EMPEROR: Of course I do. It's very good. Of course now and then - just now and then - it gets a touch elaborate.
MOZART: What do you mean, Sire?
EMPEROR: Well, I mean occasionally it seems to have, how shall one say? [he stops in difficulty; turning to Orsini-Rosenberg] How shall one say, Director?
ORSINI-ROSENBERG: Too many notes, Your Majesty?
EMPEROR: Exactly. Very well put. Too many notes.
MOZART: I don't understand. There are just as many notes, Majesty, as are required. Neither more nor less.
EMPEROR: My dear fellow, there are in fact only so many notes the ear can hear in the course of an evening. I think I'm right in saying that, aren't I, Court Composer?
SALIERI: Yes! yes! er, on the whole, yes, Majesty.
MOZART: But this is absurd!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dCud8H7z7vU
This certainly is an interesting area to explorer musically. Want can we do with a piano if we had more than ten notes to play at a time. Right now it is HOW many can we play and still sound musical from the samples I saw.
Haydn tried it and failed. Mozart struck the key with his nose.
EMPEROR: My dear, young man, don't take it too hard. Your work is ingenious. It's quality work. And there are simply too many notes, that's all. Cut a few and it will be perfect.
MOZART: Which few did you have in mind, Majesty?
I always loved that exchange!
Circus Galop: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DekTSh1QmvY
Death Waltz: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tds0qoxWVss
Both get a little carried away, but the main melody is clear and pretty interesting.
I imagine our hard limit is human attention. We can focus on the lead and to a lesser extent listen to the background stuff but probably not listen to much more. I don't think we can really focus on some large complexity. That just ends up sounding like a discordant cacophony to us. If anything, we're made to enjoy fairly simple musical relationships. Chords can only get so complex before they sound off to us.
It seems to be a happy little coincidence that ten fingers is enough to make complex music without hitting too many practical limits. Just because that limit exist doesn't mean its wrong and that we need to overcome it. The same way a third leg won't let us run faster, fight better, or climb better.
In case it wasn't clear, "Death Waltz" is just a cover of "U.N. Owen Was Her?" from the Touhou games (as are many of the more popular black MIDI songs from what I've seen).
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SyC5eWJhCr8&list=PL_I1U99bY0...
Circus Galop was cool, though. That's the first original black MIDI piece I've enjoyed so far.
There is a long held theory that the subconscious mind can recognise patterns within complex data and that we are hardwired to find simple patterns pleasurable. Dr Nicholas Hudson used 'lossless' music compression programs to mimic the brain's ability to condense audio information. He compared the amount of compressibility of random noise to a wide range of music including classical, techno, rock, and pop, and found that, while random noise could only be compressed to 86% of its original file size, and techno, rock, and pop to about 60%, the apparently complex Beethoven's 3rd Symphony compressed to 40%.
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2011/01/110120073507.ht...
Music is very complex, you need to master harmony to make many notes sound as a whole and interconnected piece. That's the secret:
Less is more. "More notes" is not necessarily better.
Claiming that there exists an algorithm that loselessly compresses random noise to 86% of the original size is just wrong.
Compressing midi files would probably have been nore useful, and I doubt classical music would have topped the charts.
"Someone once said that the Philistines just try to sing too many notes at once. And that the notes seem to stumble and fall over each other. Listen to the Philistines' bubbly song as it gains speed and complexity as it moves along."
Tarquin Descending · The Philistines Jr. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PepVNaznzEE
More on topic, little-scale wrote a tool in MAX/MSP that renders an image into MIDI data in this style
http://little-scale.blogspot.com/2014/03/picture2midi-max-pa...
Zappa explored this heavily with his synclavier work. Wasn't a fan, but the early MIDI sound of it it turned me off more than anything and I didn't give it a fair shake.
We do, there are lots of pieces for 2 people playing the same piano (so 20 fingers).
I guess I'm not surprised to see Touhou music being popular in this scene. It's pretty baroque and bombastic to being with, so taking baroque style to its logical conclusion is..... this. I'm not a fan, but I can see the thread. (Aside, if you want a modern take on classical music, check out some of the later Touhou soundtracks. You might find yourself surprised for video game music.)
Also a little Totaka's song easter egg in the middle of the first video, if you're into obscure video game minutia.
Yes, I know. What I did was called a quip, and I thought the fine people of Hacker News had a sense of humor.
Surely you'll admit that this is far less accessible, in terms of enjoyment, than a lot of other music.
Take a listen to this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ozFoJS5h-10
which is based off of this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vS_a8Edde8k
which, in turn is based off of this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5wFRIWFraWQ
This is a critical question. I used to play avant-garde music myself, in a guitar + drums improvisational duo. It wasn't our job to make music anyone else liked, or even music we liked. We were exploring the limits of sound and the interrelationships of the instruments and ideas. To this day, even in much more mainstream contexts, I play a lot of guitar that doesn't "sound like a guitar". I learned a ton about my instrument, and about sound and music.
