative way of depicting notes for this instrument.
