learning the ropes

I’ve updated my operational prototype with the LEDs as Amit suggested in class. After trying them out, it seems I need to determine how they should behave after I’ve pressed the “A” button and I’ve used the “>” or “<" to go out of the range of the characters indicated by the new LEDs.

Options:

• LEDs only stay on after “A” is pressed until the “>” or “<" buttons are pressed
• LEDs always reflect the current position in the character set

What do you think?

I’m also wondering for the final prototype if I need to expose the “mem” and mem “<” buttons. They are not completely necessary for the operation I want to work with: setting the name. The “<” button allows review of the current items in memory. Is the idea here to simulate everything or just enough to show the concept we’re trying to improve?

Last week, Peter assigned us readings from John Cage and Luigi Rossolo.

Cage’s thoughts on the need for new instruments in “the future of music: credo” parallel Rossolo’s in “The Art of Noise.” Both men anticipated the development of flexible synthesis techniques by which sounds of any character might be constructed. I’m not sure when Russolo wrote “The Art of Noise,” but I imagine it was in the late 1800s. While he didn’t have the technological vocabulary to describe some of the concepts Cage was promoting, he described synthesis in his own way.

I’m personally in favor of a hybrid of these techiques, where recorded sound combines with generated sound.

Cage’s writing style intrigued me. I found I could read his section headings by themselves as a coherent statement or read them as introductions to the body paragraphs. I don’t believe I’ve seen written composition like that before.

I didn’t agree with Russolo’s dismissal of all musical sound as banal. While his interests lay in moving farther and farther away from traditional music and into the complete freedom of pure sound, I continue to be moved by the live performance of music by a human person.