https://serendip.peckels.com/20introduction/ INTRODUCTION Hugo en-us Thu, 19 Nov 2020 09:17:29 +0100 https://serendip.peckels.com/20introduction/serendpity/ Thu, 19 Nov 2020 09:17:29 +0100 https://serendip.peckels.com/20introduction/serendpity/ In “The surprising thing about musical surprise,” philosopher and musician Jenny Judge refers to the experience of listening to the first thirty seconds of Led Zeppelin’s1 ‘Black Dog’: “whatever else you might say about the experience, an adequate discussion of its phenomenal character would have to mention musical surprise.”2 The surprise in ‘Black Dog’ is rhythmic; the guitar riff disrupts the regular sense of meter3 established by the vocal line. That this surprise was deliberately designed becomes clear when considering the effort that went into making ‘Black Dog’, its relation4 to Fleetwood Mac’s5 ‘Oh Well’, and something not mentioned in these two articles. When you turn the volume up6, you can hear John Bonham—probably with his drumsticks—giving metric indications at 0:11 (two clicks), 0:23 (one click), 0:30 (one click), and 0:34 (one click). Was the musical surprise so essential that it had to be executed perfectly to happen, with the risk of being “spoiled” by revealing the mechanics or trick? J. Brackett7 hints at the answer by quoting the musicians during a rehearsal of the song ‘In My Time of Dying’: https://serendip.peckels.com/20introduction/inspirations/ Thu, 19 Nov 2020 08:42:20 +0100 https://serendip.peckels.com/20introduction/inspirations/ For the Aquatic Museum app, I’ll build on previous personal projects that all use the same or related audio technologies but each focus on one specific topic. Instead of rehashing the techniques, tools, and workflows I already had experience with, I wanted to use the potential of this research to further explore the specific chance and random elements that are central to adaptive audio but are also making their way into music creation apps and generative music. These random features intrigued me the most and are also the ones that were only present as side functions or sketches in my other projects. https://serendip.peckels.com/20introduction/whythisformat/ Thu, 19 Nov 2020 09:17:29 +0100 https://serendip.peckels.com/20introduction/whythisformat/ I decided to publish my reflection report under the following web-based format so that the reader can also listen to, explore, and interact with the different examples. All audio samples are loaded quickly and will work with sufficient speed in different browsers. Furthermore, different apps and software are referenced and are part of my literature review and bibliography. For the sake of demonstration and for the benefit of the reader, it is more practical to use video clips and interactive sequences.