What’s a “lab,” anyway? For music, any number of tools – software or hardware – can become gateways to creative musical explorations. Chris Stack joins us again to look at Nodal, Mac/Windows software that generates musical patterns from graphical maps of nodes, alongside hardware explorations. Along the way, Chris has some reflections on composition itself. -Ed.

Sometimes life imitates art. Sometimes life imitates avant-garde art. Random events placed together can often form surprising harmonies, causing daily affairs to resemble an aleatoric composition. This concept was brought to mind by the juxtaposition of a pair of recent events.

The first was downloading a demo of Nodal. I was immediately drawn to its unique way of making music. Setting up constantly-evolving soundscapes in multiple time signatures was a breeze. You create music by drawing networks of nodes. Nodes can trigger a set note or step through a list of pitches on each visit. The lines (“edges” in Nodal parlance) connecting them can transmit MIDI continuous controller commands and individual networks may be triggered by external MIDI notes. This is not your father’s sequencer.

I couldn’t wait to dive in, but the second event required me to postpone that for a bit. Event #2 was a visit to the Lake Eden Arts Festival: an incredibly enjoyable amassing of creativity held twice yearly on the grounds of the former Black Mountain College.

Black Mountain College was a progressive educational institution that was home to some of the leading innovators in the arts during the 30s, 40s and 50s. I listened to Maceo Parker play near the spot where Buckminster Fuller built his first geodesic dome and swayed to honky-tonk blues in a log hall where Merce Cunningham once danced. I visited the Bob Moog Foundation’s MoogLab exhibit on the grounds where Einstein was a guest lecturer, all the while thinking of the amazing things I could do with Nodal when I got home. The fact that Black Mountain College was also the site of John Cage’s first Happening also affected my Nodal thought experiments. The irony and beauty of that bit of aleatoric magic still makes me smile.

After the festival, I dove into Nodal headfirst and have had a great time experimenting. It has so far worked seamlessly with my softsynths and external hardware. Pitch lists, velocity lists, random branching and wormholes combined with analog and digital synths and controllers are opening new ways of creating and interacting with music. Cage would have loved it.

Links:

Aleatoric Composition [Wikipedia]

Nodal

Lake Eden Arts Festival

Black Mountain College

Bob Moog Foundation

Nodal provides one way of exploring music onscreen; Chris provides some images of the MoogLab’s hardware for more tactile sound manipulations. You know — for kids!

Many more sounds and explorations on Chris’ Tumblr site:
http://experimentalsynth.tumblr.com/

Previously, Chris shared some work that went from a tiny little phone all the way to a very big set of pedals: From a Little Droid to a Big Moog Taurus Pedal, Analog to Digital, More Experimental Sound Tips

Want to see hundreds of pieces of music kit from keyboards to oscilloscopes, plus some 1500 mini-Theremin toys for students, coupled with US-wide education to help introduce young people to science? That’s the idea behind a grant proposal by the Moog Foundation. The Foundation’s MoogLab teaches science through sound – a worthy cause. Not only was Bob Moog’s life in electronic music ignited by discovering the Theremin, but many of today’s generation of scientists and thinkers were raised on electronic sound kits a few short decades ago. Without the same exposure to science and sound, young boys and girls may not get on the same path.

If you like the idea, the project needs votes. Michael Gallant (formerly an editor Keyboard Magazine, still a contributor) writes with this update:

We are up for earning a $250K grant to take electronic music instruments into schools to teach under-served kids science via the Moog Foundation’s MoogLab program. The catch is that we’re ranked #92 now by public vote and we need to be #1 or #2 by the end of December in order to win the funding.

Voting is daily; that is, vote early, vote often. Voting every day in December gives the project you want better chances.

More information:
http://www.refresheverything.com/bobmoogfoundation

The Refresh Everything grant aside, I’d love to hear more discussion of how to bring electronics and sound to young people around the world – your ideas are certainly welcome.

The Bob Moog Foundation is still urgently seeking support so it can work to preserve not only Bob Moog’s legacy, but his massive archives pertaining to the history of music technology in general. Propellerhead is donating money and came up with the lovely idea of sharing a free ReFill for Reason 4 for the occasion. Reason 4 users, have a go and enjoy, and to everyone, the foundation really could use your support.

The ReFill sounds like nice stuff. Vintage synth gurus Mark Vail (Keyboard), Craig Anderton (EQ), and Gordon Reid (Sound on Sound) contributed 20 patches in Reason 4′s Thor synth. Propellerhead explain — as though they have to explain who Bob Moog was — that “each time you use a sawtooth waveform in Thor” you’re experiencing his legacy. I’d say it’s in quite a lot more than just that sawtooth. Moog’s archives are some of the only documentation we have of those heady days, not only of his work but all the composers, musicians, and technologists around him.

Propellerhead and the Moog Foundation
Free ReFill Download
Official Moog Foundation Website, including online donations (which, nicely enough, come with free swag!)

Reason 4 users, let us know what you think, and if you have some Moog-inspired patches of your own you’d like to share, by all means, send them our way!

Previously, we spoke with Craig Anderton about Moog’s influence on the way he thinks about sound, about the Foundation’s work, and a sound set along these lines for Cakewalk’s Rapture:
Craig Anderton’s Tribute to Moog: Rapture Presets, and a Call to Save History

Craig Anderton is easily the most prolific music technology writer on the planet. We got an exclusive interview with him at Cakewalk at the NAMM show to talk about the technologist who has had the biggest impact on him: Bob Moog.

Craig talked to us about two projects, each a tribute to Moog’s legacy. First, there’s The Minimoog Tribute, an inexpensive expansion pack for Cakewalk’s Rapture and Rapture LE synths. Why another set of Moog samples, given there’s a fake Minimoog patch or thirty in just about every synth? Craig tells us he wanted to do something different: really create patches that “cover” the classics rather than duplicate them, taking advantage of samples of his personal Minimoog but blending them with Rapture’s digital capabilities.

Craig also talks about why he chose Rapture, because “it basically says twist my knobs, man, have a good time.” (I won’t touch that one.) In all seriousness, he describes the relationship with the synth as being a personal one.

And this isn’t just a preset pack. It’s got gear porn in it, too — cue the Moog porn bassline.

Craig Anderton’s MiniMoog Tribute Expansion Pack [Cakewalk]

Liz interviewed Craig for CDM at the Cakewalk booth:

NAMM08: Craig Anderton @ Cakewalk – Moog Tribute for Rapture [cdm@blip.tv]

But the real reason Craig wanted to have this interview wasn’t just to talk about his product — it was to make an impassioned plea for The Moog Foundation, which is working to save the vast archival materials Bob Moog collected through his life. They’re not just the history of Bob, or the history of Moog synthesizers: they’re a chronicle of the history of electronic music. And they now have met a formidable foe: humid southern weather. But you can help:

NAMM08: Craig Anderton @ Cakewalk – Moog Foundation [cdm@blip.tv]

A portion of the proceeds from the Minimoog expansion pack for Rapture will be donated by both Craig and Cakewalk to the fund, but even if you’ve only got $10 or $15, consider giving something directly to the foundation — or volunteer or contribute in other ways.

Moog Foundation Call to Action

Donation form

Have Moog synths influenced the way you use non-Moog synths and software? We’d love to hear how — aside from the obvious ways, of course. I know my approach to sound was deeply affected by using both the Buchla and Moog modular systems, even applying thinking about sound and synthesis to very different digital systems. Let us know in comments.