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Lilypond: Free, Beautiful Music Notation Engraving for Anyone

Friday, May 14th, 2010

Quick: you need to produce a music score. It needs to look really great. The deadline is looming. You’ve lost your serial number for [insert program here]. What do you do? The answer might surprise you.

Lilypond is something of a cult secret in music notation circles. It’s free software for high-quality computer engraving, it runs on any platform (Mac, Windows, Linux), and it produces exceptionally good-looking output, often exceeding leading commercial programs in particularly tricky notational situations. But it could easily scare off beginners, because it isn’t necessarily graphical software. The tool generates its output from text files, a bit like the way in which a Web page is rendered from an HTML file.

What beginners don’t know is that text entry doesn’t have to be slower or more daunting – especially if you choose a tool that assists you in the entry process.

Lilypond’s language for basic music entry is actually reasonably simple. If you want a g flat, for instance, you just type “gf.” (Note: you will probably need to adjust Lilypond for your native language to get an abbreviation for “flat” that makes sense to you! Hint: “flat” is in English.) To change rhythmic durations, you use a number, so two eights followed by two quarter notes would look like “c8 d e4 f.” Because it’s text-based, you can be explicit about what you want, which avoids some of the pitfalls of graphical entry methods. If text is to be attached to a specific note, you specify which note in your text file. Most importantly, this means that entering and arranging notation doesn’t get any harder as the score becomes more involved. For complex measures with densely-packed material, or tricky notations from early music to modern composition, Lilypond continues to handle layout and rendering automatically, without intervention – just at the point many graphical programs will have you pulling out your hair.

Lilypond “Switch” How-to Crash Course

Entry itself can therefore move really fast, especially if you like to sketch out an idea on paper (or in a MIDI file) first. I recently completed my first score in Lilypond, and was surprised that – after the initial hour or two of entry – I started to really like it. Getting the first few bars in was a bit tricky as I got the hang of entry, but then, to my surprise, finishing the score went as fast or faster than it had in other programs.

Find the Right Tools

That isn’t to say you won’t want some help. Music notation is always involved, because of the sheer quantity of notational conventions used – even for fairly simple musical contexts. And while text entry makes copying fast, you’re likely to want some MIDI playback and entry assistance. In fact, I’d wager the quality of your experience with Lilypond will depend on choosing a front-end tool you like.

I experimented with various tools on my Ubuntu install, including some graphical programs that can read and write Lilypad files. If anyone is interested, there are a number of programs I can recommend you don’t use. In the end, I found that what I wanted was essentially a text editor – so I could take advantage of the speed of Lilypond’s text-based language – but with plenty of shortcuts so that I’d never get lost trying to look up how to input a symbol.

Frescobaldi was a real pleasure to use, if you have a Linux install. (That’s the case for now; efforts to port KDE and Python should mean Mac and Windows versions aren’t far off.) It’ll install a lot of dependencies on a stock Ubuntu install because it relies on KDE, but it’s a nice all-in-one tool. A PDF preview accompanies your text so you can see what you’re doing, and by clicking on a note, you jump to the correct place in the text. There’s instant access to online help and notational references. The nicest feature is perhaps the MIDI input using Rumor, which worked out of the box with an M-Audio USB MIDI keyboard I connected.

Frescobaldi

The other best-of-class tool I found is none other than omni-platform text editor jEdit, with the LilyPondTool add-on (Mac, Windows, Linux). (Thanks to a Twitter friend for the tip; thanks to Twitter’s terrible archiving, I’ve lost who you are, so say hi in comments?)

Grab jEdit, and perform two steps:

1. De-uglify jEdit. Yes, that default skin is hideous, and doesn’t look like any OS you’ve seen in the past ten years. Choose Utilities > Global Options > Appearance > Swing look & feel, and set it to something native for your OS. Reboot, and take a deep breath.

2. Install the plug-in. Incredibly, it’s a default option. Choose Plugins > Plugin Manager > Install > LilyPondTool.

jEdit’s LilyPondTool does a lot of what Frescobaldi does, with wizards for setting up scores and changing parameters and various clickable shortcuts. But it benefits from putting this functionality inside an extensible, standard text editor, which means you can do anything with LilyPondTool that you can with jEdit. And there are simply more options – there are more quick menu shortcuts for symbols, tweaks, and all the other little things you have to do in notation that you don’t realize you have to do until you get halfway through a score. That makes LilyPondTool a bit friendlier to beginners. It doesn’t have MIDI input as Frescobaldi does, but it does have MIDI playback. You even get nice tools for making templates and OpenOffice-based hyphenation of lyrics, plus a virtual on-screen keyboard to aid with entry.

http://www.jedit.org/
LilyPondTool

One part of the process I didn’t quite work out was the best MIDI import tool. There’s a simple Python script that ships with the Lilypond distribution, and it can be called from tools like jEdit+LilyPondTool. But converting MIDI to notation isn’t a simple task in any tool, so I’d have to research this further. Doing note entry in a proper MIDI sequencer, then adjusting the engraving in a Lilypond editor like jEdit or Frescobaldi seems a terrific workflow, though, if anyone has found a process that works for them.

What you might miss…

So, how does a free tool like Lilypond stack up against the newest version of, say, Sibelius?

Even if you’re a seasoned Sibelius user, I highly recommend doing at least one score in Lilypond, as it’ll give you a window into how Sibelius works, and the issues that arise in computer notation. I believe Lilypond may have even helped influence modern versions of Sibelius with its approach to engraving, though that’s only from memory – don’t quote me on that.

