Great atmosphere. Makes me think of a good video game soundtrack. Interestingly they don't sound good if you only play 2 of them, you need all 3 to pull the harmony together.
m348e912 said a month ago:
I'll save time for anyone who just wanted to play the videos mentioned above from the linked page.
A4, B2, C4
W0lf said a month ago:
Interesting, my first interpretation was letters for rows and numbers for columns, but apparently you noted it the other way around.
romaintailhurat said a month ago:
The Excel notation :)
seanhunter said a month ago:
Really lovely idea and brilliant execution.
For people who don't get the reference, one of the defining pieces of the Minimalist movement in 20th century music[1] was "In C" by Terry Riley[2]. Minimalist pieces often (but don't always) include elements of non-determinsm like in this.
[1] Minimalism here doesn't mean "not many notes" it means deliberately restricting the range of harmonic and rhythmic materials available to the composer. Steve Reich, Philip Glass, John Adams, and Arvo Part represent well-known composers with very different takes on the style if you want to check out more.
> Minimalism here doesn't mean "not many notes" it means deliberately restricting the range of harmonic and rhythmic materials available to the composer
This is not necessarily what minimalism means. Minimalism is just an abstraction for certain kinds of art, possibly with various incompatible techniques. For some artists (not just musicians, but also painters, poets etc) minimalism means "repetition"-ism i.e. art with excessive amount of repetition to the point that you'd normally expect it to be "boring" but it somehow uses it to its favor with rhythmic, harmonic, or formal techniques. Philip Glass is the pioneer of this idea in music, and I personally consider him one of the most creative and groundbreaking artists ever lived. His music is very tonal, "simple" and repetitive in his oeuvre (i.e. repetition not just in one work, but repetition among his body of works like minimalist painters Mondrian and Rothko) which makes him a very very controversial musician, some critics considering him a charlatan. To me, he's a Schoenbergian figure who is making a bombastic and over-the-top artistic statement by going against the current of his artistic tradition while remaining firmly in it. Similarly, Schoenberg was also considered a charlatan during his life, especially early on.
Oh also if you ever think "classical music doesn't have a cultural force anymore" please pay attention to contemporary film music that's not neo-romanticist. You'll see that there is tons of minimalist influence from Glass, Reich, Andriessen, Richter etc...
"In 1912, the French composer Ernest Fanelli (1860–1917) received significant attention and coverage in the Parisian press following a performance of a symphonic poem he wrote in 1886, titled Thèbes, incorporating elements associated with Impressionism, such as extended chords and whole-tone scales.
Writing in 1958, the critic Rudolph Reti summarised six features of Debussy's music, which he asserted "established a new concept of tonality in European music": the frequent use of lengthy pedal points – "not merely bass pedals in the actual sense of the term, but sustained 'pedals' in any voice"; glittering passages and webs of figurations which distract from occasional absence of tonality; frequent use of parallel chords which are "in essence not harmonies at all, but rather 'chordal melodies', enriched unisons", described by some writers as non-functional harmonies; bitonality, or at least bitonal chords; use of the whole-tone and pentatonic scales; and unprepared modulations, "without any harmonic bridge". Reti concludes that Debussy's achievement was the synthesis of monophonic based "melodic tonality" with harmonies, albeit different from those of "harmonic tonality".
> Oh also if you ever think "classical music doesn't have a cultural force anymore" please pay attention to contemporary film music that's not neo-romanticist. You'll see that there is tons of minimalist influence from Glass, Reich, Andriessen, Richter etc...
And music from horror movies and battle scenes if you want to hear the contemporary influence of serialism and new complexity.
I remember showing this to a roommate's mom over a decade ago. She wondered aloud if it was like The Emperor's New Clothes or if we simply didn't understand music well enough to know why we shouldn't enjoy this.
I still like it, whatever it says about me.
npinsker said a month ago:
I like it too. It's an experiment in musical texture -- not to downplay the curation involved in getting a nice mix of instruments, which I'm sure took some skill.
