Piece is scored for baritone guitar, bass finger piano, trumpets, and trombones. Based on 12 notes taken from 72 equal divisions of the octave. More details here: http://ripnread.com/?p=731

Pomp & Parade #18

This is a piece scored for baritone guitar, alto flute, finger piano, and vibraphone. It uses a 12 note scale derived from 72-EDO, with several just overtone combinations, and some other high integer ratios. More here: http://ripnread.com/?p=753

Shews #15

This is a piece that explores several six notes scales with neutral thirds, midway between just major 5:4 and just minor 6:5. Each instrument can choose which version of a melody to play using a Markov Chain Drunkard's Walk, with is constrained to pick the next or previous choice, and no other. More information here: http://ripnread.com/?p=777
It's scored for cellos, finger pianos, baritone guitars, balloon drums, and a small sewer pipe drum.

Games #7

This piece is scored for French horn, tuba, tenor trombone, alto flute, flute, oboe, clarinet, and bassoon. It’s a Markov Chain Drunkard’s Walk through the tonality diamond. The randomizer is free to chose any chord, but only if it adjacent to the current chord. Like a drunk who can go left or right, but not stay in place and not move more than one step at a time. I exercise control by selecting a list whose elements flow from one to another and sound intelligent. 

As the title suggests, it's a slow drunkard's walk.

Slow Avalanche #8

The piece is scored for French Horn, Alto Flute, Trombone, Tuba, Finger Piano (2 kinds), Marimba, Baritone Guitar, and Balloon Drum. The Finger Pianos, Baritone Guitar, and Balloon Drum samples are my own, the rest came from the McGill University Master Samples. The slides are added using Csound. Lots of slides.

Every time the piece is realized, the pre-processor chooses loudness, stereo location, audio envelope, chance of actually playing or being silent, a “z” factor that displaces a few milliseconds in time, the randomness algorithm, and the octave.

Windstorm #22

This is a piece I’m working on that relies on several different Drunkard’s Walk chains, some sequential, some that skip over every other note. I’m not convinced it has hidden it’s algorithmic nature well enough. But this gives me a chance to listen to several different runs through the randomizer.

The title is the weather term for the frost that forms on the windward side of trees in the mountains caused by freezing fog and snow.

Hardrime #4

I’ve slowed this one down quite a bit, so you can hear more of the chord changes. There is a sequence of 16 chords that the randomizer goes through, using the Drunkard’s Walk Markov Chain. The sequence is made up of 8 utonality and 8 otonality chords from the Partch Tonality Diamond. Here are the ones that he picked this time:

D+ major
Fn major
Ab major
Cn major
Eb minor
Cn major
Eb minor
Db minor
Eb minor
Cn major
Ab major
Fn major
D+ major
Fn major
Ab major
Cn major
Ab major
Fn major
Ab major
Cn major
Eb minor
Db minor
Eb minor
Db minor

Icebow
An Icebow is caused by sunlight passing through ice crystals, usually at high elevation.


Icebow #9

This is another trip through the Partch Tonality Diamond using the Markov Chain Drunkard's Walk, but much slower than any of the others. Scored for Flute, Alto Flute, Oboe, Clarinet, Bassoon, French Horn, Trumpet, Trombone, and Tuba.

Melt #2

This is a reimagination of a traditional hymn where we can go forwards or backwards, using the drunkard's walk to decide. 

Jesus All My Gladness #8

This is another transformed hymn, using the drunkard walk to determine the order of the measures.

Herzliebster Jesu #8

This is a drunkard's walk through the classic hymn. Rock has the nice attribute of a single chord for each note. That makes it simple to use the drunkard walk, just pick a chord, and go forward or back. Other hymns have lots of held notes that mean I can only go forward or back by a measure at a time.

Rock of Ages, Cleft for Me #7

This piece is scored for alto flute, finger pianos, baritone guitars, and bass finger piano. I may add some alto flute or some percussion later. Just a taste for now.
The chords wander through the Partch Tonality Diamond using the drunkard's walk, with lots of slides with vibrato. Imagine how a slide guitar would sound if it had different slides on every note that could go up or down independently accurately to any note 72-EDO. 

Icicle Creek #9

This one uses a set of contrasting sections that the randomizer can move between, but always using the drunkard's walk to chose. One is a unison melody derived from either a scale, a set of thirds, or a set of fourths. The other is chords. It's scored for baritone guitar, finger pianos, alto flutes, cello, french horn, and tuba.

Blizzard #2

This is a set of works done in the first half of 2012 based on 72-EDO subsets. Most work with ten note scales, using only six notes at a time. Some of the six note subsets are sweet, some are more angry. 

Modes for Strings #7

Serenade for Alto Flute

Strings in 9/8 #11

Rattlesnake Ridge

Drums in 12/8 #9

This is a piece for Finger Piano, Bass Flute, Cello, and Dry Spring. The Dry Spring is an amplified percussion instrument I made back in the 1970′s for live performance. All the sounds are made with Csound as a sample based synthesizer. Tuning is 53 tone to the octave equal divisions of octave (53-EDO). There are many sections where the pitch is shifted up by one 53-EDO step at a time, almost imperceptively.

Whisper Song in 53 EDO

I make music in tuning systems other than 12 tones to the octave. The tools I use are Csound and a front end I wrote in Pascal.

Prent Rodgers

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