You will see some advantages of Sibelius. Sibelius’ graphical layout means there’s no separation between what you see and what you edit, and one big edge of the Sibelius engine from the beginning has been its ability to reflow even huge scores almost instantly. That visual process could become part of your compositional workflow, too, with on-screen clipboards for ideas and quick playback of ideas. Sibelius has also done a lot recently with DAW-style tools for MIDI, live tempo tapping, integration with ReWire, and so on. That makes Sibelius a powerful tool for creating high-quality playback right in the score.

Nice as Lilypond is, I certainly have an easier time imagining teaching students notation with Sibelius than with a text editor.

Advantages of the Lilypond approach

I commonly hear odd, defensive barbs about free software, especially in the music community. People will casually drop statements like, “but the open source community doesn’t innovate. They just rip off commercial software. And it’s just not as good.” As near as I can figure, this entire argument is often based on one or two bad experiences with OpenOffice a few years ago.

Now, some of this defensiveness comes from the fair perception that discussion of free software often centers more on philosophy than practicality. And there, I agree. Software is a tool. Philosophy matters, but you ought to be able to look at tools in more or less objective terms. You ought to be able to like using the tool.

Lilypond is a perfect counter-example. It is innovative software, period; now well over a decade old, it’s well-respected in the engraving community. I’ve been surprised to find out how many people use it, and they do so because it saves them time and headaches and they like the output.

It’s also just plain different from the commercial offerings. Its free nature means it can do things that commercial software doesn’t even try to do. (Can you imagine a major vendor unveiling a text-only notation app? Didn’t think so.)

As with any design, this means some trade-offs. They aren’t as simple as “Sibelius and Finale are for casual users; Lilypond is for hard-core geeks.” On the contrary, I found some real advantages.

Text input means backup, file exchange, and tracking revisions becomes a whole lot easier. Lilypond’s output is more like traditional engraved scores than anything I’ve seen from Sibelius or Finale, even when swapping fonts in those packages. Lilypond is uniquely equipped for doing early music notation; it makes a lot of alternative notations as easy as modern notation. Sure, that sounds like an “advanced” feature, but it’s an “entry level” feature if you happen to perform or research early music.

Also, despite improvements to things like Sibelius’ “magnetic layout” and other automated features, I find that even the newest versions of these apps still require a lot of tweaking after the fact. Lilypond still requires “subjective” tweaks – adding a page break where you want one, for instance – but I tried some tests with bars of music that broke my favorite commercial tools, and Lilypond was very hard to stump. There’s also the simple fact of the matter that with graphical tools, it’s easier to screw up the notation yourself, by attaching text to the wrong note or dragging something slightly out of place. Those changes are hidden in the graphical view, too, whereas they’re explicit in the textual score.

I don’t think one approach is necessarily better than the other. The point is, you need both. Something like Sibelius or Finale is just not going to evolve in free software. But something like Lilypond isn’t going to evolve in commercial software.

You also don’t have to choose one or the other. Thanks to MusicXML, an interchange format, you can exchange files between Sibelius or Finale and Lilypond easily. If you work a lot with scores, it’s worth a download – and the price is right.

And I don’t believe Lilypond is “for geeks only.” Give yourself a simple job, like a lead sheet, and pick a solid tool. Give it a real try, with a couple of evenings to get used to the language. I think whether you like the results will have more to do with personal preference. But I’m glad Lilypond exists, and I think you may find it’s something you want to add to your arsenal, even if that arsenal also includes one of these other tools.

For good measure, here’s a visualization of the open source contributions to the project.

code_swarm: LilyPond apr 23, 2010 v2 from Paco Vila on Vimeo.

Keep up with news from the project, and some good tips, at:
http://news.lilynet.net/

Share your experience

If you want to give this a try, I recommend both the jEdit and (for Linux) Frescobaldi routes. Each has links to Lilypond tutorials and documentation right in the program. I’ll try to work out a quick tutorial at some point, too; I’m planning a bigger set of scores and am going to give Lilypond the old college try.

Worked with Lilypond? Found a tutorial that helped you out? Got some tips? Trying it out and need help? Do share.

By the way, that score I worked on will be premiering as part of a party with operatic and musical theater types Monday in New York. Alongside digital music made by computers, it’s nice to get to work with humans, too, which is why I suspect notation will be with us for a long time to come.

New music party, NYC, Monday night 5/17

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Turntable-Based, Kinetic Sound Sculptures and Instruments

Thursday, April 8th, 2010

Works For Turntable from Stephen Cornford on Vimeo.

Digital sound, and electronic sound in general, can become abstract. In fact, sound itself can be abstract. So there’s something beautiful about rendering sound as something kinetic, mechanical, and physical. Watch the hypnotic works by Stephen Cornford, top; as the video progresses, the pieces deepen in subtlety. (Thanks to Richard Devine for spotting this one.)

Cornford isn’t the only artist finding new sonic frontiers in the turntable. From a recent event in San Francisco sponsored by our friends at MAKE Magazine, artist Walter Kitundu talks about his own fascination with the turntable and other sonic projects.

Exploratorium multimedia artist, instrument builder, and birder extraordinaire Walter Kitundu talks about his work: he shares the staggering breadth of his work, ranging from a multitude of turntable-based instruments to shadow paintings, and to finish gives a premiere performance on his brand new instruments, a digital kora.

That’s just one video at an event that also included digital music software artist Ge Wang and acoustic instrument maker Krys Bobrowski. Youngsters at the event also got to solder contact mics and go experiment in the space – a nice idea, and one I hope we exploit for an upcoming Handmade Music Night (here in NYC, but elsewhere, too). I have my own preferred quick-and-dirty Radio Shack contact mic procedure, but if anyone has other ideas, pipe up.