To me, it's a bit similar to Skrillex or Rite of Spring, both of which I like almost completely because of their texture. If you like it, if you don't, that's fine -- no need to be prescriptivist about it. At the end of the day it's all just vibrations.
timvdalen said a month ago:
What suggests that you shouldn't like it?
bmacho said a month ago:
The assumption that enjoying art should come from (at least some amount) the artists effort. There are a ton of exceptions, like enjoying nature, but "random" music shouldn't be as enjoyable as pieces created by human hours of experts.
zote said a month ago:
Best thing I've seen on the internet this year
AlecSchueler said a month ago:
Doesn't run on mobile, which is fine not everything has to. But could someone describe the page for those of us who can't right now?
skywhopper said a month ago:
It's a grid of Youtube videos, each of someone playing a musical instrument of various sorts (electric guitar, piano, clarinet, marimba, muted trumpet, voice, KAOSS synth pad, a Nintendo DS), making music in the key of B-flat major. The instructions are to start the videos at any time and in any order. By doing so, the audio of each overlays each other and since they are all in tune with each other, it all sounds like the timing could have been intentional. Each video is about 90 seconds long and you can press play again on each to repeat it if you like.
It reminds me (presumably intentionally) of Terry Riley's "In C" in which any number of musicians on any instruments perform together on stage. All following the same tempo, they each have a set of music giving several dozen short sequences of notes. They each, individually, decide when to come in, how many times to repeat each sequence, and when to move on to the next sequence. As the piece continues, the soundscape is constantly evolving in an unpredictable way, but always in tune with each other and pleasant in its harmony. Each time it's performed, even by all the same musicians, then, it sounds different, yet the same. It's a really fascinating piece and if you get the chance to see it performed live, I highly recommend it, because it's a lot of fun to watch the musicians themselves experience the performance and feed off each other.
Thanks for your insightful answer. I've long been a fan of In C and various performances so I'll certainly be looking forward to experiencing this tonight.
InitialLastName said a month ago:
On my Pixel 6A + Firefox it says it doesn't run but runs fine if I click through the dialog.
It's a grid of youtube embeds linking videos of people playing simple, improvised sequences in Bb on different instruments. They can be played in different orders, combinations and overlaps to create different textures.
saurik said a month ago:
It is a grid of embedded YouTube videos, each one of which including "in B-flat" or "in Bb" in the title (and so are pretty much all someone playing some random song on some random instrument... in B-flat).
hartem_ said a month ago:
Can someone please explain why does this work? Did they agree what everyone would be playing? I am not a musician, but it seems like tempos and time signatures do not match. Or is the whole point that they didn't agree to anything upfront and it still somehow works? Are they all actually playing in B-flat?
PaulStatezny said a month ago:
To answer your question, let's consider the ways in which the videos do _not_ work together:
- They're not playing in the same tempo
- They're not playing the same note lengths
- They're not necessarily playing notes in the same chords
It's somewhat analogous to sitting down at a piano, holding down the sustain pedal (so that all the notes played ring out for a long time), and just playing notes in the same key. (Say, all the white keys.)
It "works" because the notes are in the same key. But note that we're not making music with any kind of groove or consistent beat. It's more like an ethereal, improvised holding out of a single chord.
TL;DR – "Or is the whole point that they didn't agree to anything upfront and it still somehow works?" Yes :)
I imagine that part of the selection process was ensuring the Bb videos were all in-tune. I'm imagine there were many videos rejected because they were out-of-tune.
coldtea said a month ago:
Given modern trivial access to tuners, it's not that difficult to find in-tune performances...
recursive said a month ago:
> In Bb doesn't run properly on mobile devices. Please use a laptop/desktop. If you'd like to try anyway please click OK.
But I am running this on a laptop.
saghm said a month ago:
Laptops can be pretty mobile; maybe try a bulkier one?
sp332 said a month ago:
And it worked fine on my phone (Firefox on Android).
martyvis said a month ago:
It works fine on Chrome on Pixel as well
betweenness said a month ago:
I enjoyed playing with this. On a different note, do you gather data about the different ways visitors play the videos?
epiccoleman said a month ago:
God, I love this kind of thing. Beautiful!
scrumper said a month ago:
That was MUCH better than I would have expected. Really beautiful 15 minutes.
bmacho said a month ago:
I don't have individual volume slides, do you all have them?
drivingmenuts said a month ago:
For a moment, I felt like Philip Glass. Thanks!
ta988 said a month ago:
Getting some Godspeed you Black Emperor vibes
nickradford said a month ago:
This brought a smile to my face :D
gnrlst said a month ago:
This was a delightful experience
ziofill said a month ago:
<3
cglendenning said a month ago:
I am deeply offended by the key of Bb. </dryhumor>
52 Comments:
I really enjoyed these 3 together:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lOSfM2V8EkI
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HB7NxVpskI0
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PmKWkiDAm5k
Great atmosphere. Makes me think of a good video game soundtrack. Interestingly they don't sound good if you only play 2 of them, you need all 3 to pull the harmony together.
