Ryan Landron                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                        

Music 220a- Final Project

Gideon

Final ChucK code: http://ccrma.stanford.edu/~rlandron/220a/gideon.ck

Final .wav file:

 

My final project's melody is largely based on a few melodies from the alternative band My Morning Jacket's song “Gideon”. This was a melody that has been stuck in my head forever now and always interests me so I decided it would be a good fit to demonstrate the capabilities of computer generated sound.

My goal in this project was to demonstrate the increased and impressive amount of control we have over computer generated sounds using oscillators and physical models. It was very important to me that I also superimposed melody patterns and rhythms over other patterns in an interesting way that was not quite what the song originally intended.

In order to go about this process I began by dividing the song structure into 5 separate parts: an introduction, first melody introduction/interlude, second melody introduction/first solo, second solo, and a final solo. In the beginning of the score sine oscillators create sound based on the bass pattern of “Gideon”. In the second section I added the presence of a shaker for rhythm and 2 Moog modelers playing a harmonizing melody. I also began to alter the parameters for modelers as seen by my minor adjustments to the properties of both Moog modelers.

In the first solo section the main soaring melody of the song is introduced and is superimposed rhythmically over the original bass line. Through creating an alternating shaking pattern and making adjustments to channel panning, physical modeler properties, and the addition of a Sitar physical modeler, I hoped to increase the human like qualities of the sound being generated. In the second solo rhythm comes much more into play as I wanted to demonstrate that you can get interesting feel and rhythm through a computer. Rhodes and Bowed instrument modelers are introduced and their parameters along with the parameters of every oscillator/modeler in use are being adapted through parameter adjustments.

The final solo is the culmination of the ability to modify computer generated sound, through gain controlling and parameter altering. This is done until the gradually decreasing gain is fully lowered.

While I had originally hoped to include a sampled acoustic guitar, I think that it would have been a distraction to the idea of the project. Also, my goal was to use the Binaural4 class to pan the sound between four speakers but this kept crashing miniAudicle- another present in surprise as I feel this could have been another distraction from the focus of the project. By using and adapting frequencies through the computer alone, and superimposing melodies and rhythms from one of my favorite songs I was able to create what I believe to be compelling computer generated music.