Well worth checking out the whole event – and nice that they shot high-quality video.
Open MAKE at the Exploratorium: Exploring sound

Meet the Makers: Walter Kitundu from Learning Studio on Vimeo.

Link:
Turntable-Based, Kinetic Sound Sculptures and Instruments

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LA, NY: Learn Control + Interfacing with OSC, Arduino, Pd, Processing

Tuesday, April 6th, 2010

Joshue Ott’s Multidraw in action, as an Apple mobile provides wireless, collaborative drawing for anyone. Today, iPhone/iPod touch/iPad, but tomorrow, more computers and devices will be supported. Come learn more in NY, using free (as in freedom) tools – or choose open source tactile controls in LA – or stick around for more online.

For computers, digital tech means the ability to turn anything into numbers. For humans, it means a chance to translate between gestures, ideas, sounds, and images. We can interface with musical, visual creations intuitively and collaboratively – now with ubiquitous, cheap touch and electronics. Two events take on that idea on the two coasts of the US; if you’re nearby, hopefully you can drop by, and if not, we’ll have plenty to share.

Multi-user Art, Networked OSC Workshops in NYC

Here in New York, mobile touch is put to the test in a gallery show in Brooklyn, with two workshops that can help you make your own work. Multi-User Art (image, top) uses the open platform mrmr and OSC protocol to allow visitors with mobile devices to manipulate installations. Step up, and a layout of controls is automatically pushed to your device, so you can push buttons, slide faders, draw, and otherwise control what you see — even with multiple users at a time. (For now, we’re stuck with the iPhone/iPod touch/iPad only, but I’m working on Android and browser-based ports for anyone interested.)

The artwork includes installations by myself, by mrmr creator Eric Redlinger, Superdraw artist Joshue Ott, and, using mirrors and light in place of projection, Chris Jordan. They range from three-dimensional, collaborative drawing to reflected light to moonscapes. The opening is free on Friday night:

But what if you want to learn to harness some of these same tools in your own work? We have two workshops Saturday, too.

Friday, 4/9: Opening, free – 7p; see exhibition information

Saturday, 4/10
11a-12p, free, Eric Redlinger presents an introduction to mrmr, a demonstration of how to use an iPod touch, iPhone, or iPad for control via OSC.

1p-4p, Joshue Ott and I will teach an in-depth workshop on using OSC for networked communication with free tools, focusing on Processing and Pure Data. We’ll talk about how Zeroconf (implemented by Apple as Bonjour) can create zero-configuration, automatic connections – no IP numbers to type. We’ll look at how you can use OSC to make software and hardware communicate across networks, for sound and visuals. And we’ll talk about how you can use tools like mrmr on mobile devices. $75. Class information, signup required!

All information:
Devotion Gallery, Brooklyn

monome, Arduino. Photo (CC) LA’s workshop teacher, soundcyst.

Physical Controls with Arduino, Max, Pd in LA

Touch controls a bit too insubstantial for you? Prefer the tactile feel of a physical encoder in your hand? We’ve got you covered there, too.

Kevin Nelson writes us to share some new events he’s setting up at LA’s new CrashSpace hackerspace. (About time LA got a new, proper hack spot!)

There’s a free workshop Wednesday, using Max (though translating to other environments like Pd shouldn’t be hard), plus a more advanced intensive in May. Details:

First, I’m going to be giving a high-level talk this Wednesday, April 7 at 8pm on using a Monome to control things in the real world by integrating an Arduino with Max/MSP. The talk is free for members of the space, with a $10 suggested donation for non-members.

Flamethrowers! Arduinos! Monomes! This Wednesday, April 7th [CrashSpace]

Second, I’ll be teaching a course on building user interfaces with the Arduino and dataflow languages (I’m trying to make the emphasis on pd because it’s open source, but depending on the audience, Max and Max for Live might slip in there too). The curriculum and description haven’t been posted yet, but should be done and up by the end of the week.

The basic idea of the course is to target musicians who have dabbled in electronics and give them the tools necessary to empower themselves to build their own interfaces and instruments. It’s a two day intensive (8+ hrs/day) on May 15 and 16. We’ll be covering basic electronics & sensors, Arduino programming, serial communication between Arduino and pd/Max, and basic pd patching for midi routing or sound generation. The course is $150 for CrashSpace members, and $250 for non-members, and both prices include an Arduino and selection of sensors & misc components for the project.

http://csarduinodataflow.eventbrite.com/

What’s the Best Way to Document?

What do you prefer for documentation of these courses, for those of you not in NY or LA who want to follow along at home? (And hey, I can’t be accused of being too specialized geography-wise — I’m teaching a similar course in Portugal this spring.)

I’ve (ahem) sometimes promised more documentation than I’ve actually delivered, but in the meantime, I have been gradually refining some examples in Processing, Pd, and the like, so I’m feeling less shy about sharing them.

Suggestions? The more specific, the more likely I am to implement them. What do you want to see? In what format? Any sites you’ve found useful for this sort of sharing?

The more we can share this sort of specific knowledge, the more we as a community can help each other build our skills.

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LA, NY: Learn Control + Interfacing with OSC, Arduino, Pd, Processing

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The Glitch Mob: Tour, Free Single Download, Multiple Laptops + Lemurs

Thursday, March 25th, 2010

The Glitch Mob, live at El Loco, Valencia. Photo (CC-BY-NC) Maxime Dodinet. Used by permission.

