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MMD > Archives > December 1995 > 1995.12.05 > 02Prev  Next


"Lexikon-Sonate" Available via FTP
By Karlheinz Essl

For those who own a Macintosh, but not MAX, I uploaded a stand-alone version of:

     LEXIKON-SONATE (1992 ff.)
     an interactive and infinite realtime composition for
     computer-controlled piano

to the Disklavier-Archive (maintained by Bob Willey)

     ftp://wendy.ucsd.edu/pub/midi/disklavier/essl/Lexikon-Sonate.sea.hqx

It comes with a runtime version of MAX (called MAXplay 2.5.3) and a huge library of compositional routines.

Unlike former versions of "Lexikon-Sonate" which need MAX and a special installation procedure, now it will work like plug'n'play.

I am indebted to Gerhard Eckel (IRCAM / Paris) who extended the already existing program in a way that it can be played on different MIDI-devices such as Yamaha Disklavier, Boesendorfer SE Grand Piano, or samplers / synthesizer. A setup routine now allows to adjust the velocity range of the program to that of the chosen MIDI-instrument.

---

LEXIKON-SONATE is an infinite composition for MIDI-controlled player piano which composes and performs itself in realtime. Up to now it consists of 24 music-generation modules which are related in a very complex way as a musical HyperText. Each module generates a specific and perceptional characteristic musical output due to a certain compositional strategy applied. A module represents an abstract model of a specific musical behaviour. It does not contain any pre-organized musical material, but a formal description of it and the methods how it is being processed. The idea of autopoiesis - material organizing itself due to certain constraints - plays an important rule.

By using a lot of different random generators which are controlling each other (which - according to serial thinking - form a scale between a completely deterministic and a completely chaotic behaviour) new variants of the same model are generated. Variants that may differ dramatically from each other, though they are always perceptible as "inheritances" of the given structural model.

LEXIKON-SONATE is represented by a computer program written in MAX (an interactive graphical programming environment for multimedia, music, and MIDI running on a Macintosh; =A9 by IRCAM / Opcode Inc.) which takes advantage of my "Real Time Composition Library" - a collection of MAX-objects designed for musical composition. It contains numerous function for musical composition such as rhythm generators, harmonic tools, random functions etc. and allows you to experiment with a number of compositional techniques, such as serial procedures, permutations and controlled randomness.

---

More informations about LEXIKON-SONATE can be found at:

     http://www.ping.at/users/essl/works/Lexikon-Sonate.html

Informations regarding the REAL TIME COMPOSITION LIBRARY (which latest version 2.2 was recently released) can be obtained from:

     http://www.ping.at/users/essl/works/rtc.html

__________________________________________________________________
 Dr. Karlheinz Essl
 SAMT - Studio for Advanced Music Technology  (Linz-Hagenberg / Austria)
 E-Mail: essl@ping.at
 WWW:    http://www.ping.at/users/essl/index.html
___________________________________________________________________

(Message sent Tue 5 Dec 1995, 09:46:41 GMT, from time zone GMT+0100.)

Key Words in Subject:  Available, FTP, Lexikon-Sonate, via

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