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This project developed out of discussions between William Brent
and myself in our context as researchers
at the Center for Research in Computing and the Arts. In our original
discussions, we had planned to use
laser triggers that I developed for Scaipthe III: Osmosis to synchronize William's
percussion-playing robots — ludbots — with a
live human percussionist. These talks led us to the idea of
building a truly flexible concert-range "hyperinstrument," comprised of many robots, which could be controlled by any
musician with the proper interface. In the first piece designed to use this hyperinstrument, the analysis
of a string instrument in the pitch-time domain is used to generate patterns that the ludbots will play on microtonally
tuned percussion instruments.
William has developed a MIDI-driven control interface for his ludbots with the help of Kevin Larke, another
researcher at CRCA and a contributor to the LEMUR project.
He has built additional ludbots for this project and has expanded the capacity of his control interface.
The software I've written for the project includes a set of Max/MSP routines that (a) provide an
interface between my instrument (a fretless electric guitar) and William's ludbot control system, (b) algorithmically
generate ludbot responses to my playing using manipulations of musical sequences discovered through phrase detection
and factor oracle analysis, (c) generate unique patterns related both to my playing and to pre-composed electronic
music using L-systems and other generative processes, (d) expand the timbre-space of the conventional input instrument,
and (e) drive a series of software synthesizers.
The first two iterations of the project each culminated in a 15-minute concert presentation, both of which took
place at the UCSD Center for Research in Computing in the Arts. In
the first concert, on May 19, 2009, the thirty-two ludbots played two 3-foot-wide tam-tams, 14 just-tuned aluminum
pipes built by the late Ron George, two aluminmum bell plates,
2 bass drums, and 8 assorted wood and skin percussion instruments. The percussion was revised in the
second concert, July 11, 2009, to include a washtub, several tuned wooden planks, multiple small button gongs
and aluminum plates, and a number of large tin cans. Like my previous Scaipthe pieces, this composition
incorporates multiple simultaneous tempi, humanly impossible to perform without computer guidance. In this
piece, ludbots perform many of the "impossible" polyrhythms.
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