The Glitch Mob are one of electronic sound’s great ensembles, experts at blending sonic influences as they are at bringing together the force of their talented personnel. Their popularity has been almost viral, one of those rare, genuinely live acts in digital music. Triple-teaming live performance, they attack Lemur multi-touch screens, turning them into sonic battle axes. (That’s to say nothing of the solo lives of the members, impressive on their own.)

Thanks to the trio’s openness about what they do, we’ve got the works for you here: music for free listening, a behind-the-scenes look at some of the challenges of playing laptop music together as an ensemble, and images of how the Lemur touch performance is assembled that could apply to other touch (or tactile) interfaces. And if you’re in the US, there are opportunities below to see them live.

This spring is a big moment for the, uh … Glitchers. (Mobsters?) They have an epic debut album on the way, one of May’s most anticipated releases. It’s entitled Drink The Sea, coming out on their own Glass Air label. In support of that, they’re also mounting a big US tour, fusing sound and vision – dates below. It’s a chance both for musical and technological inspiration, wherever your own aesthetic may lead you.

Images courtesy The Glitch Mob.

Free Single, Upcoming Album

“Drive It Like You Stole It,” the first single, is free, courtesy the band, so you can give it a listen and let us know what you think. (I am definitely pumping that track as I drive my Chevy Aveo out of the rental lot at LAX next time I’m in your town, guys. Nothing like ghetto-blasting in a crap GM rental car.) It’s just a taste of the album to come, but nicely wrangles some thickly-arrayed synth stacks and big percussion. Yes, this is American music in the triumphantly-proud Obama era.

driveitlikeyoustoleit.mp3

The band nods to the LA musical epicenter from which their work emanates. From the press release:

According to Boreta, Drink The Sea certainly reflects the pioneering, individualist spirit of their home base. “Everyone around us from the West Coast—Flying Lotus, Nosaj Thing, Daedelus, Eprom—has their own distinctive sound. We all seem to want to break boundaries, but everybody has their own lane, which is what makes it so exciting.”

They’re great, approachable guys, so I’ll be talking to them more.

I’ll be curious to hear the rest of the album, because the band seems like such an essentially live performance-based band, and it’s always tough to translate that experience. That is, it’s a challenge, but the kind of challenge worth exploring.

Behind the Scenes: Playing Together

If this were just a music blog, the story would end there, but of course the advantage we have on CDM – and the chance to go beyond our own tastes and stylistic differences as musicians – is that we’re all wrestling with the same technology. In case you’re wondering how these guys get three laptop artists playing together onstage, it’s a problem that poses its own challenges.

edIT and Boreta joined me onstage to talk about some of those challenges, and how their approach to simultaneous performance and sync have evolved. We got to look at the state of technology, warts and all. Here’s the full video (skip past the introductions for the bit where they talk about how they’ve managed to clear some technological hurdles involved with multiple people playing laptop music together):

I hope to look more at some of the sync issues later this year; suffice to say, there are some new developments that could assist, as there are cases for which putting everyone on the same laptop might not be the best solution.

But that is just one aspect. What’s impressive to me about the band is that they’re able to make touchscreen performance really work, thanks to strong ensemble playing and terrific presence. A look at their Lemur layout reveals it’s all kept pretty simple and big – good to know if you’re attempting something similar, on a Lemur, iPad, or other device. Here are some images to give you a sense of what they do, courtesy the band.

A glimpse of the Lemur screen

One of the Lemur screen layouts. There are several layouts, but they all have one thing in common: stuff is big. That allows big, performative gestures.

For more on the Lemur setup, there’s a great interview at Jazz Mutant’s site (who are, naturally, happy to talk about what The Glitch Mob are doing with the touchscreens):

http://www.jazzmutant.com/artists_glitchmob.php

And lastly, a video of the setup process.

Actually, if someone has a good video of the recent performance sets, using the Lemur rig (or even older sets), I had trouble finding any good takes. Let us know in comments.

Got questions for the Mob (musical and creative, as well as technical)? Let us know; I hope to talk to them soon and to catch them here in NYC as they swing through.

The tour:
The Glitch Mob US Tour Dates
MAR 27 – MIAMI, FL @ ULTRA MUSIC FESTIVAL
APR 18 – INDIO, CA @ COACHELLA MUSIC FESTIVAL

MAY 1 – CHICAGO, IL @ DOUBLE DOOR
MAY 2 – DETROIT, MI @ MAJESTIC THEATRE
MAY 3 – CLEVELAND, OH @ GROG SHOP
MAY 4 – TORONTO, ON @ WRONG BAR
MAY 5 – BOSTON, MA @ MIDDLE EAST
MAY 7 – NEW YORK, NY @ HIGHLINE BALLROOM
MAY 8 – BALTIMORE, MD @ BOURBON STREET BALLROOM
MAY 9 – RICHMOND, VA @ HAT FACTORY
MAY 10 – GREENSBORO, NC @ GREENE STREET CLUB
MAY 12 – ASHEVILLE, NC @ CLUB 828
MAY 13 – KNOXVILLE, TN @ VALARIUM
MAY 14 – NASHVILLE, TN @ LIMELIGHT
MAY 15 – ATHENS, GA @ NEW EARTH MUSIC HALL
MAY 16 – ATLANTA, GA @ MASQUERADE
MAY 18 – MOBILE, AL @ ALABAMA MUSIC BOX
MAY 20 – NEW ORLEANS, LA @ HOUSE OF BLUES
MAY 21 – HOUSTON, TX @ RICH’S
MAY 22 – AUSTIN, TX @ LA ZONA ROSA
MAY 23 – DALLAS, TX @ TREES
MAY 25 – OKLAHOMA CITY, OK @ CITY WALK
MAY 27 – ST. LOUIS, MO @ 2720
MAY 28 – KANSAS CITY, MO @ CONSPIRACY ROOM
MAY 29 – MORRISON, CO @ RED ROCKS AMPHITHEATRE
JUN 02 – VICTORIA @ SUGAR
JUN 03 – VANCOUVER @ VENUE
JUN 04 – PORTLAND, OR @ ROSELAND THEATER
JUN 05 – SEATTLE, WA @ SHOWBOX MARKET
JUN 06 – ARCATA, CA @ ARCATA THEATRE
JUN 09 – SANTA CRUZ, CA @ CATALYST
JUN 12 – SAN FRANCISCO, CA @ FILLMORE AUDITORIUM
More Dates TBA

