I think of all this as a sensible introduction to non-binary computing. It is more than just interesting that: 1) a musical, number-theoretical treatment of groups of bits can contain such a vast amount of harmonic information of a more or less intuitive (Jazz-related) type; 2) the problem of indefinite location/identification appears as a problem […]
Tag Archives: epistemology
Doing
Watching people learn instruments, it is hard not to wonder whether some of the beauty of playing lies in the simple fact of its being done — a fact wildly underrepresented in digital music. There is in digital music the fact of things being conceived. But moment-for-moment facts, unpaste-able, in real contact, making sensual sense, […]
Canteloupe
Before starting, it is probably important to stress how much making music is like hitting a canteloupe. It is a way of guessing at the content of the invisible inside — much like setting elements on fire to see their spectrum. For this reason, it is probably best to work at bit-level with a computer. […]
Figured Bass
On a small neural-network-like basis, it is possible to write a very precise kind of figured bass. The computer itself can improvise upon it, using a very limited number of input parameters (5 parameters which can be further compressed as a 16-bit byte for transmission). Usefully, in this scheme, each note is not a point […]
Neural
The peculiar thing is that harmony can be represented as a very, very small neural network based on the reconstruction of prime-numbered groups of bits.
Kolkata
Making noise online is like honking in the Kolkata (Calcutta) traffic. Not to warn others that you are there, but to prove to yourself that you exist.
Music and the idea of the invisible thing.
What I wish to keep track of is the meaning of music in digital media. The idea of what people are — indeed the idea of what things are — is shifting with media. We have long conceived who we were through print, paint, recordings, and other strange mirrors. And now data is our mirror, our […]