Free and open source software is nothing on its own. Like any technology, it’s the users and the community around it that make it meaningful. Musical practice grows out of culture and community; so does music technology.

I’ve heard lots of people buzzing about Expo74, the Max/MSP/Jitter conference in April, and rightfully so – it’s the first major Max event of this kind, and the format looks very cool. But free and open source lovers also have upcoming events in both North and South America.

Pdcon is the third international convention of Pd users, following Austria 2004 and Montreal 2007. It’s like the Olympics of Pd, in other words. (Insert Michael Phelps joke of your choice here.) Brazil has already staged a national event on Pd, and have generally demonstrated themselves as being ridiculously cool and tech-and-art-savvy. They’re looking for more support for international travel, so anyone who can help with that, it’d help make this truly international and democratic.

The event is July 19-26 in Sao Paolo. There’s also still time to submit works; the deadline in March 15.

Pdcon09

For SuperCollider fans, there’s a combination of a workshop series in New York at Harvestworks and a big symposium at Wesleyan. Unlike Pd, SuperCollider began as commercial software. In my view, it’s the most modern and complete code-based language for sound.

Event highlights – at Harvestworks:

• Beginners’ intro (Saturday 4/4 day, repeating 4/6 evening): Nick Collins, Dan Stowell, and Jan Trützschler will get you started.
• Intermediate workshop and tips (4/5 day) with the same cast
• “Just-in-time” programming – synthesis and live coding with Powerbooks Unplugged (4/7 day, 4/7 evening)
• Full-day clinic with flexible topic (4/8 day)

Details on Harvestworks’ site (also pasted below)

Symposium at Wesleyan, 4/9-12:

• Launch of The SuperCollider Book, MIT Press
• Keynote by original SuperCollider creator James McCartney
• Talks, workshops, performances, installations

SuperCollider @ Wesleyan

The call for works is closed. But hey, anyone up for a little CDM party in either Middletown or New York? I think there needs to be a SuperCollider dance party.

Wesleyen also has a special place in my heart as a center of gamelan music; if we got really lucky, there could be some sort of SuperCollider Klenegan. (SuperKlenegan?)

Harvestworks workshop details:

SuperCollider workshops will be offered at Harvestworks in New York in early April, in the run up to the 2009 SuperCollider Symposium (see info about the symposium below) to be held at Wesleyan. This is a rare opportunity to learn from some of the SuperCollider developers themselves. SuperCollider is an incredible environment and programming language for music and audio. It provides an interpreted object-oriented language which functions as a network client to a state of the art, realtime sound synthesis server. SuperCollider was written by James McCartney over a period of many years, and is now an actively maintained and developed open source project. It is used by musicians, scientists, and artists working with sound and audiovisuals.

All workshops require attendees to bring their own laptops; tutors will assist with installation on OS X (10.4 or later recommended) and Windows as necessary (SC also runs on Linux but it’s assumed you’d have compiled and installed it yourself in advance of the workshop if you’re using that platform).

Location:
Harvestworks Digital Media Arts Center
596 Broadway, #602
New York, NY 10012
Subways: F V D B 6 Broadway/Lafayette, R W Prince, 6 Bleecker

The workshops being offered are:

1) Saturday 4th April: Beginners day (11am-6pm). A friendly introduction to SuperCollider for absolute beginners, aimed at artists and musicians. Aside from a little familiarity with the digital arts, no prerequisites, though some prior exposure to computer music (perhaps through Max/MSP or Csound) may be helpful. (led by Nick Collins, Dan Stowell, Jan Trützschler) $100

2) Sunday 5th April: Intermediate workshop day (11am-6pm). For those with some experience, but wanting to refresh and broaden their SC skills. Topics will include sound synthesis and analysis, interaction via GUI and controllers, generative and network music, SC programming tips and tricks and SC architecture. We will also be adaptable to participants needs, can take requests for topics, and have some general question and answer sessions. (led by Nick Collins, Dan Stowell, Jan Trützschler) $100