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Worldwide Busking Event Turns Street Music into School-Building Power for Zambia

Monday, March 22nd, 2010

Could busking – street music performance – be a tool for social change? It’s an idea I’ve heard artists mull before. Here’s one opportunity to do just that next month, in April, in support of building badly-needed school facilities in southern Zambia. And yes, digital musicians can participate, thanks to terrific, affordable, battery-powered amplification.

I do hope this could launch a discussion, though, on how to organize this kind of action, and how to make busking work for good.

Ben Matthews, founder of the charity, writes:

LearnAsOne,a UK-based charity dedicated to funding schools in Africa, announces the launch of its first annual BuskAsOne, a week of busking events around the world from 19-25 April 2010. The charity is hoping to raise £22,800 to help build schools in rural Zambia.

The busk is open to any musician, singer or instrumentalist, so if any readers of Creative Digital Music would be interested in joining in with BuskAsOne, they should register at www.learnasone.org/busk where they will find all the tips and guidance they need for a safe, hassle-free busk.

In July, the LearnAsOne team will return to Zambia and share stories, photos and videos from the schools to show it supporters exactly how the funds they raised are spent.

The communities that LearnAsOne work with are extremely dedicated. They are happy to make tens of thousands of bricks by hand and contribute labour for free to give their children the opportunity to go to school. But they can’t afford raw materials such as cement, roofing sheets and windows. This is where the busking money comes in. £22,800 will allow LearnAsOne to fund four new buildings – two new classrooms and two teacher’s houses. This will secure the education of 60 children every year.

The video at top features an orphaned eight-year old young woman who must walk 14 km every day to attend her school.

I had some follow-up questions for Ben:

Why the connection with music specifically?
At LearnAsOne we try to come up with fundraising ideas that allow people to take part in things they enjoy and also raise money to fund schools at the same time. There’s WalkAsOne, a series of sponsored walks for people who are active. BakeAsOne, a month of cakes sales, for those who like their baking. And BuskAsOne, for musicians.

What do you think the role of musicians can be in this case?
The main role is to help raise funds to build new classrooms and teachers’ houses at Simakakata in southern Zambia. But there is also another way musicians can help. We believe that everyone who donates has the right to see their money in action, so we use our website to share stories, photos and videos from every community we work. By displaying a poster while they are busking, or mentioning our website on their blog, MySpace or twitter feed musicians can ensure donors see the difference their spare change will make in Zambia.

Is there some sense that this kind of support for schools can eventually lead to self-sufficient school construction funding in places like Zambia?
Self-sufficient school construction is unfortunately just a dream at the moment. The Zambian government simply doesn’t have enough budget to construct all the schools the country needs, which is why many communities rely on the support of NGOs such as LearnAsOne.

Our aim is to fund schools in a sustainable way. We only work with resourceful communities who can prove they really want a school. At Simakakata they had made 60,000 bricks by hand before we first met them, and the community are happy to provide labour for free. But they simply cannot afford the raw materials such as cement, windows and roofing sheets. That’s where the busking money comes in.

After the construction is completed the school will become self-sufficient in many ways. If there are proper classrooms and teachers’ houses the government will provide trained teachers for free. And as the teachers arrive the government is more likely to provide the school with text books they need. Our goal is simply to provide the infrastructure the school requires and then move on to help another community. And then another.

More on Busking?

I discussed some of this project with our friend and artist Onyx Ashanti, who has himself reflected on ideas for how busking could work as aid. He noted that you may need to do some more research here, like working out how to get charity status or get around noise ordinances. (Here in NYC, for instance, you can’t just go out on the street right away, though it’d be interesting to combine this with established outdoor performance events.)

There are also questions of how to establish financial accountability.

This is a great start, though; I hope it inspires some conversations about the role of busking, ways in which street performance can be de-marginalized throughout the world, and ways in which that art can better support artists and other causes. And if you do decide to participate in this event, let us know. Electronic music has deep ties to street performance, from the roots of many or our musical idioms to the one man band tradition. It’s about time to re-forge that connection.

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Musical Sewing Machines, Electronic Honky-Tonk, and Handmade Music NYC Monday

Friday, March 5th, 2010

Sewing together music: designer and techno-textile artist Lara Grant constructs music with a modded sewing machine and Max. Lara is one of the artists playing Handmade Music in New York next week; stay tuned here for more behind the scenes of what those folks are doing. Photo (CC-BY-SA) See-ming Lee.

Before evolutionary adaptation comes mutation. Some of the weirdest stuff, in other words, could be the future – just ask biology. That was the conversation I had with folks like artist Rosa Menkman in Old Amsterdam (the one in Holland). So, as we gather back in New Amsterdam (NYC), we get a chance to celebrate the unusual.

Wherever you are in the world, here’s a look at some of those new mutations: a sewing machine converted into a musical instrument, an expressive audiovisual instrument borrowing ideas from the trumpet, and an electro-country band that covers classic honky-tonk American hits.

