Grundgestalt

フラグマー 1

November 4, 2022

This is “フラグマー 1” (”Furaguma I”), an algorithmic piece based on a compositional approach that I called Wohlgestaltete Komposition. It is a hybrid process, in which machine and man cooperate. In a nutshell:

I identify musical quanta that represent initial configurations for a game simulator.
When fed into the simulator, those “μQuanta” produce 3-voice music fragments. I select the μQuanta that produce fragments that I consider of interest, and I compose them together.
I consider the music emerging from the combined fragments, and I operate modifications in the order and quantity of μQuanta in order to accentuate musical aspects that enhance the overall musical quality (according to my own perception) and to dampen aspects that I consider detrimental to that subjective concept of quality.
I continue the process by disrupting the selected μQuanta by flipping / adding / subtracting certain elements. Those disruptions in some cases aim at producing more “balanced” initial configurations, such that the corresponding games and music fragments last longer. In some other cases they may be purely random.
I include the disrupted μQuanta in the ongoing compositional process, and continue to build up the “piece” until its overall shape and contents assume what I arbitrarily recognize as a unique “identity”.

I refer to the overall selection of μQuanta in a piece such as “Furaguma I” as to “the Grundgestalt of Furaguma I”.

In fact, the term “Wohlgestaltete” means “well-shaped”, but it's actually a reference to the above process of selection of μQuanta that shape up the piece by defining its “basic form” — its Grundgestalt.

When time allows, I will write a paper describing the Wohlgestaltete Komposition. I would appreciate it very much if you would have suggestions regarding possible target journals. Thank you!

栄屯

Credits

Logo: Two of the 37 fragments from Manuscript Mi 75, a Missale crafted in a Trondheim scriptorium around 1150—1200. In Lilli Gjerløw: Ordo Nidrosiensis Ecclesiae (Oslo 1968), p. 92, n. 2 (as 878a). Processed with G'MIC.
Video: Reversed fragments from “Hawaii’s Spectacular Volcano Eruptions”, 1960. Photography by Art Carter with help of Fred Rackle, John Bonsey, Claude Jendrusch.

A curiosity

Comment about Mi 75 “One of the challenges in sorting out the fragments from Mi 75 is that the scriptorium seems to have a rather casual attitude to ruling – two pages of the same leaf can have different writing space, and the columns may be of different widths. Lat. fragm. 896, 1-4 are related to Mi 75 through initials, pigment and parchment, but differ in scribe, music scribe and format. Still, the scribe seems to be imitating the main scribe of Mi 75, and may therefore have collaborated on the same book.”

...and finally:

#μQuanta #WohlgestalteteKomposition. #Grundgestalt #GenerativeMusic #AlgorithmicComposition

Illyeen

May 17, 2021

“Illyeen” is an original spelling for “عِلِّيِّين”, which is a Quranic name for girls (see other spellings and more info here)

“Illyeen” is also my latest #Grundgestalt. If you like, you can download it from my #Bandcamp

Oh, yes, “Illyeen” is also an anagram of “Ley Line”.

And “Ley Lines”... is my latest album:

Also on Bandcamp yeah

The video has been done with txt2srt, a simple tool to orchestrate the execution of other tools on a sequence of pictures.

Illyeen is by Eidon, and is © Eidon (Eidon at tutanota dot com). All rights are reserved.

Pictures in the video are by Eidon. They are licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

Okonai

January 31, 2020

Okonai is the rite of marriage between the rice fields and the mountain, which represent the world organized by man and the Absolutely Free world of Nature:

“There is an ancient rite, the okonai (行ない), which clearly expresses, in the symbolic language of the ceremony, the cultural perception of sacred space, based on overcoming the opposition between the two dimensions of the ecosystem that characterizes daily village life: the rice fields and the mountain. On the night of the first of the year, the village heads of households climb up to the slopes of the mountain. On the edge of the forest they draw a sacred perimeter. The tōya 当屋, the religious and social leader of the village, enters it, holding two wooden statues representing one the mountain goddess (Yama-no-kami, 山の神) and the other the god of the rice field (Ta-no-kami, 田の神). The tōya joins the two statues symbolizing their sexual union, pours sake, the symbol of semen, on their sexes, and declares them to be newlyweds. Everyone then presents offerings to the deities and the officiant reads norito 祝詞, a prayer formula. Sake is then distributed to each person, and the offerings are divided and consumed. The village chief makes possible the union between the deities who define the two different spaces, of the cultivated and the wild, and seals the harmony between humans and nature. The dichotomy of these economically and culturally distinct worlds is not perceived as a rigid opposition, a distinction that denies any possibility of an exchange relationship; it is expressed in the terms of a necessary complementarity. Everything in this ritual is mediation: mediation of spatial patterns because the ritual takes place at the boundary point between the last rice fields and the forest. And mediation of time, because the ceremony marks the transition from one year to the next, between the cultivation cycle that has passed and the one that is to begin; it is the last hours of the night when the rite begins and, when it ends, it is dawn.”

(Massimo Raveri, “Classical Japanese Thought,” Piccola Biblioteca Einaudi, ISBN 9788806165871).

Two worlds becoming one; the transition from night to day, from the old to the new, from the mystical to the carnal: all this struck me in no small measure. I then thought of writing a piece of music dedicated to this propitiatory rite. And so here is Okonai, an algorithmic composition generated from the two seed strings “tanokami” and “yamanokami.” It can be downloaded from my #bandcamp here. I hope you're going to enjoy it!

The photos, so beautiful in my opinion, are by Kanemori.

#Japan #Shinto #OriginalMusic #AlgorithmicComposition #Grundgestalt #Eidon

“Vi è un rito antico, l’okonai (行ない), che esprime con chiarezza, nel linguaggio simbolico della cerimonia, la percezione culturale dello spazio sacro, fondata sul superamento dell’opposizione fra le due dimensioni dell’ecosistema che caratterizza la vita quotidiana del villaggio: le risaie e la montagna. La notte del primo dell’anno, i capifamiglia del villaggio salgono fino alle pendici della montagna. Sul limitare della foresta essi tracciano un perimetro sacro. Il tōya当屋, il capo religioso e sociale del villaggio, vi entra, tenendo in mano due statue di legno che rappresentano una la dea della montagna (Yamanokami, 山の神) e l’altra il dio della risaia (Tanokami, 田の神). Il tōya congiunge le due statue simboleggiando la loro unione sessuale, versa sui loro sessi del sake, simbolo del seme, e li dichiara sposi. Tutti allora presentano alle divinità le offerte e l’officiante legge norito祝詞, una formula di preghiera. Il sake è quindi distribuito a ognuno, le offerte sono spartite e consumate. Il capo del villaggio rende possibile l’unione fra le divinità che definiscono i due diversi spazi, del coltivato e del selvatico, e suggella l’armonia fra gli uomini e la natura. La dicotomia di questi mondi economicamente e culturalmente distinti non è percepita come un’opposizione rigida, una distinzione che nega qualsiasi possibilità di rapporto di scambio; essa si esprime nei termini di una necessaria complementarietà. Tutto in questo rito è mediazione: mediazione degli schemi spaziali perché il rito si svolge nel punto di confine fra le ultime risaie e la foresta. E mediazione del tempo, perché la cerimonia segna il passaggio da un anno all’altro, tra il ciclo di coltivazione che è trascorso e quello che deve iniziare; sono le ultime ore della notte quando il rito comincia e, quando finisce, è l’alba.”

From Massimo Raveri, “Il pensiero giapponese classico”, Piccola Biblioteca Einaudi, ISBN 9788806165871.