Author: Prent Rodgers

Here is the original hymn with little or no alterations, just to hear the whole thing as intended, sort of. 72-EDO approximation of just.

Or download here: Rock of Ages, Cleft for Me.

I’m starting out a new Hymn. This one is also known as Toplady, after the Reverend Augustus Montague Toplady, who wrote it in 1763. He reportedly conceived of it while sheltering in a rock crevasse or cleft during a storm. Go figure.

For now, I’ve only completed the first phrase:


Or download here: Rock of Ages, Cleft for Me.

Down a bit. This is a final revised version.

Or download here: Jesus, All My Gladness.

Here is the hymn played relatively straight and at normal speed for comparison.

Or download here: Jesus, All My Gladness.

I’ve added some new variations involving many more slides, trills, and shorter repetitions. The piece starts out the same, but by the third measure (about 60 seconds in) the piece gets more sparse. I then goes back and forth between the sparse and dense alternatives. Drunkard’s Walk determines the path. The rhythm is back to a constant one at this point.

Or download here: Jesus, All My Gladness.

I can set the tempos that are available to any numbers, and in this case the numbers are in a Golden Ratio:

.tempof1 q2400
.tempof2 q1483
.tempom1 q917
.tempom1 q567
.tempos1 q350

The preprocessor can pick any tempo from those beats per minute, and Csound moves from one to another over time. The effect is to always be speeding up or slowing down to one of those steps.
And it moves to either the next or previous one in the series, like a Markov Chain Drunkard’s Walk algorithm.

Or download here: Jesus, All My Gladness.

A little more today.

Or download here: Jesus, All My Gladness.

I did a number of realizations of old Protestant hymns about five years ago. Lately I’ve been listening to them again, and found some real potential that I had not taken advantage of then. This is just a sketch for another way to look at one of them. It’s based on a Bach harmonization of the hymn, in 72-EDO in this realization.

Or download here: Jesus, All My Gladness.

This is a work in progress. Just a Reggae vamp for now in with the opening chords from Bob Marley’s You Could be Loved.

Or download here: Radiant Red.

This is a work in progress. Just a Reggae vamp for now in C minor.

Or download here: Radiant Red.