3) Monday 6th April evening (7-10pm). Beginner’s evening session. A friendly introduction to SuperCollider for absolute beginners, aimed at artists and musicians. Aside from a little familiarity with the digital arts, no prerequisites, though some prior exposure to computer music (perhaps through Max/MSP or Csound) may be helpful. (led by Nick Collins, Dan Stowell, Jan Trützschler)

4) Tuesday 7th April daytime (11-6): Abstract pressure cookers and virtual steam machines: Just in time programming in networks.
Not tweaking machines, but writing letters: Programs that program programs, machines that recombine structures. Replacing their parts, in effect writing their user manual at runtime. Instead of giving in to pressure to become virtuosos, we listen how the machines take the pressure Рfrom spooky action at a distance to new exploring logics of distributed noise music. A collective workshop for live coding, sound synthesis, randomness in order. (led by Powerbooks Unplugged: Alberto de Campo, Echo Ho, Hannes H̦lzl, Jan-Kees van Kampen, Julian Rohrhuber, Renate Wieser) $100

5) Tuesday 7th April evening (7-10pm). Compact version of Tuesday daytime session (led by Powerbooks Unplugged) $50

6) Wednesday 8th April daytime (11-6) SuperCollider Clinic. Flexible topic sessions, following participant needs, adaptable to all intermediate levels (beginners would find Saturday or Mon night helpful before this workshop). Developers will be on hand to answer questions, to present on special topics, and to demonstrate projects and works built with SC. (led by an all star cast of developers) $100.

Those who fail to learn from history are doomed never to make anything as cool as 17th Century keyboard makers.

New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art announces (via its Twitter feed, no less) that it has gotten its Musical Instruments collection online. Over 800 inspiring objects of all kinds are available with photos, maker information, and historical notes, making this an extraordinary tool both for serious research and discovering wonderful designs.

The best place to start is the Musical Instruments department page, which includes links to highlights, how to find the gallery in the Museum (believe me, you may need that), publications, and other details. You can also search the database, picking out a keyword like “drum.”

Incredibly, this is only a fraction of what the Met has in their collection. The department has 5,000 pieces from every continent except Antarctica, with pieces dating back to around 300 BC, from Stradivari’s violins to rare African percussion.

Of course, seeing instruments isn’t nearly as meaningful as hearing them. The department offers concerts through the year, including an annual concert on its 1830 Thomas Appleton organ. Sadly, the works database doesn’t include sound samples yet; perhaps that can be the next step. (Anyone feeling generous and want to donate to them?) But this is the one case in which an art museum audio guide is a must-have; you can hear descriptions and brief sound samples when you visit the collection here in Manhattan.

Digital instrument makers and software designers often look only to the future or the recent past for inspiration, which is a pity: there’s plenty to learn from historic instruments. As a keyboardist, of course, my favorites tend to be the collection’s wildly imaginative keyboard instruments. One of my favorites of the museum is the 1598 Claviorganum, pictured above, which built an organ and a virginal into a tabletop chest of drawers. I always thought the idea of being able to pull a virginal out of a piece of furniture was somehow magical. It seems there’s no better time than 2009 to resurrect some of these ideas as people build their own instruments and digital technology allows new flights of fantasy. Bring on the Neo-Baroque Digital Age.

Updated: The museum sends us this video of a Strad performance, in case you want to know what a highly valuable instrument sounds like.

The concert violinist Eric Grossman performs the chaconne from the Partita no. 2 in D Minor by J. S. Bach (1685 – 1750) on a violin made by Antonio Stradivari in 1717. The instrument — one of three by Stradivari in the Metropolitan Museum’s collection — is named “The Antonius” and comes from Stradivari’s so-called golden period (about 1700 to 1720).