I'll save time for anyone who just wanted to play the videos mentioned above from the linked page.
A4, B2, C4
Interesting, my first interpretation was letters for rows and numbers for columns, but apparently you noted it the other way around.
The Excel notation :)
Really lovely idea and brilliant execution.
For people who don't get the reference, one of the defining pieces of the Minimalist movement in 20th century music[1] was "In C" by Terry Riley[2]. Minimalist pieces often (but don't always) include elements of non-determinsm like in this.
[1] Minimalism here doesn't mean "not many notes" it means deliberately restricting the range of harmonic and rhythmic materials available to the composer. Steve Reich, Philip Glass, John Adams, and Arvo Part represent well-known composers with very different takes on the style if you want to check out more.
[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/In_C to read about "In C" or try https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tbTn79x-mrI&pp=ygUQaW4gYyB0Z... as an example performance.
>For people who don't get the reference, one of the defining pieces of the Minimalist movement in 20th century music[1] was "In C" by Terry Riley
So they missed the opportunity to call this "In B#".
"In Bb" that is?
B# == C.
I assume B# was intentional in that comment.
Agreed! Such a lovely simple effective idea.
Also reminds me of https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Po%C3%A8me_symphonique
This reminds me of "Quiet City" by Aaron Copeland.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=FBAB8jHAhdw
> Minimalism here doesn't mean "not many notes" it means deliberately restricting the range of harmonic and rhythmic materials available to the composer
This is not necessarily what minimalism means. Minimalism is just an abstraction for certain kinds of art, possibly with various incompatible techniques. For some artists (not just musicians, but also painters, poets etc) minimalism means "repetition"-ism i.e. art with excessive amount of repetition to the point that you'd normally expect it to be "boring" but it somehow uses it to its favor with rhythmic, harmonic, or formal techniques. Philip Glass is the pioneer of this idea in music, and I personally consider him one of the most creative and groundbreaking artists ever lived. His music is very tonal, "simple" and repetitive in his oeuvre (i.e. repetition not just in one work, but repetition among his body of works like minimalist painters Mondrian and Rothko) which makes him a very very controversial musician, some critics considering him a charlatan. To me, he's a Schoenbergian figure who is making a bombastic and over-the-top artistic statement by going against the current of his artistic tradition while remaining firmly in it. Similarly, Schoenberg was also considered a charlatan during his life, especially early on.
For those interested, I recommend this composition: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TKJoQ8BfQhw (full on spotify, sorry)
Oh also if you ever think "classical music doesn't have a cultural force anymore" please pay attention to contemporary film music that's not neo-romanticist. You'll see that there is tons of minimalist influence from Glass, Reich, Andriessen, Richter etc...
How does this relate to Schoenberg?
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Twelve-tone_technique
Or to the whole of impressionism in music?
"In 1912, the French composer Ernest Fanelli (1860–1917) received significant attention and coverage in the Parisian press following a performance of a symphonic poem he wrote in 1886, titled Thèbes, incorporating elements associated with Impressionism, such as extended chords and whole-tone scales.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Impressionism_in_music
Writing in 1958, the critic Rudolph Reti summarised six features of Debussy's music, which he asserted "established a new concept of tonality in European music": the frequent use of lengthy pedal points – "not merely bass pedals in the actual sense of the term, but sustained 'pedals' in any voice"; glittering passages and webs of figurations which distract from occasional absence of tonality; frequent use of parallel chords which are "in essence not harmonies at all, but rather 'chordal melodies', enriched unisons", described by some writers as non-functional harmonies; bitonality, or at least bitonal chords; use of the whole-tone and pentatonic scales; and unprepared modulations, "without any harmonic bridge". Reti concludes that Debussy's achievement was the synthesis of monophonic based "melodic tonality" with harmonies, albeit different from those of "harmonic tonality".
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Claude_Debussy
> Oh also if you ever think "classical music doesn't have a cultural force anymore" please pay attention to contemporary film music that's not neo-romanticist. You'll see that there is tons of minimalist influence from Glass, Reich, Andriessen, Richter etc...
And music from horror movies and battle scenes if you want to hear the contemporary influence of serialism and new complexity.
that reminds me Nyman's "In Re Don Giovanni"
Related:
In B-Flat - 15941838 - Dec 2017 (43 comments)
I remember showing this to a roommate's mom over a decade ago. She wondered aloud if it was like The Emperor's New Clothes or if we simply didn't understand music well enough to know why we shouldn't enjoy this.
