It was a few days after Christmas Day last year that I read about, download, and first listened to A Singular Christmas. I love the concept, and the results are pretty good. Some of it was played at the Inclusive Improv Christmas Party a few weeks ago.
Back in December 2007, Brad Garton posted hohoho2dmatic to the MaxMSP mailing list:
Hey everyone –
I did this little max/msp standalone application last year, but I finished it fairly late in ‘the season’. It generates slow/ambient variations on some of my fave holiday tunes. I just UB-ized it (Windows version also available) and thought people might get a kick out of it this year:
http://music.columbia.edu/~brad/holiday2007/
And for OSX users, I turned the original patch into a Dashboard widget:
http://www.apple.com/downloads/dashboard/music/hohoho2dmatic.html
ho ho ho indeed!
You can’t go wrong with generative synthesised sleigh bells . . .
This year’s musical treat is The 8bits of Christmas – free download release from 8bitpeoples features featuring holiday tunes composed on ZX Spectrum, NES, VIC20, Atari 2600, GameBoy, C64, Atari ST, and x68000.
The mp3 files indicate that this was a 2003 release. I found it via YouTube, whilst doing some Holly Wreath research with my son…
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As far as the MPhil/PhD research is concerned, I am concerned that in the past few weeks I have drifted from my self imposed timetable somewhat, thus not completing the report I wanted out of the way this calendar year. More specifically, my recent drift is either caused by, or exemplified by having fallen back into my favourite trap of programming away towards a half brained idea with the minimal of contextual research.
The carefully considered timetable for the current philosophical research project was designed so as to steer a sensible path through theory first (reading and writing in context), then on to programming (making tools) and composition (using said tools) which will feed back to theoretical reasoning and further research, programming and composition.
We will get back on track as soon as the statutory holiday has passed. Let us hope for some peace and joy in the coming days if nothing else… my thoughts are with family and friends that are presently distant