Comments on: Auto-Tune The News, And Channeling Steve Reich, Anyone?

By: [Video] This ones for the music guys (VERY FUNNY)

[Video] This ones for the music guys (VERY FUNNY) — Thu, 11 Jun 2009 05:36:53 +0000

[...] This ones for the music guys (VERY FUNNY) Create Digital Music Auto-Tune The News, And Channeling Steve Reich, Anyone? [...]

By: Liz McLean Knight

Liz McLean Knight — Sat, 25 Apr 2009 11:04:43 +0000

“Armed gangs on the sea”
“*That means the ocean*”

I’m crying I’m laughing so hard.

By: pg-13

pg-13 — Sat, 25 Apr 2009 10:35:14 +0000

btw the 99 dollar autotune effect plug in DOES NOT come with an iLok. I just purchased it and was really disappointed to see that!

By: mhc

mhc — Fri, 24 Apr 2009 19:15:54 +0000

This is great great great!!! All the links!

By: jonnyfive

jonnyfive — Fri, 24 Apr 2009 09:29:56 +0000

Speaking of the Jazz phrasing as it relates to speech: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gsBC5C5ERho

Not really sure if I hear it as a dispute, but very cool none-the-less.

This stuff is of particular musical interest to me. (Different Trains, Ligeti, Tim Exile, (older) Jamie Lidell etc.) I love voices and vocal samples abstracted to the point where you either aren’t sure if a voice is the source, or obvious voice-sourced material that is abstracted into purely musical gestures, where the meaning is either unintelligible or one superimposes (often senseless) semantics.

Re: the pentatonic thing in that study, this to me is some chicken/egg science. I would speculate that music/voices are not similar because they are related to each other so much, but because they both inherit form the physical interaction between sound waves and it’s place in our brain evolution. IE we like whole number ratios because they are easier to hear, they reinforce themselves, and therefor are tangibly related, especially 3/2. The pentatonic scale is a series of these 3/2 ratios and in fact equal temperament is a consequence of that ratio. So to me, it’s easy to see how we evolved to have whole-number ratio vocal formants; imagine if everyone talked through a bank of ring modulators…

Anyway, great post, Peter. Way to take the internet meme of the day into heady abstract music nerd territory!

By: Peter Kirn

Peter Kirn — Fri, 24 Apr 2009 09:14:05 +0000

Thanks for these links — fascinating.

@Mark: excellent. Accelerated decrepitude is something we can all relate to.

By: Waffle

Waffle — Fri, 24 Apr 2009 08:49:37 +0000

The radio show/podcast Radiolab had an episode on Musical Language a while back:

http://www.wnyc.org/shows/radiolab/episodes/2006/04/21

In the first part of a show, a researcher is listening to a ~4 second clip of herself speaking on repeat while she works on fixing the sibiliance. She gets up and goes to the kitchen and from across the room it sounds like a melody. It’s funny, I listened to this podcast months ago but I still remember what it sounds like.

o/~ Sometimes Behaves So Strangely o/~
o/~ Sometimes Behaves So Strangely o/~
o/~ Sometimes Behaves So Strangely o/~
o/~ Sometimes Behaves So Strangely o/~

By: Martin Eckart

Martin Eckart — Fri, 24 Apr 2009 08:31:35 +0000

Another take on the sing-song qualities of speech:
http://www.happiness-project.ca/
The Happiness Project has musicians interpret the cadence of voices. Sounds real nice.

By: Christopher Yabsley

Christopher Yabsley — Fri, 24 Apr 2009 07:59:34 +0000

I find it interesting that it mentions the pentatonic scale as having the most accurate comparison, seeing as though the pentatonic is the most commonly comparable scale between cultures. Perhaps for its listening consonance and numerical neatness I’m not sure.

By: decrepitude

decrepitude — Fri, 24 Apr 2009 07:56:16 +0000

Thanks for the nod Peter! I’m a dude, btw.I borrowed ‘decrepitude’ from Blade Runner where the character Pris says the line “accelerated decrepitude”, which was also meant to poke fun at my age (now 45).

I also have a production/performance alias – ManicAudioKinetics. Shameless, I know…

~Mark Kunoff
Bloomington, Indiana