I still like it, whatever it says about me.
I like it too. It's an experiment in musical texture -- not to downplay the curation involved in getting a nice mix of instruments, which I'm sure took some skill.
To me, it's a bit similar to Skrillex or Rite of Spring, both of which I like almost completely because of their texture. If you like it, if you don't, that's fine -- no need to be prescriptivist about it. At the end of the day it's all just vibrations.
What suggests that you shouldn't like it?
The assumption that enjoying art should come from (at least some amount) the artists effort. There are a ton of exceptions, like enjoying nature, but "random" music shouldn't be as enjoyable as pieces created by human hours of experts.
Best thing I've seen on the internet this year
Doesn't run on mobile, which is fine not everything has to. But could someone describe the page for those of us who can't right now?
It's a grid of Youtube videos, each of someone playing a musical instrument of various sorts (electric guitar, piano, clarinet, marimba, muted trumpet, voice, KAOSS synth pad, a Nintendo DS), making music in the key of B-flat major. The instructions are to start the videos at any time and in any order. By doing so, the audio of each overlays each other and since they are all in tune with each other, it all sounds like the timing could have been intentional. Each video is about 90 seconds long and you can press play again on each to repeat it if you like.
It reminds me (presumably intentionally) of Terry Riley's "In C" in which any number of musicians on any instruments perform together on stage. All following the same tempo, they each have a set of music giving several dozen short sequences of notes. They each, individually, decide when to come in, how many times to repeat each sequence, and when to move on to the next sequence. As the piece continues, the soundscape is constantly evolving in an unpredictable way, but always in tune with each other and pleasant in its harmony. Each time it's performed, even by all the same musicians, then, it sounds different, yet the same. It's a really fascinating piece and if you get the chance to see it performed live, I highly recommend it, because it's a lot of fun to watch the musicians themselves experience the performance and feed off each other.
Check out this YouTube search for a variety of live performances: https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=in+c+live
Thanks for your insightful answer. I've long been a fan of In C and various performances so I'll certainly be looking forward to experiencing this tonight.
On my Pixel 6A + Firefox it says it doesn't run but runs fine if I click through the dialog.
It's a grid of youtube embeds linking videos of people playing simple, improvised sequences in Bb on different instruments. They can be played in different orders, combinations and overlaps to create different textures.
It is a grid of embedded YouTube videos, each one of which including "in B-flat" or "in Bb" in the title (and so are pretty much all someone playing some random song on some random instrument... in B-flat).
Can someone please explain why does this work? Did they agree what everyone would be playing? I am not a musician, but it seems like tempos and time signatures do not match. Or is the whole point that they didn't agree to anything upfront and it still somehow works? Are they all actually playing in B-flat?
To answer your question, let's consider the ways in which the videos do _not_ work together:
- They're not playing in the same tempo
- They're not playing the same note lengths
- They're not necessarily playing notes in the same chords
It's somewhat analogous to sitting down at a piano, holding down the sustain pedal (so that all the notes played ring out for a long time), and just playing notes in the same key. (Say, all the white keys.)
It "works" because the notes are in the same key. But note that we're not making music with any kind of groove or consistent beat. It's more like an ethereal, improvised holding out of a single chord.
TL;DR – "Or is the whole point that they didn't agree to anything upfront and it still somehow works?" Yes :)
Even shorter TL;DR: It's Youtube wind chimes.
Just use the black keys.
Pentatonic scale :)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:B-flat_instruments
I imagine that part of the selection process was ensuring the Bb videos were all in-tune. I'm imagine there were many videos rejected because they were out-of-tune.
Given modern trivial access to tuners, it's not that difficult to find in-tune performances...
> In Bb doesn't run properly on mobile devices. Please use a laptop/desktop. If you'd like to try anyway please click OK.
But I am running this on a laptop.
Laptops can be pretty mobile; maybe try a bulkier one?
And it worked fine on my phone (Firefox on Android).
It works fine on Chrome on Pixel as well
I enjoyed playing with this. On a different note, do you gather data about the different ways visitors play the videos?
God, I love this kind of thing. Beautiful!
That was MUCH better than I would have expected. Really beautiful 15 minutes.
I don't have individual volume slides, do you all have them?
For a moment, I felt like Philip Glass. Thanks!
Getting some Godspeed you Black Emperor vibes
This brought a smile to my face :D
This was a delightful experience
<3
I am deeply offended by the key of Bb. </dryhumor>
If you get one more note wrong, we'll all be flat