microtonal electronic

Tyfen

Sleep Deprived Cooked Alive

From Rhythm and Xen by Sevish [2015]
https://sevish.bandcamp.com/album/rhythm-and-xen

Droplet

From Rhythm and Xen (2015) by Sevish:
https://sevish.bandcamp.com/album/rhythm-and-xen

Desert Island Rain

PolyTonal - utilizing juxtaposed 'pitch color' harmony/key centers in a tonal (vs atonal) manner. Polytonality is conventionally seen either as superimposed triadic key centers (D/C), or as extended triadic harmonies within a single key center (C major13 #11). The 'key centers' of the chromatic paradigm are reconceptualized here as intervallic pitch colors blended into composite and dynamic (interactively changing over time) harmonic structures. That is, tonality, from the perspective of an additional dimension of microtonal pitch color (polychromatic) relationships.

Resonance - harmonic pitch color combinations initiating an internal sense of physical vibratory/oscillatory movement, in addition to an auditory perception of moving, multidimensional sound 'shapes'.

An exploration of combinations and contrasts of microtonal (chromatic paradigm: static, fixed, linear intervallic relationships) and polychromatic (nonlinear, dynamic, contextually relative intervallic relationships) musical languages.

Focus the listening on the dynamic, multidimensional aural shapes and physically sense/feel the resonant oscillations propagated from within the harmonic structures, projected outward and resonantly interacting.

Listen beyond conventional tonal harmonic forms toward a conception of interacting pitch 'color blends' and the multidimensional, dynamic aural 'shapes'.

A musical intention of exemplifying an awareness of an immense aesthetic and physical complexity within the phenomena of sound vibration.

An expanded way of aesthetically listening, immersively integrated with physical (resonant, oscillatory) and emotional feeling/sensation.

The final chord is intended not as a concluding resolution, but as an invitation to continue the journey...

more information: dolorescatherino.com

Video performance is available on YouTube. Polychromatic score and audio files are available on website. Aural resolution: 106 pitches per octave.

'PolyTonal Resonance'

This polychromatic composition is an exploration and demonstration of the musical use of interactive harmonics. It is an example of the gestalt principle in the sense that the whole (output harmonics) is greater than the sum of the parts (input notes and harmonics). Aural resolution: 106 pitches per octave.

Heterodyne - an existing concept that is a closest description (not explanation) of this musical phenomena of 'extra' harmonics created in the interaction of two or more notes.

Horizon - in the sense of always evolving boundaries of awareness, exploration and understanding.

Music theory describes harmonics 'vertically', in relation to a fundamental pitch. This composition demonstrates that 'horizontal' cross-interaction occurs, creating new harmonics and unique musical textures.

Note in the middle of the composition, I am playing only 2 notes, one static and the other moving melodically. The thing to notice is that a (higher pitched) harmonic is following the melody line NOT in the same direction (high/low), as traditional harmonics do (because they are a subcomponent of the pitch), but in the OPPOSITE direction.

Next, notice a second (lower pitched) interactive harmonic, which moves in the same direction as the melody (just as traditional 'primary' harmonics do). Try also, to hear additional subtle harmonics and a further harmonic blending as the melody becomes polyphonic.

An intriguing question would be whether these interactive harmonics are measurable with an audio spectrum analyzer. More deeply, are these interactive harmonics created in a quantifiable dimension or are they a purely perceptual phenomenon; Qualia; technologically immeasurable?

Video performance available on YouTube. Polychromatic score and audio files are available for download on my website.

more information: dolorescatherino.com

- Contextual information on known phenomena:

HETERODYNE FREQUENCIES (electronics, communications engineering) and COMBINATION TONES (acoustics, psychophysics) are comprised of sum and difference tones.

SUM TONES (f1+ f2) can create a frequency octave(s) above/greater than the lower frequency (f1):
220 Hz (A3) + 293.66 Hz (D3) = 513.66 Hz (C4)

DIFFERENCE TONES (f2- f1) can create a frequency octave(s) below/less than the lower frequency (f1):
293.66 Hz (D3) - 220 Hz (A3) = 73.66 Hz (D1)

INTERACTIVE HARMONICS (music), as demonstrated here, can create other frequency intervals which are neither sum nor difference tones.

'Heterodyne Horizon'

'Temporal Parallax' ... expanding expressive dimensions in auditory spacetime.

TEMPORAL in the sense of auditory phenomena and perception.
PARALLAX - a difference in aural 'appearance' depending on the observer's perceptual position (perspective shift). 

A musical endeavor to present increasingly complex auditory multidimensionality to the receptive mind. An evolution in musical consciousness.  

A composition intended to facilitate an expanding perception of the dynamic interrelationships and interplay of micropitches and extended harmonics. All expressed as evolving aural 'shapes', 'textures' and complex emotional 'colors'.

Metaphorically, listen for a 3-D to 2-D aural 'collapse' and distinct dimensional contrast between final resolving chords.

