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April 23, 2007
Sitting for my Second Musical Portrait with Pete Townshend's Computer
While Susanne was putting Kayleigh to sleep tonight I decide to sit for another music portrait with Pete Townshend's online music generator, The Lifehouse Method. You may recall I sat for my first portrait last year after being invited to beta-test the tool. The system, created by Townshend electronic composer Lawrence Ball, asks you to input several unique pieces of content, which it uses to interpret your musical portrait. It asks for a sample of your voice, which you can record with the website's flash recorder. I recorded a short message in a soothing voice, saying "Isn't my voice oh so soothing?" Then, it asked for a photo, so I supplied it with this photo of me taking a picture of the coliseum of El Jem in Tunisia. When asked for an audio clip, I gave it the opening bars to the Dresden Dolls song, "Coin Operated Boy," which we use in the opening credits of our Dirty Diaper Diaries videos. Finally, I needed to give it a rhythm. So I tapped out the opening bars to the Rush song "YYZ," which spell out the letters YYZ in morse code, in a 10/8 time signature.
The result? Have a listen.
For one thing, you can't dance to it. In some ways, it's reminiscent of some of the more dissonant musical studies my late father-in-law David Cornwall used to compose. It's rather slow, with strings and keyboards plodding along at a modest tempo, while a bass and piano interject themselves at inopportune moments. There are very few chords - mostly individual notes from each instrument overlaid with each other. I can't decide if it sounds like Morton Feldman revved up or Conlon Nancarrow slowed down. The first minute or so doesn't do much for me, but then it gets a bit more coherent, as several instruments fade away and elements of bassoon and marimba pop up, but in a very minimalist way. There's also a haunting, high-pitched whistle that weaves through the piece, not unlike a theremin. Fascinating stuff, but probably not for everyone.
Thanks again to Pete and his colleagues for letting me experiment with it. -andy
Posted by acarvin at April 23, 2007 8:54 PM
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