Music Machines

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on July 27, 2019

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A bit of video of the installation in action!

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Music Machine 30

Music Machine 30 began as an experiment in constructing a physical music machine. Initially I tried using some freestanding bells that were struck by solenoids attached to a Raspberry Pi . However I found that the solenoids were too noisy and there were power and wiring issues with the Pi. I concentrated on the idea of using a motor with some form of striker attached. I took some motors from Sony PlayStation controllers as these had low voltage and amperage requirements. I attached electrical wire connectors to the spindles and inserted copper wire from electrical cable into the top. I bent the wire at approximately 45 degrees. I dismantled a wind chime and built a wooden frame to suspend the bars from. The whole arrangement is a bit Heath Robinson and deliberately so. Michael Nyman in his book Experimental Music; Cage and Beyond writes of John White's machine music '... being English they are ambling, friendly, self-effacing systems, which may break down ...'

Music Machines 4 & 26

To buy your ticket for Machine Music at the Exeter Phoenix click here . I've been using a computer for a while now to create music machines, small programmes that run by themselves and generate music within certain parameters. You can read about them (and download some) here . More recently I have started to combine the computer generated aspect of creating music with live performance. The first machine that I adapted in this way was Music Machine 1 which you can read about here and even try it out with a group of friends. I have also recorded some machines for live performance in specific locations or for particular events, this year Music Machine 29 has been played at the Sonorities festival and Music Machine 31 formed part of VoxNovus 60x60 . To create these I have been using a Raspberry Pi computer running a version of linux and I have written the code in python. I have always been interested in process and systems and particularly in the idea of systems that breakd

Music Machine 29 - Sonoroties Festival

Music Machine 29 was one of the pieces chosen to be played on a continuous loop in the 8 channel surround studio during the Sonoroties festival of contemporary music 2014 . The annual festival takes place at the S onic Arts Research Centre at Queen's University , Belfast. The theme of the festival was remembering & forgetting. Programme notes for Music Machine 29 Music Machine 29 - 6’00” 2ch Music Machine 29 is computer generated, it consists of two parts and works in the following way. The first part plays a C major scale (both ascending and descending) and arpeggio. The second part remembers each note that the first part plays and stores them in a list. It will then choose a note from that list to play back simultaneously with the first part. Occasionally the programme will delete (forget) some notes from the list and then start remembering again. There is also the chance that notes will be sustained allowing chords to build up. Although for this event the piece

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