Take the uncompressed track compare it to the compressed track, and then generating a track that is composed of the portions removed by the compression algorithm.
That would just be a cacophony -- the relations used for notes in a symphony do not exist in their "complement" (all other notes except those in the current harmony).
E.g. for the trivial case of a single C major triad chord, the "inverted song" would be: "C# D D# F G# A A# B B#" which is mostly cacophonous noise, even when restricted to one octave.
(If we restricted the notes to the same scale D F A B would be slightly better, almost a D7).
So, if, for instance, an instrument is playing a melody that uses the black keys exclusively, an accompaniment (or a contrasting section) could be made that used only the white keys. The result tends to be dissonant, but it isn't necessarily dissonant to the extreme or in absolute.
Unrelated note on terminology: By inversion of a melody, we usually mean playing it upside down. So F A G would become F Db Eb. It's contour is inverted. This is done as a means of development of the melodic idea and/or in fugues/canons/"counterpointistic music in general".
As for the unplayed notes: each note is a harmonic series of pure tones (F, 2F, 3F, ... where F is the fundamental frequency). Different notes have some degree of (sometimes approximate) overlap in their harmonic series (indeed, the greater the overlap, the more the notes sound to be in harmony). So, all of the tones in the un-notes' harmonic series will still be present as overtones of the other notes. Therefore, the un-notes would likely be a fairly subtle damping of a few frequencies.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inversion_%28music%29#Melodies
That's a lot different from what the original comment was asking for.
Like some of the other comments point out, I expect it to sound between either cacophony, and "a subtle dampening" of the notes not played. But maybe, just maybe, the effect is enough to make out some structure.
Another thing that becomes real important here would be the exact tuning and timing of the notes. Regular harmonies of notes line up the harmonics of the sound in interesting patterns. Two notes played together an octave (2:1 = 2x frequency) apart, the high note is basically a subset, made of exclusively the 2nd, 4th, 6th, etc harmonics of the lower note. But when played a fifth (3:2 = 1.5x frequency) apart, the high note shares the 3rd, 6th, 9th etc harmonics with the lower note, but also has new frequencies in between that are not present in the lower note. Other musical intervals are based other ratios, creating other patterns of shared harmonics[0].
But then, if you play most of an octave at once, minus three notes or so, you're going to get really complex patterns. Then comes the question of tuning, I see two options: The "just intonation" uses exact integer ratios of frequencies, so that the harmonics that should theoretically line up indeed do line up exactly. The other option is "equal temperament" tuning, that has a constant frequency ratio between every semitone of 2(1./12) = 1.059463:1, so that if you stack 12 of them, you get 2:1, the octave.
Now, most synthesizers and such use "equal temperament", meaning you get exactly 12 semitones per octave (like a piano has) and that is actually the only system in which the "complement" of a melody actually makes logical sense. Because no matter in what way or order you play your intervals, they are always integer powers of 2(1./12), meaning that there's always a finite[1] number of notes you can either play or not play. In set theory that's called the "universe", and you really need it in order to define the set "complement" operation. Unfortunately, apart from the 2:1 octave interval itself, none of the other intervals are exact integer ratios, meaning that those nice harmonic lining-up patterns (that we would hope would still provide some structure to the cacophony of notes in a song's complement), don't quite line up any more and you'll get beating frequencies in the lower parts of the spectrum (where they almost-but-not-quite line up) and just near-random cacophony in the upper parts (because the error magnifies there). I dunno.
The other option, "just intonation", is harder in MIDI. A tuning is defined by its intervals, and if they are small integer ratios, then multiple steps along those intervals multiplies those ratios, and so if you step back and forth, you get this whole "Q" (set of rationals) type of infinitude of possible frequencies. So you can't say something like "play all the notes except this one" because you could take a few integer ratio interval steps and end up with a frequency very close to the original one (arbitrarily, even), but definitely not the same. So is that a note you did not play and should play in the complement? Cause there's an infinite number of those. Maybe you could do some math and determine the frequency spectrum in the limit though (if it doesn't end up as white/orange noise).
Maybe the best way to go about it is, convert the melody to just intonation, and then take the "universe" to be the full set of all notes in that particular melody or musical piece. At least that's a finite amount.
[0] If this is the first you're hearing about this: don't bother making sense of the names (fifth, octave) and how they relate to their frequency ratios. There's reasons for the names, but not very good ones from a scientific point of view. They are mostly historical, related to features of particular instruments, and to particular musical traditions specific to certain eras. It's not unlike how the mess of quirks that is HTML came to be, really.
[1] Given an upper and lower-bound for frequency. Say limits of human hearing 20Hz-20kHz (is a bit larger than the 7bit range of MIDI, but really not the point here).
I've been legitimately impressed by the abilities of certain artists to really push the boundaries and limits - in my opinion - of packing in musicality in the D&B platform. One I can point to would be Camo & Krooked[0]. Another that sort of crosses into bass music would be Knife Party[1]. What they have in common, to my ears, is that they're able to embrace the full spectrum of available sounds. High peaks and really, really deep bass. Then, with so much digital control, they can go up and down, place certain sounds in certain tonal areas...it's just amazing to me.
