a new piece for your dissection pleasure.

[Cody Loyd]

please.. tell me what you don't like about my latest work.

It is a short electronic study. It is serial and uses 21 tones. The percussion is also serialized.

[Ray Kemp]

Hey! Cody,

By definition, something has to be together first so as to be fit for dissection :))

Off the wall or what! ..... and nearly blew my little yamaha 5.1 speakers of the desk.

Ray

[Cody Loyd]

I'll keep that in mind.

[Cody Loyd]

I certainly appreciate your opinion!

it is certainly acceptable to not like it.. and I am fine with you voicing that opinion.

Would you have been able to appreciate it more if I had not used the quarter tones? Or is it the overall random feel too it that bothered you the most?

I wasn't overly worried about expressing anything with this piece because it was simply meant as a study in technique. All i was really going for that could be counted as expression is something that sounds interesting.. I think that I succeeded in that aspect, that is, to me this piece has a unique feel and is enjoyable to experience. (i'll certainly understand if you don't agree with that!)

Also.. I don't really concern myself with trying to be shocking or 'too different'. I understand that this is futile. I am simply writing in this style because I like it, not because I think it is more academic or more important or anything of that nature.

Once again, Thanks for your comments! I appreciate them very much.

[Cody Loyd]

heh.. well I could scan all three pages of notes, diagrams and, a huge 21 tone matrix, but it would be a bore to most people around here.

also.. i don't have a scanner.

[AndrewG]

Hi Cody,

Without analyzing this piece, I feel it is good for description of some fantastic destruction scene or for the picture of a bad-constructed mechanical device.

However, let us think of the serial technique in general. When you drop your door keys, you hear a series of sounds and rhythms. Drop again and again - something is different, but you hear many similar sound combinations. IMO the serial techniques are similar to this experiment: you cyclically write down modifications of the same series (or several series) just like you can cyclically drop down your door keys again and again. That's why the mechanical association when hearing your piece.

Now what I don't like in this, as you asked: Using any technique, the composer should address emotions not only from mechanical sphere. Great composers can accommodate the arsenal of techniques to serve their artistic goals. Your piece suggests mechanical associations only, and this is a flaw unless it is intended to describe some mechanics.

[Danilo Chompor]

wonderful!!! How you get 1/4 tones? Are they 1/4 tones, of different?

[Cody Loyd]

the program that I used to create this allows you to bend pitches so I could get notes like A-half sharp and C sharp-andahalf. I just put in the A or the C# and bent them up half of a semi-tone

[John McIntyre]

Worked for me. A nice sonic soundscape. I like the quarter tones, and the 'prepared piano' type of sound. I'd be interested in reading the theory behind it.

[Cody Loyd]

this is pretty much textbook serialism. ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Serialism just in case..)

I created a 21 part matrix using numbers instead of pitches. I used the same matrix for every aspect of this piece. I decided on a scale which uses 21 tones.. it was pretty much a random decision on which pitches to use, but i didn't (obviously) use every pitch available to me. I assigned the tones to the matrix using the numbers (1=A, 2=A", 3=A# etc.. ( " ) here stands for the quarter-sharp). I then assigned 21 different percussive sounds to each number of the matrix.

Next, I sketched out a little plan for the piece (start with percussion and piano.. the percussion thins out, the sine-wave sound comes in while the piano plays a more minimal part, percussion comes back and piano becomes more prominent.. end with percussion.

Next, I decided which rows to use, which was also a pretty much random decision.

Then it was just a matter of programming it all. The rhythms used, stereo effects, delay effect on the piano are not serialized... just 'intuition'

so there you go :)

I'd be glad to answer any questions you have

[John McIntyre]

Thanks, I was wondering how you managed a 21 note matrix--quarter tones. Sounds like you are working in total serialism to me. Are you serializing the dynamic profiles as well?

[Cody Loyd]

I'll explain it later when I get back from work (i'm gonna be late!!!!)

The only thing in this piece that was serialized was the order of the pitches and percussion events. I have done some total serialist things, but not in this case.

[Cody Loyd]

For some reason I have been saying 21 this whole time... the number was actually 20. Apologies...


ok.. for the 20 tone matrix.. It is easier for me to make matrices using numbers and then converting the numbers to pitches, as I mentioned before. With a 12 tone matrix you have the tones:
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12
c c# d d# etc..
If the interval is from 6 to 10.. its inverse would be the same number of steps in the opposite direction.. so 6 to 2.

doing it this way it is as easy as listing the numbers 1 - 20 and counting to figure the vertical line in the matrix.. calculating each interval's inverse as you go. when counting the pitches.. if you get to the end of the line, you just start over at the beginning (like when you get to G# you start back at A)

I tried to figure a mathematical equation for it, but it only worked if you didn't have to start back at 1... probably something that I could figure out if i worked a little longer at it.

does that make any sense???

this is actually a method that I use quite a bit to make 'diatonic' matrices using different scales with different numbers of pitches. If i wanted to make a matrix using a 5 note scale, but figured the inversions chromatically, the matrix would contain many pitches outside the scale... that is.. if I want to use the scale C D E F# B .. I would want the interval C - E to invert to C - F# (diatonically) rather than C - Ab (a normal 12-tone inversion)

I just find it less confusing to use 1 2 3 4 5 and assign pitches later.... besides when using numbers, it is easier to assign different things to the matrix, like rhythms, dynamics, or as in this piece, percussion sounds.

once again, I would be glad to clarify any of this if I don't make sense to you.