Violin, “The Antonius,” 1717
Made by Antonio Stradivari (Italian, 1644 – 1737)
Cremona, Italy
The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, Bequest of Annie Bolton Matthews Bryant, 1933 (34.86.1a)

And the Timeline of Art History has a bit on sixteenth century violin makers, in case you’re not an expert.

Minitek is a massive “electronic music + innovation festival” coming to New York this weekend. If you’re anywhere in the area, I definitely recommend finding a way to get out here. And if you’re far away, stay tuned, as we’re planning some epic coverage here on CDM. The events are split between Midtown Manhattan and the eccentric shores of Coney Island (above).

The music lineup includes some big names — think Richie Hawtin, Magda, M.A.N.D.Y., Audiofly, Audion (big highlight for me), Adultnapper, Heidi, Guy Gerber, and the like, with Francois K closing out the evening. But for those of you whose tastes tend in the more experimental, there’s quite a bit of that, too.

Under the “innovation” category, we’ll see works like James Patten on the tangible Audiopad interface, Norman Fairbanks jamming on the Tenori-On, Audiocube players, and more. There’s also a big lineup of generative visuals for the nights; we’re covering that on our sister site Create Digital Motion. You’ll also be able to chat up record labels and play with the tech during the day in the village on Coney Island.

Minitek Festival Site; ticket info (you will want to get a pass if you can!)

Set times are finally up, though that includes only the main acts, not the innovation. (I know some of the, ahem, “innovators” so when they find out themselves when they’re playing, I’ll pass it on!)

Details are constantly coming in, so you can watch the blog or mailing list on the site. And yes, Astroland just closed, but Coney Island’s other rides are up, in case you want to hop on the Cyclone between sets. (Artists playing, if anyone wants a CDM interview on one of the rides, I’m game. I think it’s be fun to do an interview mixed with screams on the coaster.)

Tangible Roots

One of the projects I’m most excited about is Roots, a new music/visual interactive installation for the Brick interface. Co-creators Jordan Hochenbaum and Owen Vallis took home a Tenori-On the last time they ran into CDM (video of that after the jump); this time they team up with London-based designer Memo Akten for some beautiful generative visuals. (They’re also behind the Arduino-based Monome clone we saw a couple of weeks ago.) Here’s a short teaser video; we’ll have more on this after the weekend.

Roots Multi Touch Tangible Installation Teaser from BricK Table on Vimeo.

And that’s just a taste of one of the innovation day projects, every single one of which have gotten a mention (or three) somewhere in the pages of CDM in the past (really)!
Here’s Jordan and Owen in the heart-stopping finish to CDM’s Futuristic Design Challenge, in the moments that won them the Tenori-On prize we gave up.

Brick Table @ Yuri’s Night Bay Area 2008 Lightning Round from BricK Table on Vimeo.

Yo! Earth to useless hipster: this is New York. We used to have real crime here, not you jacking someone’s external FireWire box. Jeez.

I’m a little late on this — the crime took place April 4 at Galapagos’ Bunker party (formerly at Tonic).

Matthew Dear’s harddrive was stolen @ Galapagos [Brooklyn Vegan, via Dance Tracks Digital]

Some jerk in comments on DTD says, "Who cares hwo mucgh creativity is therein blippy tracks that lst 45 minutes." [sic] Aside from Pete’s complete inability to spell the easiest words in the English language, he’s risking some major bad karma by writing that — well, unless he plays with theft-proof wax cylinders, that is.

For reasons that escape me, this whole incident sends the Brooklyn Vegan rock-loving crowd into a frenzy of anti-computer, pro-guitar rhetoric. Yes, that must be it — God Himself took Matthew’s hard drive, because playing music out of computers is the Devil’s work. The classic “FireWire Smite” move.

“The storage device that you just removed was not properly put away before being stolen from this computer. Your set may have been damaged or lost. In the future, please play a banjo, or risk eternal damnation. Greetings, Professor Falken. Shall we play a game?”