My pal GtotheLow turned me on to Pete Townshend's new project, The Lifehouse Method. If you haven't heard of this madness, be sure to check it out. Basically, he and a mathematician/composer friend of his have come up with a method of writing music automatically. It's basically a personal-theme-song generator, and it's based on input that we, the people, upload.
So I gave it a try. The first thing I had to do was upload a voice sample, either talking or singing, and I uploaded me doing the first verse of Clapton's "Wonderful Tonight," which has been my boy's lullaby du jour lately.
Next I had to upload a photo. Their computers somehow analyze this? I uploaded the drawing from my profile.
Next, just another audio file of any noise that described how I was feeling at the moment. I sort of hummed a funeral dirge -- wasn't so happy in the wee hours of the morning!
Finally, I had to upload a beat, so I recorded myself tapping out some kind of rhythm. There was nothing distinctive about it, as I'm not that strong a drummer.
Then it whirred and fizzed and bumped and popped, and all of the sudden it spit out my very own, one-of-a-kind, absolutely free theme song! Produced by Pete Townshend no less!
I call it "Sleek's Song." Check it out.
Well, what do you think? Is it a song or a hearing test? And what's up with all of those soaring, single guitar notes? Who would do that?
In my opinion, it's as heartless and soulless as you'd expect from a computer-generated song. For some reason, I keep listening to it, though. I have two more free songs left, and I'll be sure to upload them as soon as they're released.
Wednesday, May 9, 2007
The Soundtrack of My Life, Part 1
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9 comments:
Reminds me of Phillip Glass, dont have a mic so I can't produce my own theme song. However one of the perks at work is I can keep all those ketchup, mustard mayo etc packets left over from peoples lunchs so I never have to buy condiments for my home, pretty slick eh?
I took this song as kind of an electronic song of death.
josh: That is a very slick perk, and my son would take it over the Beasties and Russia combined. As for making your own theme songs, they have sounds you can use if you don't have a mic.
jessie: Welcome back! It was probably the funeral dirge.
dude. i just dowloaded your song. here's my opinion. i think you kept it real by exploring some new sounds while still staying true to your roots. whaddya think?
spooge: Awesome! But, dang, that sounds familiar.
This "composition software" may have the math right, but it doesn't seem to be able to generate a melody of any kind. Which isn't surprising.
not to be "mr. negativity" or anything, but did pete townshend develop this new technology before or after he got busted for downloading "bad stuff?" or was that part of his "research?" as you can tell, i'm a big fan of "quotation marks."
Sounds like its time for another Who tour.
I can't download stuff at work, but I will listen to this as soon as I get home.
It sort of sounds like a Who song... thats some crazy shit, man.
I want to try but my computer has no microphone. I know, totally in the dark ages over here.
spooge: Wow, I'd forgotten about that. And now my e-mail address is on his computer!
zee: You're gonna love this number.
melissavina: They have some stock sounds you can use, but that's not very personalized. You could always find audio files online that mean something to you and use those.
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