Steve Reich's piano phase recreated in Cubasis on iPad
Piano 1 plays a 12 note sequence repeatedly.
Piano 2 joins in playing the same sequence in sync and repeats.
Piano 1 holds the sequence while piano 2 speeds up slightly until it is one note of the sequence ahead, and then locks to the same tempo again.
Both pianos play at the same tempo.
This process of speeding up and then locking to the same temp repeats note by note until both pianos are playing the same 12 note sequence simultaneously.
Piano 2 then fades out.
This process then repeats for a shorter 8 note sequence, and then again for a shorter 4 note sequence.


Piano Phase

A test demo of the first 4 to 8 bars of Piano Phase by Steve Reich

Sonic Pi code:
# Piano Phase
# Steve Reich
# arranged by praxis @praxis_music
#3 December 2014
# the basic pattern
use_synth :pretty_bell
8.times do
  play :E4
  sleep 1/12
  play:Fs4
  sleep 0.15
  play :B4
  sleep 0.15
  play :Cs5
  sleep 0.15
  play :D5
  sleep 0.15
  play :Fs4
  sleep 0.15
  play :E4
  sleep 0.15
  play :Cs5
  sleep 0.15
  play :B4
  sleep 0.15
  play :Fs4
  sleep 0.15
  play :D5
  sleep 0.15
  play :Cs5
end

Demo Piano Phase Intro - Sonic Pi

An improved version of the intro using play_pattern.
a much more efficient way to play a tune.

# Piano Phase  by  Steve Reich, 1968
# arranged by praxis @praxis_music
# play from a list
# 11 December 2014
use_synth :pretty_bell
use_bpm 400
8.times do
  play_pattern [:E4,:Fs4,:B4,:Cs5,:D5,:Fs4,:E4,:Cs5,:B4,:Fs4,:D5,:Cs5], release: 8
end

Sonic Pi - Piano Phase Intro - v2 code

A simulation rendered in Cubasis on the iPad of Part of Steve Reich's Melodica.
A simple 4 note phrase played using a musette sample from Sample Tank and then looped.
The sound wave was copied to a second track, shortened very slightly and then looped.
Both loops were then allowed to run, starting in phase, drifting out of phase and then back into phase again.
New patterns emerge as it plays, 

Melodica - Reich tape phase simulation

A simple loop with my default starter rhythm when programming anything.

Sonic Pi Motorik

A reconstructed of Brian Eno’s Music For Airports 2/1 based on this deconstruction
https://reverbmachine.com/blog/deconstructing-brian-eno-music-for-airports

Music for Airports 2/1

A reconstructed of Brian Eno’s Music For Airports 1/2 based on this deconstruction
https://reverbmachine.com/blog/deconstructing-brian-eno-music-for-airports

Music for Airports 1/2

The sandpit down at the Gap on East Beach, Worthing, Sussex  is one of our favourite summertime hangouts.  As well as the sandpit, where we can hide and dig up toy cars, there is a splashpad, artists' beach huts, the Coast bar, a sandy playground and a park to learn to ride bikes round. 

Last September the Worthing Light Festival was on with music and light sculptures  in the evening. Around the sandpit, Orchestra of Objects had set up a sound garden of musical sculptures made from industrial parts such as drainage pipes, bellows and tuned pieces of metal.

I didn't have a proper mic with me but recorded  each of the notes from one of the contraptions using AudioShare on my iPhone. It wasn't the best quality recording. It also captured children playing, feet crunching on pebbles , seagulls, the sea and the sounds of the other instruments. Plenty of ambience.

This particular machine was a set of metal chimes with drainage pipes acting as soundboxes with a rubber binger attached to each for bonging them. At the time I noted that many of the intruments were tuned to scales, mostly pentatonic, so whatever combinations of notes you played they sounded good.
On editing and loading them into a sampler I found this one was a D minor pentatonic, (or thereabouts with a bit of tuning).

Following on from my earlier recreations  of Brian Eno’s Music for Airports based on an article from Reverb Machine I wanted to make something similar. Again, I didn’t use tape, rather a number of loops of different lengths, that, as the piece progresses, cycle at different phases to each other, creating a ever changing yet familiar piece.

It's taken many failed attempts and experiments to find a version I’m happy with.  Working on an iPad, firstly in AUM, then Beatmaker and finally Cubasis with a variety of Auv3 plugins.  I tried using just the base recordings.  I created a full range sample set in Chameleon covering the entire keyboard even though I only wanted the one scale.  I tried making up segments on a keyboard, then on a Novation  Launchpad restricted to just the scale via Grid Instrument. None of these methods gave me anything that felt consistent and musical. 

Finally I gave up trying asked myself the obvious question “what would Brian Eno do?” and let chance take over. I used Riffer to generate a set of short melodic riffs in key and then layering them one by one, working out which ones worked in combination.  Having selected my riffs it was then just a matter of looping them, as if they were tape and letting them run in and out of sync until a point where it felt like they came together again.  A bit of compression from Rough Rider 3, some EQ from 4 Pockets and light reverb and finally I’ve arrived at something I’m happy with.

Music From A Sandpit (On Some Faraway Beach)

Running at 20BPM. Composed entirely on iPad.
Performed in AUM using Riffer, Autony, Rosetta Particles, ruismaker and ruismaker Noir, Ripplemaker, Moog Model D, Animoog, eventide Blackhole, Ratshack Reverb, visual EQ.
Mixed and mastered in Cubasis.

20BPM 02 2020 v2.x

A cover of the Aphex Twin classic, played on my children’s toy piano.
Recorded as a sample set on iPad and processed with some compression, EQ and reverb.

14 April 2020

Avril 14th

Praxis is an experiment in process music.
"Praxis is defined as the process by which a theory, lesson, or skill is enacted, embodied, or realised."
This is the output from experiments in these processes.

Praxis - Process Music

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