Eigenharp Google+ Community Archive

As some of you will know, I'm pursuing a MA in film. The link below will take you to a research project of mine. The survey is in two parts, each should take less than 10 minutes. It would be greatly valuable to me if you could do both and click on submit at the end. However, even if you can only fill out the first part, that would be quite helpful. The survey is anonomous although you may provide an email at the end of section 2 should you wish to be sent the results when complete. Your email will not be shared or used for any other purpose. Thanks! Mike

Hi, all... I got a message requesting some advice about the eigenharp but was busy at the time (yesterday) and now I can't find it.... It would be great to help. So, if you are here and think you are being ignored, that isn't the problem. You have been lost in my disorganization... please try again best, m

It is nice that Synthopia picked yp this story and used that to further spread Geert's talk.  That said, many of the comments are ridiculous.  http://www.synthtopia.com/content/2014/01/08/eigenlabs-planning-new-batch-of-eigenharps

Something to keep us busy Boxing Day http://www.soniccouture.com/en/product/p171-grand-toy-piano

Cyber Monday strikes. I've been using a Zoom H4n for a couple of years as a general purpose field recorder. It is quite good and very convenient but I wanted to do more video and it has no real advantages in that setting. Finally, while adequate, it does not have particularly impressive sound quality. This is my answer. It has a couple of features I particularly like such as a slate tone and dual simultaneous recording at different levels. The ability to attach it to the camera is a nice touch as well. It will be interesting to see if BWF format is of any advantage. This, mounted to my 1Dx, should be as good a solution as I'm going to afford although if this gets to be a big part of what I do, a Blackmagic is not out of the question and uses my existing lenses. Aside from video projects it should be a step up in general field recording as well.  http://tascam.com/product/dr-60d/

So, here are the first few shots that are candidates for the community picture. Feel free to comment. Since there seemed to be support for using the trio shot, I'll set that one up first. Randy Brown For whatever reason, mail would not save the shots you sent so these are screen captured. 

Well, I'm back from Vancouver and all went well. In the end, they did hire talent that matched their visual needs and I was "Eigenharp Coach". Initially, this seemed a bit disappointing but as it played out it was probably much more fun that way as it left me free to have a broader look-about (which was really great fun) Also, it was quite rewarding to coach Richard (my stand-in as they kindly called him hehehe) who had no prior musical experience but did very well and was overjoyed at the experience and to find himself actually able to make some music flow from himself. In the end, he will benefit from the addition to his resume much more than I would and that feels right as well.

This course starts again in mid October. I found it quite challenging.  It teaches a modern Jazz improvisation technique that goes beyond just using the song scale. Instead you learn to select a scale based on the chord in use at the moment together with melody notes from surrounding bars. To do this you need to know 10 scales (each at 12 possible root notes) and be able to select and visualize them on your instrument as the chords come along in the song every few seconds. Daunting indeed! However, while learning you can work through a song in advance and, over time, come to know all the usual suspects. This is the course that sparked the discussion with Mark Harris that resulted in the scale illumination agent. Obviously to do this kind of playing, you need full a chromatic keygroup. The illuminator means that you do not need to be able to visualize thos 120 scales in an instant, they get coloured for you.  https://www.coursera.org/course/improvisation

Learning to play....  Well, it seems that the Coursera Music technology course has the largest collection of eigenharpers participating I've seen to date! In his bio Mark Harris mentions that he is learning to play Eigenharp and this reminded me that several people have asked: where / how did you learn to play that thing? I do not really have a good short answer to that. It isn't clear that the the term 'learning to play' is really applicable (although we certainly learn the factory setups). We really seem to be exploring ways to use the instrument.

I'm reposting this course which is just now getting started because I think many of us might really enjoy it. It starts out quite basic (so we should breeze through some of it) and proceeds to cover coding in Python within Reaper for synthesis and algorithmic music (among other things). It might be interesting for those who are able to move some of the Python results into EigenD as well. I know it says it is starting soon, but the lectures and forums are open all ready. https://www.coursera.org/course/musictech

So, here is another nice to have capability. It would be nice to be able to have a talker act at the first opportunity after it was triggered that makes sense musically. I think this might imply an agent that waits for something specific before releasing the rest of the belcanto. It might wait for the next bar in the metronome or it might wait for the end of a loop in the drummer or recorder So the talker that now says "Hey you this do" whould say "hey you when condition this do" and the condition might be new bar or loop end (or other things?) Why would this be useful? One example is for the drummer (I guess recorders would have similar). Most drum loop sets come with starts, endings, fills and variations. People drag them onto timelines to make full and interesting backings (which might be a bit rigid, but at least they are varied.) It would be nice to load a range into the drummer and then switch between them. Now, you can do this presently and it isn't too ...