If you are in the sliver of our audience who live in the NYC area, of course, you can catch these folks live in a variety show-meets-science fair format. We don’t charge admission for the weird, and you can buy beer. Thanks to our new home at Galapagos Art Space, the NYC edition of Handmade Music can offer a proper stage and a lineup of live performances, along with the noisemaking and friendly atmosphere.

Live, Monday, March 8
Where: Galapagos Art Space, DUMBO Brooklyn [directions]
When: Doors open 7p
Cost: FREE
Highlights online for the rest of the planet here, later

Augmented Sewing Machine + Ensemble

Circuit Bending Orchestra: Lara Grant at Diana Eng’s Fairytale Fashion Show, Eyebeam NYC / SML from See-ming Lee ??? SML on Vimeo.

Lara Grant’s Augmented Sewing Machine, entitled “16TH AND MISSION,” takes the workings of the device and transforms it into musical control. Contact between needle and fabric and onboard switches and knobs (with help from Arduino and Max/MSP) make it a novel controller.

Lara joins myself and Matt Ganucheau providing additional electronic sounds (and possibly a surprise DIY creation or two from me), forming three quarters of the ensemble we formed to play a wearable technology fashion show. The Fairytale Fashion show, by Diana Eng, is documented below by MAKE’s/Adafruit’s Phil Torrone, with our group’s live (PA) music in the background. (See also an extensive photoblog of the designs by designer-technology See-ming Lee.)

fairytale fashion 2010 from adafruit industries on Vimeo.

Missing but rejoining me next week in San Francisco is Lara’s sister Sarah Grant. Together, the Grant Sisters work on conductive fabric sound. If you’re interested in how to work with textiles in sonic electronics, they’ve promised to share more of what they’re doing:
http://fsp.fm

The TOOB: An Audiovisual Hypertrumpet

How do you build on the idea of a trumpet? Give it digital control and control over audio and visuals, of course:

Arvid Tomayko-Peters plays The TOOB – a unique wireless electronic wind instrument that gives the performer a vast but intuitive and malleable range of sonic material, allowing creative freedom in solo or group improvisation. The instrument senses breath, finger pressure, tilt and acceleration and utilizes sound captured and processed on the fly to create expressive soundscapes ranging from comic to tragic to “a force of nature” and abstract live video.

At top, a recent short audiovisual improvisation recorded on the instrument, provided to CDM by the artist. The TOOB even made an appearance at SIGGRAPH, the geektastic visual conference. More information:

Short live video from SIGGRAPH:
http://arvidtp.net/portfolio/instruments.php

Performance with the TOOB:
http://arvidtp.net/portfolio/index.php#toob

And here’s what the creation looks like. Notice the clever use of a project enclosure, tubing, and force sensing resistors. (Getting the job done always earns bonus points in my book.)

Owen Lake, Electro-Country, and New Handmade Instrument Designs

Jeff Snyder is a country artist. He’s also an electronic artist. He’s also an inventor, creating instruments like the one he’s holding. Can you say “crossover”? (Then again, we’re all standing on the shoulders of the great Les Paul – so it’s time to hone our musical chops, our hardware-hacking chops, and our rebellious sonic side, all in parallel.) Photo courtesy Owen Lake.

They call it electro-country. This isn’t modern, top-of-the-charts, watered down Nashville pop. Think covers of classic 1950s honky-tonk, covered on modular synths and custom electronic instruments. The instrumental lineup for Owen Lake:

Owen Lake (jeff snyder) – voice and manta
Penny Hunt (kate soper) – voice and synthesizer
Tommy Byrd (matt hough) – voice and guitar
Frank Arnold (spencer russell) – bass
Buck Flash (alex ness) – live video

But alongside his love of country music, bandleader Jeff Snyder moonlights as inventor. His Manta is a fascinating new small-run, boutique touch controller with a hexagonal layout. I had been meaning to check out the Manta anyway. (Its design has caught the eye of folks like Cycling ‘74 engineer Darwin Grosse, one of the key minds behind Max.) Now I get to see it in person, with a full electro-country band behind it. Expect a full report thereafter.

Just don’t get too rowdy with the beers and start tossing them at the band in excitement, like that scene from The Blues Brothers. (Ah, though maybe we should put all these players together and try to cover “Stand By Your Man.”)

The hardware project:
http://www.snyderphonics.com/

The band project:
http://www.owenlake.com/

The Event

Event details

http://handmademusic.noisepages.com/

on Facebook

Bonus! Saturday we’re hanging out with Babycastles, the indie arcade, and the folks of Loud Objects, chip-programming sound scientists. Bring a soldering iron (if you own one; if not, it’s a worthy investment), and stop in for hacking controllers and making one-button objects. Previous details | on Facebook

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Musical Sewing Machines, Electronic Honky-Tonk, and Handmade Music NYC Monday

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Émilie Simon, Making Homemade Sessions in Her Apartment

Thursday, March 4th, 2010

Émilie Simon is a fantastically-talented artist with a unique background: her work now falls clearly into pop territory, but her lineage is just as much experimental and classical. Conservatory training gave way to time at the avant garde nerve center of Paris, IRCAM. IRCAM’s Director, Cyrille Brissot, still plays alongside her – more on his wild invention in a moment.

Simon has been a big hit in France; you may know her composition from the soundtrack to March of the Penguins. But now, she’s a New Yorker, which brings us to the topic of the headline. The singer-pianist-artist released a new record last fall, The Big Machine. I do miss some of the quirkier style on her older records, and I rather liked the singing in French (I’m sure NYC has its share of Francophones). The new record tends in a Kate Bush-influenced direction which has divided some fans. They are just as well-crafted, however, and Simon’s writing and performance is inventive as always. It’s a new direction, but it’s worth giving it some time. I think you’ll like the results, and it shows Simon’s continued versatility and artistry.