An insight based on an analogy to the evolution of visual intelligence, within the context of painting conception/perception from flat 2-D representation to 3-D perspective. A long neglected development in aural intelligence within our visually dominant culture.

aural resolution: 106 pitches per octave (106ET)

more information: dolorescatherino.com
   
Video performance available on YouTube. Polychromatic music score and audio file are available for download on website. Also, a reduced speed MP3 download is now available to enhance an initial awareness and perception of these expansive aural phenomena. 

Looking forward to a future possibility of capturing increasingly sophisticated polychromatic and extended harmonic (overtones) 'shapes/colors' as digital 'audio resolution' encoding/decoding technology improves in recording and audio compression formats. And also, to the possibility of rudimentary visual rendering of these dynamic multidimensional aspects of auditory perception.

'Temporal Parallax'

A polychromatic composition by Dolores Catherino emphasizing pitch-color blends and multidimensional dynamic shapes. Notice the shifting, almost organic interactions happening within the pitch combinations and harmonics during the sustained chords.

...exploring a sense of vast unexplored auditory dimensions existing beneath the surface of conventional macropitch music, in the mixtures and contrasts of microtonal pitch-colors and shapes.

Engaging an emerging awareness and development of new ways of hearing music; of hearing the world in a new way.

aural resolution: 106 pitches per octave

more information: dolorescatherino.com

Polychrome Impressions - emergence

An intuitive, musical exploration of harmonic 'superspace'.

Continuing musical explorations in a journey toward the outer limits of polychromatic harmonic interactions, while maintaining a quasi-tonal orientation for conventional musical reference, as a point of departure.

This composition attempts to convey a sense that to the 3 spatial dimensions of length, width and depth, can be added a 4th dimension of auditory spacetime. That is, of duration and the evolving expression of multidimensional shapes and other qualia (immeasurable phenomena) accessible only through auditory perception.

Aural resolution: 106 pitches per octave (106ET)

more information: dolorescatherino.com

'Spatial Harmonics' - polychromatic composition by Dolores Catherino

A composition from the 90's, with fretless guitar and bass.

remember

SlipStream - sometimes, unusual ideas can catalyze a creative momentum and encourage a desire to explore new perspectives.

A use of the limitation of 16 MIDI channels, vis-à-vis random note cancellation, for a musical effect of 'convergence' - a technique creating a sense of the emergence of a smaller group of notes within the larger whole. Notice the sound of a gradual merging/converging of notes into a subset of harmonies contained within the initial sound. Listen for the effect at 1:15.

Aural resolution: 106 notes per octave

more information: dolorescatherino.com

'SlipStream' - polychromatic composition by Dolores Catherino

Microtonal drum and bass from MK-SUPERDUPER: sevish.bandcamp.com/album/mk-superduper

MK-SUPERDUPER

recurrence - a sense of déjà vu when experiencing something radically new; a feeling that time is not only linear - past, present, future... but also recurs out of linear sequence, in a kind of temporal superposition.

A polychromatic composition performed on the Microzone u648. 
Auditory resolution: 72 notes per octave

'recurrence'... polychromatic composition by Dolores Catherino

‘Sentience’ - the human capacity to feel, perceive and experience subjectively; in distinction to the ability to think (reason).

In response to the growing extension of Artificial Intelligence into areas like musical creativity, this polychromatic composition uses music technology as an assistant to the human imagination. This approach is in contrast to different varieties of creativity which use technology to generate musical elements for human editing and arrangement.

Rapidly advancing technology is leading to the replacement of more human activities while also modifying human involvement into roles as assistant, support and maintenance in service to technology. In many respects, because of the digitization/quantization of musical elements in MIDI, music is at the forefront of this trend as we see the impacts of technological replacement of musicians and more recently, songwriters.

Music and art express a different kind of knowledge, intelligence and experience from that of scientific, logical, and mathematical areas.

‘Artificial Intelligence’ is, at best, a simile or metaphor for awareness. Understanding of meaning and relevance are beyond its computational framework, which can, with increasing sophistication, display mere imitations of unquantifiable processes of mind.

As AI amasses ever-increasing quantities of information, hierarchically organized and structured through programmed algorithms, the conception of ‘artificial intelligence’ is being extended into similes of ‘consciousness’ and ‘creativity’. This idea seems to presume that increasing quantities of information somehow transform into (or become a surrogate for) awareness and the meaningful understanding and expression of sentient qualities. In contrast to the statistical idea of ‘quality’ of information, ‘qualities’ are based in sentience - subjective awareness, perception, experience, meaning and emotional expression - as well as intelligence.

Recently, IBM’s Watson (AI computer), Google’s Magenta Project, and Sony’s Flow Machines software have been promoted as ‘composing’ music, and as demonstrating musical ‘creativity’. They accomplished this artistic simile by compiling musical data and analyzing the data by given rules (logic, forms and patterns of musical expression), then producing variant combinations under algorithmic control. Maybe a better characterization of this AI process would have been a ‘generative variation’ of musical forms and patterns.

While a remarkable technological advancement, this generative process of AI music is fundamentally different from a human creative process based in empirical understanding, and subjective meanings associated with musical expression. The human creative process in composition uses musical languages to express aspects and qualities of human sentience.

