Sarana live sets and music produced for the occasion has been used in Finnish Zeitgeist inspired documentary movie Ajan henki (Spirit of time).
sarana
Archives vol. 13 released
26 Mar 2011 13.01I have just released the 13th volume of my sonic archives.
It’s available on the archive.org
There is still at least 15 hours of music coming up until about year 2002 + I will begin to release the earliest live sets too. In terms of single pieces the main mass is centered in 1999, but there are tracks here and there to be archived still.
Mind sync
08 Mar 2011 15.25I have purchased an EEG headset from Emotiv, the Emotiv EPOC research model.
This will allow me to integrate the brainwaves to my musical output. The device also makes it possible to control sound by thought. At the moment I’m studying Max/MSP, which will be the central piece of my future live sets. With Max it’s possible to freely mix all of the elements, including possible light and video effects.
With additonal programming the system would also allow outside participation over the internet.
Archives Vol.12 released
22 Feb 2011 19.48http://www.archive.org/details/SaranaArchivesVol12BubbleWarrior
New archive volume has been released. This one covers two weeks in September 1999.
The biography page has been updated to list all of the released archives so far.
New hues emerging
16 Feb 2011 11.46Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.
I’m not sure when this will be ready and precisely in what form. This is a sketch of a part of something more complete.
Exploration continues
01 Feb 2011 21.40I’ve just finished the sound design of an indie movie, and I’m heading back towards sound exploration. I’m building a fluid tuning system on Max/MSP, with which I’m able to play along any sound scape or sound, in real time or recorded.
The H-Pi microtonal keyboard I ordered should be ready in a month or so, and I’ve also acquired new sound devices to play with and make the live setup more compact.
There will be a new sarana album this year. It’ll be a little like the first one, what comes to the music, but with a unifying feel. I’ll also begin to release tracks from my archives again soon.
Undisturbed
28 Oct 2010 13.34In the end everybody needs peace, even it was for planning a war or a selfish act. The need for peace is understood regardless of age, and one manifests wildly when one’s peace is disturbed. Even the fauna and the flora and the tiniest and the creepiest of insects want to be in peace, to realize their needs.
Peace is an absolute, and at the same a relative concept, because everybody’s resting place is different.
The idea came upon me when I disturbed a fruit fly’s peace. The fly hopped only a few centimeters to a new place and stayed there. The distance was probably the minimum needed for an optimal balance of energy and to avoid danger. I disturbed it again and it flew off wildly. I regretted that immediately because I realized how perfect the first position had been for the fly.
New music
12 Oct 2010 12.34A classical composition is basically a mathematical construction. By classical in this context I mean all of the music that conforms to some rigid notation system and is live performed. The ideal tones and frequencies are precise and in some given harmony within each other. It’s possible to create a perfect electronic reproduction of any composition. But is the result then perfect? Is the ideal of a performance to be as precise as an electronic rendition of the same composition? In classical music one can feel the muscles and individual psychophysical characteristics of the performers, which all contribute to the sound and composition in a slightly new way.
It’s this interpretation that is interesting. The errors are slight but significant. By comparing a performance to an electronically created ideal the errors themselves could be made audible. The differences in timings and tune could provide completely new music. The resulting sound would essentially paint a musical portrait of the performer rather than the composer or the composition.
This new music would be dullest when the performance or the performer is perfect (no differences in tune and timing results in silence) and most interesting when the performer is carried away and interprets the composition (continous or intermittent differences in tune and timing). Practising a piece would also provide interesting musical material, as well as a complex and difficult composition.
The differences of just a few hertz and milliseconds would have to be magnified in order to make them audible.
A dialogue could be formed between the interpretation and the performer. The error parameters could be used to create a new composition, which the performer has to play immediately (or after a little delay). A notation software would provide the notes and timings in real-time. If one hits the correct time and notes all the time there wouldn’t be any music to play.
For example there would first be silence. The performer then creates a tone from a violin. As long as the performer keeps hitting the same note exactly and keeps the timing (derived from the pause between notes) the composition would consist of one note hit at a constant interval. When the performer deviates from that the differences are transformed into new notes and times, which the performer should follow.
The resulting new music would follow quite an interesting pattern and end up to be too complex and difficult to follow exactly (thus creating new music) . The subtle individual characteristics of the performer and the performance become immensely magnified, and the performer becomes the composer.
Breaking out
17 Sep 2010 21.30My efforts to free myself from the 12 key hegemony continue. I’ve ordered a two octave 422 key Tonal Plexus TPX2 keyboard from H-Pi Instruments. It’s a two octave keyboard only in classic sense, because all of the keys can be individually tuned to any frequency. Models with more octaves and keys are also available. With accompanying software the tuning should be easy and intuitive.
Dreamtime research – time analysis of a mosquito
27 Aug 2010 02.16I spent some time at our family’s cottage in Lapland this summer. One night I had an interesting dream. I don’t remember anymore was it me or someone else who played didgeridoo, but it was very realistic experience of the sound of the instrument. It was quite loud actually, and soon I woke up but the sound continued… It was at higher pitch and quickly I realized it was the sound of a mosquito, flying towards my right ear.
The mosquito was dead after a few definitive hand claps. The episode got me thinking about the difference in the pace of perception between being awake and dreaming. Could an analysis be made by comparing the sound of a didgeridoo and a mosquito?
What’s the frequency of the mosquito buzz? Here are the results from Google search about the frequency of the mosquito wings.
The frequencies given range from about 250 hz to 1000hz. But do the mosquitos around the world have the same pitch? I also wanted to have as a reference the same kind of mosquito that I had experienced. I didn’t have any recording of a mosquito available, so I headed to freesound.org. User Dobroide has provided a sample of a mosquito that sounded perfect. I don’t know where in the world that mosquito had flown, but it definitely had a sibling in Lapland (sorry about the loss).