One thing with which you really can’t argue is Simon’s exceptional musicianship. I love her new series, which has her releasing studio sessions shot in her Bedford Avenue apartment. In the edition at top, the work begins with the expected ballad form, but takes a very different direction. Commanding sounds and effects from a militaristic, future-punk controller on her arm, Simon adds electronic textures, aided by a Yamaha Tenori-On and Doepfer Dark Energy synth. The wrist-strapped controller is Cyrille Brissot’s invention, aptly named “The Brissot.” Somewhere, Thomas Dolby is very jealous, indeed. (They would match his goggles.) Episode two, released yesterday, is after the jump.

Few of us would do a multi-cam rig in our apartment (I’d better make some friends), and I could do without the faux-film effects, but there’s still a terrific intimacy of the sessions, and her stage presence shines through. It’s a reminder that adding technology doesn’t have to mean removing that sense of a live performance – quite the opposite, in fact, as a solo act wouldn’t be able to do this much of this on the spot. Electronics are, as I keep saying, the ultimate renaissance of the one-man- (or one-woman-) band.

So, if you think you can do better – heck, even if not – let us know if you release a similar session. And Cyrille, Émilie, if you’re out there, I’d love to catch up on your work for CDM.

Visit link:
Émilie Simon, Making Homemade Sessions in Her Apartment

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The Man-Robot with an iMac Head, and Handmade Music Amsterdam

Monday, February 15th, 2010

The Body, The Circuit, The Computer and The Voice: robot cowboy from STEIM Amsterdam on Vimeo.

If you want to look for some of the roots of live electronic musical performance, STEIM is one place to start. Founded in 1969 by a group of Dutch composers (Misha Mengelberg, Louis Andriessen, Peter Schat, Dick Raaymakers, Jan van Vlijmen, Reinbert de Leeuw, and Konrad Boehmer), and led by the late “founding father” Michel Waisvisz, it has remained an important hub for inventing music technologies. It was one of the first places that gave an indication that these kind of experiments could extend beyond academic labs into grassroots DIY movements and DJ/VJ club culture alike.

Amsterdam has been looking to do a Handmade Music series for a while, and this Wednesday we kick it off. There’s a huge lineup, so I’m packing two video cameras and one audio recorder into my luggage today before flying out.

You can check out the whole lineup on the STEIM blog, for a sense of what the Dutch DIY community is up to:
Feb 17 2010: Hotpot Lab #2 – Handmade Music Amsterdam

The event is Wednesday night; doors open at 20:00 and it’s free. See the STEIM concerts page.

I’ll also be doing an informal “State of the Union” address on the state of DIY tech, where things might go, and where people may get involved – and most importantly, what we can do to make these developments musically productive. One of the things that came out of comments last week is that we need better documentation. If people want to get involved in a broader community, outside even our traditional music community, DIY platforms for software and hardware must first be better documented, more usable, and more accessible.

Anyway, I’m thrilled to have a chance to bridge New Amsterdam (NYC) with Old Amsterdam, and start that conversation by listening and learning from a great group of people. Stay tuned.

We’ll have some guest posts through the week while I’m traveling, as well, and I’ll be back on home soil next week.

Continued here:
The Man-Robot with an iMac Head, and Handmade Music Amsterdam

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Participate: One Button Game Objects, Handmade Music in NYC, Amsterdam, SF

Saturday, February 6th, 2010

It’s a call for one-button works. Literally. Sorry. Photo (CC) Jeff Keyzer.

What can you do with a button? What circuits can you bend? What software and hardware can you construct? Want to meet up with myself and fellow makers from the DIY music and visualist communities? I’m touring and looking for new works, we have one call for one-button objects that (if you can ship it) can come from anywhere in the world, plus upcoming events in New York, San Francisco, and — this month, Amsterdam at the planetary music tech hub that is STEIM.

STEIM is an inspiration to all music DIYers and technologists, and the birthplace of one of the great pioneering DIY hardware designs of all time: the CrackleBox.

STEIM + Handmade Music Amsterdam (Netherlands, February)

Handmade Music is beginning in Amsterdam. To kick things off, I’ll be visiting the legendary STEIM research center. The event will be open to anyone with inventions and self-built hardware and software you’d like to share. We’ll plug in and make a raucous noise. I’m really quite looking forward to meeting folks from this area.

When: Wednesday, February 17, 8p – ?
Where: Utrechtsedwarsstraat 134, Amsterdam
Cost: FREE
STEIM Hotspot Lab Event Page

I’ll also do a short presentation of some work TBD; more on this next week.

If you’re attending and want to share what you’re bringing in advance or make sure you see me, use the CDM contact form.

Killjet, by Tristan Perich. Photo (CC-BY-SA) Simon Law.

One-Button Objects Call (SF + World, March)

What can you do with one button? In an age of ever-more-complex touch interfaces, we’d like to imagine what a single, tangible, hardware button can mean for a design. To celebrate the arrival of their Gamma game event in San Francisco, art game collective Kokoromi is teaming up with Create Digital Music and Create Digital Motion to launch a call for ONE-BUTTON OBJECTS.

