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Music for Dreamers I Here's how to make Music for Dreamers I . You'll need: one or more humans Here's one scenario: Put a playback rig atop a Flexible Flyer and draw quiet nighttime music through residential neighborhoods over a fresh snowfall from, say, two to four in the morning. You have to devise a way to sequence or layer the mp3s. 'Shuffle' on one or more cd or mp3 players would work, for instance. Or you could get computers involved... Music: I've linked some mp3s below. The collection includes arrangements of a few lullabies that may be familiar, recordings of the ocean and other environments [recorded at night], and some other random stuff. Everything's a little rough, production-wise; but, hey, the audience will be asleep. If you've made some music or recordings you think would work well for this piece and you're so inclined, please feel free to send mp3 or audio files to me and I'll include them in the collection. Music that skips along the angelic <--> Puckish continuum should be just about right for this scene. We wouldn't want to wake or disturb anyone—just transmit a little gentle sound to dreamers. Regarding the live instruments option: I think we would want to place long tones into the night, into the texture; or very deliberate, rather isolated gestures; a pretty abstract deal. Jigs, marching rhythms and pied piper narratives could be cool, but are a different piece. The good thing about recorded music in this situation is that you can concentrate on listening [to] yourself [and negotiating the landscape]. [time varying selection of] mp3s: environment: amed_ocean_02.mp3 [1.9 mb] ; amed_ocean_03.mp3 [3.5 mb] ; bebek2_feeding.mp3 [1.5 mb] ; layang_soft.mp3 [0.5 mb] music sweet music: brahms_lullaby_01.mp3 [3.0 mb] ; brahms_lullaby_02.mp3 [3.2 mb] ; hinges_for_dreamers.mp3 [3.7 mb] ; rock-a-by_baby.mp3 [4.4 mb] ; toes_for_dreamers.mp3 [7.7 mb] If you actually do this and you're so inclined, please feel free to send a recounting of your experience and any documentation you might have generated. I will send you kick ass hot cocoa in return. Note on the lullabies' timbre. A few years ago, Georg Essl, then a key person in Perry Cook's SoundLab at Princeton University, developed a [mathematical/computer] physical model of a finger on glass, written in C++. A professor of mine, Dan Trueman, had ported [translated] another, mathematically similar, of Essl's physical models (as if you bowed vibraphone bars with a violin bow) to C, for use in the popular music programming language Max/MSP. I modified Dan's port to create a 'glass armonica' object in MSP. It allows users (following Dan's) to change certain parameters over time—such as finger pressure, resonance and vibrato.
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