Gestural Music Sequencer from Unearthed Music on Vimeo.

Something as simple as remapping a single knob can give you new musical ideas. So expand that to entire gestures and live video input, and you can help push your performance in new directions and out of old habits. That’s why it’s always great to see projects like the Gestural Music Sequencer.

Built entirely in free tools – tools fairly friendly even to non-coders – the GMS lets composer and musician John Keston explore new ideas through gestures captured in a video stream. It’s easier to see than to talk about, so check out the just-completed documentary short by Josh Klos, with the aid of Julie Kistler and Brian Smith. (And yes, documentation makes a huge difference; we’d love to see more of this stuff!)

The ingredients:

• Processing, the free, multiplatform coding environment [site | cdmu tag | cdmo tag]
• controlP5, a lovely, light, quick-and-dirty library for UI controls
• Ableton Live – though you could substitute other software via MIDI, Live makes a nice, familiar interactive music engine

Eno had Music for Airports. It’s fitting that Monolake would do Music for Jet Lag. Robert Henke writes about this month’s free download:

Since I also have been flying a lot recently, I named it after one of the most annoying side effects of modern transportation and mixed it in a way that reflects that dizzy feeling of being hyper active and totally asleep at the same time. ( "Last call for mister Robert Henke, flying to Berlin, please come to gate B 154 IMMEDIATELY or we will unload your luggage !!!!!!!!!" )

I am myself recovering from jetlag on the way to Portugal, so the timing is perfect. In a way, I have to say I sometimes oddly enjoy the disorienting feeling. I don’t think it’d be terribly addictive, but it’s a physical, profound reminder of traveling a great distance, something you could otherwise ignore in the age of absurdly-fast jet travel.

Grab the download here:

Free Downloads of the Month [yetlag, May 2009 – should be archived if you’re catching this late]

Installation details:

http://monolake.de/installations/lufthansa.html

The installation is fascinating in itself: a Max/MSP-powered, interactive sound score for a giant flight simulator, a model of the presence of jets, travel, and air traffic control. Robert did the sound; Christopher Bauder of white void was the concept and very elegant visual design. (See also Aaron Koblin’s striking Processing-based visual piece Flight Patterns, which seems to have embedded itself on a certain airborne digital zeitgeist. The United States becomes a feathery web of connections and flying traffic. You can imagine how this might continue to be mined in sound.)

As we work to keep our creative process flowing, I especially love the idea of focusing on a feeling to get a production started, as Monolake did here. So often, it’s too easy to get caught up in something technical or some very particular idea, then lose that in the process. By focusing on a feeling or deeper sentiment, it’s possible to remain connected to the ethos of what the track really means to us.

Of course, travel too much, and that may just wind up being … well, jet lag.

Meanwhile, as I listen to more music piped through airport terminals and even Metro stations, I wish Eno’s original idea had caught on.

Dreaming of a future in which music, instead of just being rendered audio files, arrives in fully generative, interactive form? Albums might “listen” to the world around you, and listeners could record their own alternate versions of music and share with others.

RjDj, the generative mobile music platform for Apple devices, realizes that future right now, instead of at some nebulous time in the future. In addition to the iPhone, you can make use of a second-generation iPod to use it. (You’ll need a headset with a mic; I have one by Griffin I’m testing.) And the RjDj folks have a whole bevy of significant updates to share:

• Free downloads (limited time): All three RjDj releases are available now for free. That includes the RjDj app itself (from which you can now grab and share releases), as well as RjDj Album (with a selection of generative/interactive/reactive releases) and the new RjDj shake.
• Download “scenes”: From the beginning, we knew that RjDj was imagined as a platform for other people to release interactive music. Now you can download scenes for free or fee. (Paid scenes currently redirect to the browser, but with iPhone SDK 3.0, you’ll be able to buy right from the app.)
• Share recordings: Because RjDj-generated music is controlled by the user and often records from the environment, the music may sound different each time. You can now share recordings with others from the device and the new social site.
• RjDj.me community: The RjDj folks have built a little community where you can share your favorite scenes and upload recordings, and keep track of scenes coming out from other artists.

As an addendum to the last story, Ivica Ico Bukvic sends along an example of the [myu] Max/MSP + Unity game engine combination in action. Here’s the surprise: Unity isn’t generating visuals. Instead, Unity simulates ripples created by movement in the space, and builds physical models that are sonified and spatialized by Max/MSP.

Speaking of work involving art museums and the combination of Max and Unity, VJ Anomolee notes in comments his own work with the pairing. Lightbent Synth is an in-progress piece with alternative controllers and sensors that produces sound with a novel visual representation (sound’s very quiet in this preview — more hopefully once it progresses):

Lightbent Synth from VJ Anomolee on Vimeo.

Ivica explains the top work:

Take a powerful game engine (for animation, 2D and 3D graphics, physics, and on-screen interaction). Add the flexibility of a visual development environment for programming with virtual patch cords, for rich sonic and musical capabilities plus easy interaction with data and input. That’s the idea of combining something like Unity 3D with Max/MSP. In the example from earlier today, the solution simply routed basic data from a Unity-based game to a responsive music engine in Max.

In the case of [myu] – the Max Unity Interoperability Toolkit – that integration goes further still. Developed at the DISIS (Digital Interactive Sound & Intermedia Studio) at Virginia Tech, [myu] allows bi-directional integration of the Unity engine with Max or Pd. The two tools use netsend/netreceive to send data via TCP and glue the two together.

For visualists using Jitter, you can even exchange texture data, which offers some mind-blowing powers for live visuals.

Download at Virginia Tech — bonus, an extension of the aka.wiiremote object so you can use the lovely Wii Fit controller, among various other projects
Discussion on the Unity Community Forums
Discussion on the Cycling ‘74 forum
Virginia Tech DISIS

As an interactive prototyping tool, this should have a lot of potential for lovers of patch-style programming.

Thanks to Dr. Ivica Ico Bukvic, DISIS Director and researcher, for sending in his project. I’ll be curious to see what other people might do with this.