So, sorry monome — too many buttons (unless you want to make a one-button monome, that is). The one-button game objects will incorporate a single-button-centered design and inspiration from the world of gaming into unique creations. Read up more on our sister site:

Call for Works: One-Button Game Objects
Then send your submissions for the gallery show in San Francisco to onebuttonobject@kokoromi.org
(see also Kokoromi
Receipt deadline: March 1

If you’re in the NYC or San Francisco, we’re looking to do some informal hackdays to play with buttons, HID interfaces, Arduino and microcontroller platforms, and the like — we just need a hackerspace to host us. And if you’d like to do that elsewhere in the world, let us know and we’ll promote it.

And of course, be sure to attend Friday, March 12 at the Gray Area Foundation for the Arts if you’re in the Bay Area or attending the Game Developer Conference.

Handmade Music NYC is moving to DUMBO, Brooklyn, and the fantastic Galapagos Art Space.

Handmade Music Brooklyn Returns; Your Inventions, Live Artists Wanted (NYC, March)

Handmade Music in its hometown of New York is being rebooted. We’re launching new workshops, new hacking, and a new quarterly performance series at a proper performance venue, Galapagos.

That means we need you.

For the quarterly party, we’re continuing to look for people to bring in your own creations. If it runs on a netbook, if you have headphones you can bring, if it’s made out of wood and you can play it, if you can plug into a portable amp and make some noise, if it’s a circuit-bent toy with built-in speakers, it’s a welcome guest.

But we’re also looking for live artists in the greater New York area who incorporate DIY instruments, hardware, software (and even wearable interactive costumes, if you’ve got them) into your act. We’d like to hear who’s out there. We can’t invite everyone to play, but that’s all the more reason to hear about what people are doing.

If you have a project or act to consider, send them here:
Official 2010 Handmade Music NYC Call for Works

The first event is Monday, March 8. Doors open 7p, live acts start 8p.

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Steve_3po and Other Robotic Drummers

Tuesday, December 29th, 2009

So, your human drummer can’t bang out the elaborate breakcore beats you’ve composed, huh? Build your own robotic replacement, putting the magic of positronics into rhythm.

That’s what the folks of Texas Central Positronics and the David Crowder Band have done with Steve_3po, the robotic drummer. It brings new meaning to “drum machine,” blending acoustic sound with programmed rhythms.

The secret to controlling this machine with MIDI is none other than one of our favorite kits, Highly Liquid’s MIDI Decoder. For more on that side of things, see the recent story by Mike Una here on CDM:

DIY MIDI In, MIDI Out For Your Gear: New Kits from HighlyLiquid

The challenging part, of course, is building the robotics. The talented creators at Texas State Technical College, including mechanical engineers Josh Caldwell and Eli Hernandez, worked with “bwack” (the father and son Bwack team) to create Steve. You can read the complete story at Texas Central Positronics, in a post from October:

Introducing – Steve

“bwack” has done other terrific work in the past, including a 760-pound, large-format MPC that stands seven feet tall. And they say drum machines have no soul.

Thanks to Richard Devine for finding this, and Simon Stansfield for bringing it to our attention.

This instrument is not alone among robotic drummers, of course; here are a couple of other top picks:

Glastonbury Festival 2008 was host to this fantastic-looking robotic drummer with four arms and a combination of hydraulics and servos. Sadly, as often happens at these festivals, the credits for who created this lovely invention appear to be lost. Anyone out there know the origins of the work?

Another fine example of robotic drumming comes in the form of Haile, by Georgia Tech’s Gil Weinberg and Scott Driscoll. Haile not only plays the drums, but responds intelligently (via computer) to “heard” sounds and rhythmic patterns. A very early CDM story talked to the creators about how they pulled off the trick.

But wait — there’s more! There are robots responding to plants and playing bamboo and Chinese instruments, an all-robotic band, robotic Theremins, robotic knives, Taiko drummers, robots that play Guitar Hero for you, Game Boy-controller robotic drum machines, Roombas controlled by MIDI, robotic Ballet Mechanique instruments, and, for the holidays, Robotic sleigh ride-playing chimes.

For ensembles filled with unique and creative robotic-powered instruments, look no further than the League of Electronic Musical Urban Robots, which recently relocated from here in NYC to tech capital Pittsburgh. One of the most exquisite recent creations from a residency with this group is Zemi17’s wonderful Gamelatron, which, as the name implies, robotifies the Indonesian gamelan ensemble. That instrument visited Handmade Music; here it is at Galapagos in Brooklyn from earlier this year:

To me, most beautiful of all is a set of work called “Felix’s Machines”:

From the description — thanks to opuswerk in comments for reminding me of this:

The Artist, Felix Thorn created this monster which was filmed by Tom Swindell, Directed by Tom Mansfield and edited by Chris Barnet.

Extract from composition: ‘Glide’ recorded and filmed at Gasworks winter 2008. www.felixsmachines.com

www.youtube/tomswindell

Chris Barnet the editor channel is here www.youtube.com/user/chrismicrofilm

I, for one, welcome our new robot overlords.

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Steve_3po and Other Robotic Drummers

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Musical Sewing Machines, Electronic Honky-Tonk, and Handmade Music NYC Monday

Augmented Sewing Machine + Ensemble

The TOOB: An Audiovisual Hypertrumpet

Owen Lake, Electro-Country, and New Handmade Instrument Designs

The Event

Émilie Simon, Making Homemade Sessions in Her Apartment

The Man-Robot with an iMac Head, and Handmade Music Amsterdam

Participate: One Button Game Objects, Handmade Music in NYC, Amsterdam, SF

STEIM + Handmade Music Amsterdam (Netherlands, February)

One-Button Objects Call (SF + World, March)

Handmade Music Brooklyn Returns; Your Inventions, Live Artists Wanted (NYC, March)

Steve_3po and Other Robotic Drummers