After a bit filtering the sample sounds like this:
Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.
The fundamental frequency of that mosquito is 341 Hz, or about the note F (real musical F is 349 Hz). The harmonics are definitive and visible until 2727 Hz. I already had in my collection a great sample of a didgeridoo, a slow drone in the key of D by Anton, so I brought that up. When I analyzed the spectrum of the didge I noticed that it was actually tuned to C# than to D.
I can’t be sure that the didge in my dreams was tuned exactly to the sound of the mosquito, but it’s highly probable that the sounds were in tune. At least the continuation from the didge to the mosquito didn’t sound like the sounds would have been off-key. The mosquito was the source, so I changed the tune of the didge to match that of the mosquito.
Here’s the didge after the transformation. The fundamental frequency is now about 85 Hz. That’s 341 Hz divided by four, the real F is 87 Hz.
Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.
The mosquito and didge are now perfectly in tune:
Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.
How would the mosquito sound if it was lowered to same fundamental frequency as the didge? Here’s the answer:
Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.
And how would the didge sound as a mosquito?
Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.
The mosquitos change the fundamental frequency of their wings to match with the possible mate, so it might actually be possible to play with mosquitos by using a high pitched didgeridoo sounds as the material. That could be possible with a normal didge too, if mosquitos sense the higher harmonics of its sound.
It can now be concluded that in my dream the sound of the mosquito was lowered two musical octaves, or four times in Hz. Is that the difference between being awake and dreaming? Using my subjective experience as a sample it is, and at least on this one occasion. It would mean that in the dream the perceptions were four times more intense - the sampling frequency was four times higher (or lower?). This is probably related to the EEG frequencies of being awake and of the REM stage.
Most likely the sound of the mosquito happened to be in tune with the frequency of my brainwaves at the time, but the mating ended most tragically.
Light controlled
18 Aug 2010 22.01Light controlled ambient piece – recording of an intuitive musical performance.
The ambient piece acted as the musical introduction to an open discussion between photographer Victoria Schultz, psychoanalyst Heikki Majava and a sound explorer. The topic of the discussion was My Body and I – Synchronic Image, Vision and Sound. The discussion was held on August 13th.
The pitches of the piece were controlled with light dependent resistors. I had built two simple enclosures for the resistors, which I held in my hands. In a slow dance I moved about and explored the light and dark areas of the gallery, Laterna Magica, where the event was held.
Victoria’s photos were on display in the gallery, and I thought that light controlled music would bridge the media and weave the topic together. I had built a light controlled audio device a few years ago, which was perfect for the idea.
It has two oscillators, which can be independently controlled. I connected the stereo out of the device to a laptop, in which a modular sound processing software turned the pitches of the oscillators into synthesizer control messages. The other channel was used for texture and the other had more soloish character.
I wasn’t able to control the sound as much as I desired. In the possible future performances I will use the signal difference between the two resistors as the source of modulation. The difference can be explored via complex mathematical equations or logic analysis for example.
Spectralized atmosphere
03 Aug 2010 14.35The set from last Sunday is now available for download and listening on archive.org. The set took place at a compact sound art festival, which was held on an island. The soundscape of the island was turned into synthesizer control messages by using Plogue Bidule modular sound processing software. The software analyzed the spectrum of the soundscape and picked frequencies from it at a certain tempo. The frequencies were then turned into MIDI note information. The notes were replayed by software and hardware synthesizers. The performance was an application of spectral music technique.
I had no role in selecting the notes, and I’m glad I’ve found a way to further diminish my role in the process. I’m exploring the possibilities of working with the frequencies rather than just 12 note harmonic system. I’m planning to set up a system that would create the intervals automatically from the spectrum. The system would sample dominant frequencies of any material and create an octave using the sampled frequencies as the base. The number and logic of octave divisions could be separately determined.
The island is called Harakka (Magpie). Harakka is inhabitated by birds and most of the smallish island is preserved. The premises were originally build for Finnish army, and the place was used to design and study explosives and related chemistry. The buildings, tunnels and bunkers are now in the use of artists.
The set was performed in the tight wooden auditorium of the main building, which was built in 1929. It’s kind of a place where students and colleagues could have been witnessing the latest achievements of science. In this case a sound surgery took place.
Higher latitudes
27 Jul 2010 18.44The set from last Saturday has been uploaded to archive.org. The event was held on a sunny beach, and the sunrise colored the landscape pure red. The performance took place at midnight. The set is a mixture of stochastic processes and harmonic determination.
Island ambience
09 Jul 2010 22.29On the first of August I’ll be playing on an island. The island is not far from the mainland, just a few minutes away. I’ll employ spectral music technique to create the harmonics of the set from the frequencies present on the island. The event is organized by Nomadic Academy of Experimental Arts.
Depths of an ancient forest…
20 Jun 2010 22.54Last Friday saw the opening ceremony of Mustarinda art center / ground station. The set is now available in its entirety from archive.org. The center is on top of a 380 meter high hill, and its surrounded by an ancient forest.
The performance was delivered via a powerful PA system, which allowed the music propagate through the surrounding area. The melodies and notes were mostly created by stochastic algorithms.
Andra has been released.
It's available from Atmoworks store. Andra is the result of deep studio work, and the process took about five years. It is a mix of old and new highly refined beatless ambient material, and consists of six tracks.
All of the sarana archives are released for free. The volumes are ordered by the inception dates, and they will form the complete library of sarana recordings. Join in the voyages on archive.org.
Sarana live performances are also available on the Internet Archive.