{"id":681,"date":"2016-01-06T21:04:34","date_gmt":"2016-01-06T21:04:34","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/michael-edwards.org\/wp\/?p=681"},"modified":"2019-11-29T07:44:06","modified_gmt":"2019-11-29T07:44:06","slug":"music-for-parallel-consumption-an-open-ended-self-reconfiguring-musical-composition-as-app","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/michael-edwards.org\/wp\/?p=681","title":{"rendered":"Music for Parallel Consumption: An open-ended self-reconfiguring musical composition as app"},"content":{"rendered":"<blockquote><p>Composed in 2010 but not released until some final polish was applied in 2015,\u00a0<em>Music for Parallel Consumption<\/em>\u00a0is a 4-channel digital composition made for\u00a0delivery and playback via a custom computer app. The title refers only\u00a0partially ironically to the tendency to consume music as part of a backdrop to\u00a0our otherwise-engaged lives. At the same time as offering an alternative to\u00a0this mode of consumption (((the details, the\u00a0details!))) the very nature of the piece&#8217;s construction and\u00a0delivery strategy invites similar disregard. Not intended for concert\u00a0performance, the app format almost encourages you to set and forget: choose\u00a0your output mode, set the level, hit play, and let it run for as long as you\u00a0like. Such contradictions are further inherent in the the polarisation of the\u00a0meditative nature of much of the music against the album artwork&#8212;war being\u00a0the ultimate consumptive impulse.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>Just before New Year I released a new piece of computer piece in the form of an\u00a0app made for Apple computers. I blogged on this <a href=\"https:\/\/michael-edwards.org\/wp\/?p=560\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">in detail<\/a>\u00a0a while back, whilst the project was being finalised. In the meantime I&#8217;ve improved the interface and added some optional dynamics processing for listening in suboptimal environments.<\/p>\n<p>The piece is available to preview\u00a0and order on the <a href=\"http:\/\/bit.ly\/1OgMBh2\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">bandcamp page<\/a> from my publisher,\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/www.sumtone.com\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">sumtone<\/a>. Anyone who buys the download gets a free link to the app.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/bit.ly\/1OgMBh2\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone wp-image-688 size-medium\" src=\"https:\/\/michael-edwards.org\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/mpc-interface-1-300x112.png\" alt=\"mpc-interface\" width=\"300\" height=\"112\" srcset=\"https:\/\/michael-edwards.org\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/mpc-interface-1-300x112.png 300w, https:\/\/michael-edwards.org\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/mpc-interface-1.png 710w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>The potential for delivering music via app is enormous. Apps allow musical ideas to be encapsulated in code and delivered directly to the public without needing to be fixed, realised, or limited in any way.<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Want your piece to go on forever, reconfiguring itself on-the-fly?<br \/>\n<em>Code it that way.<\/em><\/li>\n<li>Want a flexible number of output channels?<br \/>\n<em>Consider and configure the options and let the listener decide.<\/em><\/li>\n<li>Want to offer several quality levels, from 256k mp3 all the way up to 192KHz\/32bit studio masters?<br \/>\n<em>Let the downloader&#8217;s bandwidth and budget\u00a0decide.<\/em><\/li>\n<li>Want a variety of different mastering approaches tailored to listening on the bus or for playback on audiophile equipment in a silent room?<br \/>\n<em>Include different master files to select from or include real-time Digital Signal Processing routines to deliver the best experience for the given listening environment.<\/em><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>This flexibility is extremely attractive not only to the algorithmic composer like myself but anyone who has been frustrated\u00a0by, for example, surround formats&#8217; variety of channel ordering, bitrate limits on optical discs, or even what should be a simple task\u00a0of making gapless album tracks work in web releases. We can use the app format to take care of and document all these aspects and more. Or, as in my release here, we can go much further by having the software be part of the creation of a piece which is consistent and coherent but different on each listening.<\/p>\n<p>This is the first in what I plan\u00a0to be a series of such pieces\/apps. Its delivery format is certainly imperfect right now as it&#8217;s not an app for phones or tablets (which is what most people think apps are for), and it doesn&#8217;t even yet run on Windows machines&#8212;it&#8217;s just a Macintosh app at the moment. In the future I&#8217;ll be doing a little experimentation with apps coded to run on a variety of platforms, including iOS and Android.<\/p>\n<p>In the meantime though, many thanks to various friends, colleagues, and students who gave initial feedback on the interface and experience of the app&#8212;in particular Matt Collings, Robert van Heumann, Cameron MacNair, Martin Parker, Dan Ross, Matthias R\u00f6der, Lauren Hayes, Tobias Kunze, and many more who helped improve the user experience significantly.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Composed in 2010 but not released until some final polish was applied in 2015,\u00a0Music for Parallel Consumption\u00a0is a 4-channel digital composition made for\u00a0delivery and playback via a custom computer app. The title refers only\u00a0partially ironically to the tendency to consume music as part of a backdrop to\u00a0our otherwise-engaged lives. At the same time as offering [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":682,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2,190,79,108],"tags":[3,4,107,84,123,191,6,32],"class_list":["post-681","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-algorithmic-composition","category-music-for-parallel-consumption","category-releases","category-slippery-chicken","tag-algorithms","tag-common-lisp","tag-javascript","tag-maxmsp","tag-music-apps","tag-music-for-parallel-consumption","tag-slippery-chicken","tag-sound-installation"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/michael-edwards.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/681","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/michael-edwards.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/michael-edwards.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/michael-edwards.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/michael-edwards.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=681"}],"version-history":[{"count":11,"href":"https:\/\/michael-edwards.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/681\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1303,"href":"https:\/\/michael-edwards.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/681\/revisions\/1303"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/michael-edwards.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/682"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/michael-edwards.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=681"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/michael-edwards.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=681"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/michael-edwards.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=681"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}