The old playlist player has failed, so the seven pieces I’ve put together during the summer of 2016 are now individual files for download or playing on the site. A zip file is also available that permits downloading the whole album with a playlist.
The names are wildflowers near my house, combined with a short quote from The Sound and the Fury by James Faulkner.
Alpine Daisies – Roof of Wind #44
Lupin – Like Trees #18
Castilleja – Deep Water #17
Clover – Like Wind #11
Epilobium – Inviolate Sand #10
Solidago – and Fools #8
Fragaria – Philosophers #14
A zip file with everything is here.
Method to the madness
They all use some variation of the Drunkard’s Walk Markov Chain. Choices made are constrained to either the next one or the previous one in a list. I make the lists out of random or non-random parts. Each instrument has many thousands of choices to make about what note to play next, how loud, how long, and whether to trill, slide, or play it straight. Shorter notes have fewer choices, and longer ones can exercise much greater freedom. All are based on the Partch Tonality Diamond approximated by 72-EDO. The chords are either the otonality or the utonality, usually only six notes at a time out of the 8 available in a 15-limit diamond. The next chord to play is based on this list:
.chor-x-01 &Cnmajx.
.chor-x-02 &Abmajx.
.chor-x-03 &Fnmajx.
.chor-x-04 &D+majx.
.chor-x-05 &A+majx.
.chor-x-06 &F+majx.
.chor-x-07 &E-majx.
.chor-x-08 &Dbmajx.
.chor-x-09 &Fnminx.
.chor-x-10 &A-minx.
.chor-x-11 &Cnminx.
.chor-x-12 &D+minx.
.chor-x-13 &Gnminx.
.chor-x-15 &Dbminx.
.chor-x-16 &Ebminx.
When I tell the preprocessor &chor-x*. it chooses the next or previous one in the list. Some lists are made of specific note choices, like this one:
@ note choices for fast section 6 notes
.s-f-n-1a .n-1 &n1a.x
.s-f-n-1b .n-2 &n3a.x
.s-f-n-1c .n-3 &n5a.x
.s-f-n-1d .n-4 &n7a.x
.s-f-n-1e .n-5 &n2a.x
.s-f-n-1f .n-6 &n4a.x
@
.s-f-n-2a .n-1 &n1a.x
.s-f-n-2b .n-2 &n2a.x
.s-f-n-2c .n-3 &n3a.x
.s-f-n-2d .n-4 &n4a.x
.s-f-n-2e .n-5 &n5a.x
.s-f-n-2f .n-6 &n7a.x
@
.s-f-n-3a .n-1 &n1a.x
.s-f-n-3b .n-2 &n7a.x
.s-f-n-3c .n-3 &n5a.x
.s-f-n-3d .n-4 &n4a.x
.s-f-n-3e .n-5 &n3a.x
.s-f-n-3f .n-6 &n2a.x
@
.s-f-n-4a .n-1 &n1a.x
.s-f-n-4b .n-2 &n4a.x
.s-f-n-4c .n-3 &n2a.x
.s-f-n-4d .n-4 &n5a.x
.s-f-n-4e .n-5 &n3a.x
.s-f-n-4f .n-6 &n7a.x
@
.f-notes-1 &s-f-n-1a.&s-f-n-1b.&s-f-n-1c.&s-f-n-1d.&s-f-n-1e.&s-f-n-1f.
.f-notes-2 &s-f-n-2a.&s-f-n-2b.&s-f-n-2c.&s-f-n-2d.&s-f-n-2e.&s-f-n-2f.
.f-notes-3 &s-f-n-3a.&s-f-n-3b.&s-f-n-3c.&s-f-n-3d.&s-f-n-3e.&s-f-n-3f.
.f-notes-4 &s-f-n-4a.&s-f-n-4b.&s-f-n-4c.&s-f-n-4d.&s-f-n-4e.&s-f-n-4f.
@
For the faster notes, he can pick from one of these four lists. The next note will be either the previous or next one in the list. Or it may be from the next list. &n1a. is the first note in an otonality or utonality scale. &n3a. is the third note. There are lists of scales for each of the keys. When I call &f-notes-*., it picks from the four scales. Then when I call &n-1., it picks the first note in that scale. Everything is a bit chaotic much of the time.