Tuning Up

For the Spring blOrk performance I composed a piece about how a laptop orchestra tunes up compared to a true orchestra.  I had a few concepts I wanted to try, one was musical and the other was more performance.  Since we have 6 blOrk stations, I wanted to simulate tuning each of these to the desired frequency, 440 Hz.  I also wanted to turn on each computer separately using a MAX object (aka.booklight) that allows you to change the brightness of the screen.  Incidentally, this is how the apple logo on the back of your laptop is lit.  So by switching the screen from completely dimmed to full brightness, it appeared that the laptop had turned on.  In fact, it was already on and ready to run my program.

But unfortunately that's not believable enough... each station was also programmed to play a prerecorded clip of the sound of a laptop starting up.   I control all of this remotely over the UDP protocol (see this blog entry) so I stay at one computer.  All the while, I am plugging various (mostly useless) cables into my computer and making as much noise as possible because there is a contact mic on my laptop that is recording all these clicks and snaps into a loop.  This, in addition to live recorded trackpad clicks and keyboard strokes creates a random array of noise with a very complex pattern.

I then begin to increase the speed of this loop to the point that it begins to generate a pitch.  I am also manipulating a filtergraph to alter the timbre of the sound (remember I am tuning up a laptop orchestra).  Eventually I reach 440 and a cacophony of noise similar to the THX cadence begins to swell (courtesy of John Drumheller).  It ends and there is a second of silence... finished off with the infamous Apple startup noise.

Interface/Score

While I don't have a good recording of this now, I plan on performing it again in February and getting good audio and video.  There is also a lot of potential for theatrics and humor in this piece that I plan to explore.  If anyone is interested in the patch/score, please email me.