Musical meaning and relevance have always been immersed in a context of time and place, of subjective and collective awareness, aspirations and concerns. In our era, human music and art, while seemingly under threat of replacement and obsolescence to AI, are in a position to clarify the distinction and capacities of human ‘sentience’ and artificial ‘intelligence’. And in this process, hopefully help us gain a deeper awareness of both, balanced in application, as synergetic rather than competing processes.

'Sentience'

By request, a posting of one of my first polychromatic compositions with the Tonal Plexus. 106 notes per octave.

A musical journey toward hearing and expressing an undivided pitch Continuum. An immensity of auditory 'colors', conventionally condensed into 12 coarse pitch gradations of our black and white, chromatic language. 

This is a polychromatic composition utilizing 106 pitches per octave. A 'bridge' composition intended to expand aural perception and awareness of microtonal pitch 'color' and harmony within a quasi-conventional musical context.

A composition presented with the hope of expanding the traditional (absolute) conception of fixed pitch/intervals in music toward awareness of an undivided continuum of (relative) spectral pitch 'colors' and interrelationships.

... as an awareness of the infinite potential varieties of 'red' would be to a visual artist, both in isolation and within the context of the surrounding colors and illumination.

More information, polychromatic score and audio file download available at: www.dolorescatherino.com

'Toward The Continuum'

Duration - expressing the mysterious process which lies between the measured data points used in scientifically describing motion, time, space, mind etc. A temporal gestalt existing beyond the conceptual 'collapsing' of dynamic process into a succession of static measurements in numerical language; where the 'shell' (appearance) becomes increasingly clarified while the core (essence) becomes increasingly obscured.

The idea of 'duration' as a continuous, integrated process hints at aspects and qualities which are closer to the realm of art and musical expression; a perspective fundamentally different from, yet complementary to, modern quantitative and mechanistic perspectives.

On a deeper level, 'duration' demonstrates a characteristic of any language, in which the advances and limitations of understanding are bounded by the unique structure and assumptions of each. Each language represents a partial perspective, illuminating certain aspects while, at the same time, concealing and distorting others.

The subject/predicate structure of language conceptually collapses 'duration' into a sort of temporal ’ether’ within which time points/waves are measured/propagated. 

Aural resolution: 72 edo (equal divisions of the octave)
global reference pitch: Ay=432Hz
more information: dolorescatherino.com
facebook: https://www.facebook.com/dolomuse/

You can find my TEDx talk on Polychromatic Music posted at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EfJbS...

'duration'

The individual process of seeking an enduring Hope and sense of greater meaning, within an experience of constant change and turbulence.

Turbulence - instability, disturbance, unpredictability, randomness, fluctuation, disorder, unrest, agitation.

An unending process of finding meaning and purpose in the joy, tragedy and random instabilities of life. The perpetual seeking of order, and of sustaining value in a rapidly changing world. 

The difficulty of creating a meaningful existence in a journey that frequently feels like that of a passenger in a vehicle with only an accelerator and no brakes or steering. Searching for an understanding of reactive cultural swings, between the extreme endpoints of oppressive, conservatism toward progressive anarchy and back again. Seeking out creative possibilities beyond an institutionalized apathy, ennui and a passive stasis of human potential. 

An enduring hope for a synergetic/collaborative paradigm of sustainable, evolving existence, in a modern world where (ephemeral; transient) value is assigned to short-term success, efficient compliance, disposability/planned obsolescence, and instant gratification. 

Change and flux are inevitable, yet Hope endures.

audio tracks: https://dolorescatherino.bandcamp.com
website: http://www.dolorescatherino.com
facebook: https://www.facebook.com/dolomuse/

You can find my TEDx talk on Polychromatic Music posted at:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EfJbS5jPiOk

'Hope, In Turbulence'

'convergence' - an intuitive composition process which aims toward increasing clarity and a vague sense of 'directionality' and flow. 

Ideas, intuition, imagination and seemingly infinite possibilities slowly converging into an expressive form. Ideas and impressions converging toward a path which paradoxically opens new expansive possibilities and questions. 

A sense of greater meaning and synchronicity in the joys and tragedies of life. Enduring mystery... 

www.facebook.com/dolomuse/

'convergence'

'stillness, In motion'

Antinomy: incompatible truths/facts; anomalies; irreconcilable differences/perspectives; all pushing the boundaries of language, awareness and understanding toward ever-expanding limits.

Antinomies expose the limitations of binary, either/or, 0/1 logic, as well as the use of discrete, categorical and conceptual boundaries in language.

Examples: logical and rational/irrational paradoxes; catch-22; sociological: an American era of mass incarceration as a ‘solution’ (which generates more expansive problems) to the difficulties of drug addiction, poverty, homelessness, unaddressed psychiatric illness, etc. 

'Antinomy' as an awareness and curiosity of audible anomalies of sound which seem to be incompatible with visually-based conceptions of space: superposition of sound ‘objects’ in space, sound waves constructively/destructively interfering AND passing through, intact without structurally modifying interactions. An intuition emerges, of a multidimensional auditory ‘space’ (field) with more than 3 dimensions, subject to different patterns and characteristics, in addition to those aspects perceived, conceived and measured visually.

microtonal electronic

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