Yes, I think flow is the primary problem. Both my flow (in a
Csíkszentmihályi sense) and the musics flow. This is probably the main
reason that I don't use MIDI controllers much any more and also why I'm
not super keen on GUI components in my code (sliders, dials and alike) -
although I'm all for GUI overlays (
http://www.vimeo.com/25699729). The
trouble I've found with manual gesture controls (as opposed to
computational gesture), is that they're great when you're manipulating
them but then you stop ...
For example, you're sweeping a filter cutoff with a MIDI controller -
which works great of course - accept that you have to stop adjusting the
MIDI controller to go back to more typing. This back-and-forthing
between the controller and the computer keyboard just never worked well
for me. Of course, you could press a button and record a "gestural
loop" but this is a somewhat cyclical argument. Instead I've tried to
focus on abstracting out the gesture control just as much as the "note"
control. I very rarely type out a melody either, it's almost always
generative. If I do type something out in long hand it will usually be
a 3 or 4 note cell - which is easy to type and easy to grow into larger
structures.
I generally play solo these days though, and I imagine that if you're
working with other performers a lot of these issues (primarily
continuity) would be less of a concern.
On 05/07/11 09:35, Sam Aaron wrote:
> On 4 Jul 2011, at 23:06, Andrew Sorensen wrote:
>> An early version of Impromptu had a *midi* button along its button bar. When you pressed the *midi* button and started playing on an attached midi keyboard the relevant midi data (pitch and relative timing information) was written directly into the text buffer at the current cursor position as valid s-expressions. You could then use that data for whatever structural purposes you required (chords, melodies etc.). I didn't end up using it much so I got rid of it at some point but you can still see the midi button in a picture of the Impromptu IDE in my 2005 paper.
> Wow, cool. Out of interest why don't you think you ended up using it? Was it too cumbersome? Did it not fit into your performance workflow at the time? Do you see yourself ever using such a mechanism again?
>
> Sam
>
> ---
> http://sam.aaron.name
Received on Tue Jul 05 2011 - 00:11:03 BST