One of the things that infuriates me about music commentary is the tired refrain of "rock is dead" or "music isn't original anymore" because frankly, they're not true. Rock continues to be a broad genre, and I really see electronic-production tunes like Skrillex an extension of rock and metal in that it appeals to a younger audience (predominately) and is very abrasive to 'traditional' ears.
Music is really going through a metamorphasis of innovation thanks to software like Ableton and the numerous brilliant synths out there. It's one thing to say "I don't like that music" but it's completely dishonest to say nothing's original anymore. Yes, there will always be 'trend jumpers' and some formulaic stuff (it goes for all genres, and specifically anything Max Martin touches), but now and then, BAM. Something shows up and moves the needle.
[0] Camo & Krooked - Let's Get Dirty - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IL5H38bpvFA
[1] Knife Party - Resistance - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DwqUGkR9yh8
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2y7DVbFado0
4 minutes in... there were a few people/groups that did this style for a while. Aphex Twin was the most popular artist that crossed into this territory, but Venetian and others took it a bit more "purely" into the drill area.
Sonically and technically, compared to the black MIDI thing, it's more open-ended.
The limitations to this area are the focus on percussive elements vs. tearing apart other pieces of the palette with as much care.
But since we're talking about Aphex Twin, Mt Saint Michel[2] deserves an honorable mention. (bonus points to anyone who's familiar with the Tate Modern exhibit that was based on this track and a video of a cyborg monkey drumming)
I was a huge Yngwie fan back when I was into guitar music...his "Rising Force" album simply blew me away.
"Icarus' Dream Suite Op. 4" has to be one of the best guitar songs ever written and executed.
I actually stopped trying to be a guitar-hero after studying that album.
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2011/01/110120073507.ht...
It's all down to the sound generator at the other end of the MIDI cable though. Electric piano's are pretty amazing sounding these days. Lots of music creation software uses sampled, live instruments and some of those are recorded at very high quality. All of which can be driven through MIDI too, although there are obvious limitations to the way a professional can play a real piano, most people would be hard-pressed to tell the difference in a blind test.
Awesome indeed!
I once watched a percussion solo that consisted of a drummer very carefully crumpling a sheet of cellophane. It was beautiful, musical and moving (albeit not very loud). Using things that are not "instruments" as instruments is pretty common among percussionists, and sometimes melodic musicians as well.
Maybe you son is fascinated by the complexity and order of those pieces.
Edit: OK, since someone's going to downvote me for asking that question, I'll add a bit more context:
Duplicate submissions are supposed to be ignored. The URLs for these two submissions appear to be identical, so my question stands: how has this happened?
If you are reading this comment watch this [Black MIDI] Synthesia – "Nyan Trololol" | Rainbow Tylenol & Nyan Cat Remix ~ BusiedGem
You are welcome ;)
Here, the folks creating these files are creating new kinds of sounds by overdriving their MIDI synths, essentially. By providing more notes than can actually be generated at once, or at rates faster than the chosen synth patch can coherently render, you can achieve new and unplanned sounds and effects.
Essentially the same idea as getting the explosion-type of sounds out of old 8-bit PCM synths in game consoles by overloading the input beyond spec.
The closest tonal reference for most people would be certain kinds of soundtrack music, especially older mystery movies and kaiju films from Japan. But it's more musically interesting, and more human, than the relatively simplistic sounds of black MIDI.
Dig it, man.
http://www.kylegann.com/BudRanBackOut.mp3
Kyle Gann - Bud Ran Back Out (Mechanical Piano Study No. 6) (2001) "The question was whether I could make the Disklavier respond as fast as Bud Powell played. Doubting that I could surpass him, I added some tricks that I hope Powell might have envied, such as playing his ultrafast melodies in chromatic sixths and triple octaves, and simultaneous melodies in tempo ratios of 7 against 8 against 9. It was time for technology to provide a new spin on Thelonious Monk's composition In Walked Bud. The piece is dedicated to Thurman Barker."
More here:
Here is a link to a documentary about the recording of the album linked to a visual of the pianos playing:
Not that there is anything wrong with noise. As a fan of CCCC (Mayuko Hino)[2], I have often thought noise is best when it is played directly (analog), instead of the digital perfection of MIDI. I like my digital noise when it's written in Fourth[3].
[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hr7uwOp0Yck
[2] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kXbb-e0RRc0
[3] http://pelulamu.net/ibniz/ (warning: turn down the volume - raw square waves at the beginning!)
* Krzysztof Penderecki's Threnody to the Victims of Hiroshima - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HilGthRhwP8 (music + animated score)
* George Crumb's Black Angels - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=11o8nHk-l_o - (images from the score via https://goo.gl/2rHYAc)
(To clarify - I feel the clip from Amadeus is somewhat amusing in this context, but to those who critique black midi as music, I don't think it is really ... it's art).