I'm going to promote this to it's own topic. Have a look at the linked entry. This is an idea that is new to me and quite interesting. There are limitations cited but they are a bit fictional. For example, just because this system is in use, does not imply one cannot play other notes that the system does not suggest. So, the limitation is really in the player being a slave to the system. So the thing that struck me is that scales (as used in EigenD) are song scales and, because they exclude non-scale notes, they make 'errors' less glaring but they also make intentional accidentals impossible. We have all butted up against this. That leads directly to the question: could a way to use chord scales be implemented? Also, could a way to use song scales without the limitation be implemented? Looking at the second question, doing this would imply that the actual layout be fully chromatic which might be a concern for the Tau and definitely for the Pico. The upside is that, for ...

Ok! Well you might be surprised but I'm working on posting something. It is amazing how, when you set out to do something a bit novel, you have to work through things as you plod forward. The focus here isn't on a great video (or even being musically good) but just to explore a style (interestingly one which is unfamiliar to me). The camera does not even have an articulated screen, so just being in the shot is a necessary first step. Oh well, this is all overdue and it will be fun to have something just my own to show. I was slowed down in the whole process by the electrical company who decided (surprise!) they they really need to move in massive equipment and replace our closest pole just right now. This includes a massive air drill pounding away on solid granite to make a hole for the pole that is 19" in diameter. They are partly done at the moment so lets hope there will be a window of power and quiet before they return. At this point there are a few trials that are not...

Some questions on Eigenharp vs (as examples) guitar or keyboard. One way to put this question is: Do any of you sightread and play music not specifically adapted to an eigenharp (any model, but clearly the pico might be a greater challenge)? Background: It is fairly common for a guitar or keyboard player to be presented either with lead sheets, a score, or sheet music (possibly new to them) that they then simply play. Indeed, this is mostly what I work on in guitar playing (specifically, the skill to take a chord progression and melody and immediately do a relatively full expression of the song or, at least, a reasonable backing for singing with a bit of lead mixed in for a chorus and perhaps a bit of an solo). Of course any reasonable keyboard player should be able to take sheet music and just play it as written, perhaps also transposing for a singer on demand (which explains why I'm not a keyboard player) Strangely, it has not been a focus of mine with the Alpha. I've happily...

Ok, Ian Clark and or Mark Harris  I got an email with a link to your start at a draft cookbook and can not find the post here any more... strange.  At any rate, this looks like a good start. Unless you are going to make it into an iTunes ebook yourself (or I can publish it for you complete with an ISBN number gratis) then it might make a great appendix to my own Eigenharp book which really needs an update now version 2 is in production. It would be updated already but seemed wiser to wait until the foundation gets established and cover that at the same time with one revision. cheers, m

It turns out that my blues vocal / songwriting workshop in the summer wants people to bring along an instrument. They actually specify guitar or digital piano but I was thinking of taking the alpha. The instructor seems to be primarily a guitar player and I'm guessing that some time will be spent on blues scales for guitar and kbd. The easiest thing might be for me to just take my Dobro (acoustic and I already know both rhythm and blues licks on it) but the Alpha might be more fun. So the question is: 'What would be a good setup for a blues singer / songwriter that would support improvisation?' I doubt that using the recorder would be convenient in such an ad hoc setting (any thought on this?) so it might be better to just have a full set of instruments in a single setup I was thinking OT steel strings strumming in one kbd for rhythm and with the percussive guitar sounds on the lower keys (not strummer, just OT's strumming engine). I guess I'd use chromatic. Then in...

This may have run its course, but if you are interested..... http://www.vintagesynth.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=70521

So far there are only 7 of the 78 us in the map...  It might be helpful for people who want to find an Eigenharper nearby. Just a thought! http://www.musomap.com/

On reflection about the discussion about layouts I had a little epiphany. That discussion, which gets visited regularly, is typically motivated by a desire to take sheet music written for piano and play it on an Eigenharp. The thought was that nobody would take that same music and attempt to play it (as written) on a guitar. They would use the same chords but voice them quite differently (either strummed or arpeggiated) and add (or emphasize) the melody notes. The point is that a guitar simply is not a piano. The epiphany is that an Eigenharp isn't a piano either. Now it may be that some piano music works well directly (António Machado 's Bach comes to mind) but the interesting thing is the question: what is Eigenharp music (looking to an answer equivalent to the same question about guitar). In fact, we have been asking this for some time in the form of 'what is different / unique?'. So it is amusing not to perceive the question as identical quickly when it comes up fr...

About a year ago, Samplemodelling brought out their own platform (SWAM) as they introduced a new Soprano Sax. They have now upgraded all their sax instruments to the SWAM engine (from Kontakt). This seems to be a great step forward. I've upgraded and found: the 32bit AUs work great with the Eigenharp. You can do as little as just set the breathpipe to output MIDI BC or you can get more elabourate. the 32 bit VSTs do not work (they show a blank UI screen. EigenD (you know this, right) does not support 64bit plugins. It takes a bit of practice to ensure that you play legato only when you want but nothing really challenging. These are sample based but also do modelling so they are more CPU intense that just samples but less than a full model approach. I find them much more realistic than any sample-only sax I've tried but less so that, say, the VL1 PM sax sounds (which benefit from tweaking for the Eigenharp.  http://www.samplemodeling.com/en/products_saxophones.php