SOUNDTRACK: DAN TEPFER-Tiny Desk Concert #885 (August 29, 2019).
Most of the time, a Tiny Desk Concert is an opportunity to see an artist in a quiet almost unplugged setting. Sometimes, it’s an opportunity to see a band really show off in a close space. And sometimes a Tiny Desk Concert will blow your freaking mind.
Like this one.
I have never seen anything like this.
Dan Tepfer has created a program that plays the piano along with him. It’s for a project he calls Natural Machines.
Watch the keys and you’ll see this Disklavier — a player piano — plucking notes on its own. But it’s not a prerecorded script.
Here’s how it works: Tepfer plays a note, and a computer program he authored reads those notes and tells the piano what to play in response. Tepfer can load different algorithms into the program that determine the pattern of playback, like one that returns the same note, only an octave higher. Another will play the inverted note based on the center of the piano keys. These rules create interesting restrictions that Tepfer says make room for thoughtful improvisation. In his words, he’s not writing these songs, so much as writing the way they work.
Tepfer plays free improvisation–he “makes things up and tries to be present in the moment” but the computer responds to him in real time based on rules.
He says for “Canon At The Octave” theres’ an axis of symmetry on the piano and “everything I play on one side if reflected on the other side. Super simple, but it leads to musical problems that lead to real music.”
Since he is improvising, he is also reacting to what the computer makes.
He explains that “Tremolo” is when a note is repeated very quickly. He gives the example of a violin player playing a note quickly. It’s much harder on piano than a violin and it’s impossible to do more than ten notes at once.
He plays single notes that generate a series of chords playing quickly all at once–it’s really cool to watch the piano take off as if with a mind of its own.
But watching the piano isn’t the only cool thing
To better communicate what’s happening between him and the piano, Tepfer converted these audio-impulse data into visualizations on the screen behind him, displaying in real time the notes he plays followed by the piano’s feedback. [We dive even deeper into this project in a recent Jazz Night in America video piece].
He explains that these improvs are super short versions to show off how the programs work.
“TriadSculpture” is all about harmonic ratios. Pythagoras discovered that sounds work with whole numbers. The math behind music. So Tepfer has mapped numbers as a 3-D object and he has been printing them–even more mind blowing. The computer program generates these shapes– everything he plays on his left hand creates those shaped in real time on the screen.
Perhaps the trickiest part here, unlike a human-to-human duo, is that the computer plays along with 100 percent accuracy based solely on Tepfer’s moves. He compares it to dancing with a robot that never misses a beat. Tepfer has to play in kind to keep the train on the tracks, but if he falls out of step, so does the computer.
Fortunately he never falls out of time (or at least it’s hard to tell since it’s all improvised.
The final piece is “Constant Motion” in which he plays a note and the computer responds to it by playing a note either up or down. This creates a fun fast piece that explores the full range of the piano. The visuals for it are very cool too.
I’m not sure if this would be fun to see live (at least any more fun than an improvising pianist is) because listening to it you don’t always really know what’s happening or that the piano is doing the work. But seeing it up close like this is awesome.
[READ: August 21, 2019] Holy Cow
Like most people, ever since watching The X-Files, I’ve liked David Duchovny (why don’t you love me?).
I watched some of the Red Shoes Diaries just for him. I watched some of Californication just for him (Didn’t have whatever network it was on, so never watched more than a bit of it). But I’m always willing to give him a shot because I think he’s smart but goofy.
Enter Holy Cow.
This is Duchovny’s first novel and just what a pitch it must have been.
Hi, this is David Duchovny. Yup, that one. I’d like to write an adult book about a cow that wants to go to India once she finds out cows are worshiped there. Yes, David Duchovny.
I had no idea he had written this book. I just happened to see it on my library shelf when I was looking for something else. The book was short and had (terrible) drawings in it and seemed like it would be absurdly funny.
So, with the caveat that if you think that a talking cow buying a plane ticket and going to Jerusalem with a pig and to Turkey with a turkey sounds stupid and juvenile. Well, you’d be right. But you’d be missing out on an enjoyable, silly romp if that kept you from reading it.
I finished this book in a couple of hours and I didn’t want to put it down. Sure, it’s full of terrible jokes and pop culture references, but c’mon, it was written by a cow!
Elsie Bovary explains that cows can think and they can communicate with other animals–there’s a kind of animal Esperanto that all animals speak. Elsie knows that humans love cows
they love our milk. Personally I think it’s a little weird to drink another animal’s milk. You don’t see me walking up to some human lady who just gave birth saying, “You, can I get a taste?”
All the animals on the farm get along (except for roosters who are the biggest pain in the haunches God ever created.)
So Elsie and her BFF Mallory notice that the humans left their gate open. They are old enough to be a little interested in bulls now, so they push open the gate and sneak over to the bull pen. But Elsie is drawn to the farmer’s house. She peeks in the window and sees all the humans staring slack-jawed at the Box God (why else would they be staring at it so dumbly if it wasn’t a god). While she watches a documentary on farms, she learns that cows are slaughtered (with visuals). She passes out.
Duchovny was a vegetarian. He is now apparently a pescatarian. This book is certainly pro-vegetarian but, amazingly it is not a polemic or a screed against meat eaters. Sure, there is a section or two that is meant to make you re-think your eating choices, but the end result is pretty open-minded.
Despite this clearly off-putting-to-some stance, the book is actually meant to be quite funny. The cow’s editor chimes in from time to time (actually the cow is telling us what her editor said). The editor originally said the book seemed like it would be marketed to kids, so she’d better throw in some bad words and double entendre for parents to enjoy.
Elsie is upset about the thought of being eaten and she decides to do something about it. On a subsequent visit to the Box God, she learns that cows are sacred in India. And so her plan is set in motion.
She wants to bring Mallory along, but Mallory just learned she is pregnant and is going to stay home. News of her plan travels the farm and soon enough a pig wants in. He wants to go to Israel where they don’t eat pig. The turkey comes along to help out as well (they need a creature who can peck digits on a phone since a cow and pig can’t). The turkey is kinda dumb and wants to go to Turkey because he believes he’ll be worshiped there (bad timing to post this part right now, yikes).
Things aren’t easy for the trio as they set out to the airport–they have to walk from the farm to the city. They need to get clothes (and learn to walk ion two legs). They also meet some animals who aren’t all that nice to them (the scene with the rats is pretty darn funny).
But the animals manage to get disguises pretty quickly “no one expects a cow or a pig or a turkey to steal a pair of Ray-bans (product placement).” The product placement is to appease her editor, heh heh.
As the pig (who now goes by the name Shalom) gets more into his Jewish character, he realizes he needs to see a mohel before going to the Promised Land. I won’t say this chapter is tasteful, but it is pretty darn funny. Especially as the pig starts speaking more and more Yiddish (or Pig-German as Elsie imagines it). Shalom is horrified by what happened with the mohel and the other two can’t stop teasing him about it. After Tom says “it’s already such a schlong schlong time ago.” Elsie has to chime in, “moo-yl.”
Tom Turkey desperately wants to fly. And so, when he steals an airplane (yes) he achieves his dream.
They finally manage to get to Jerusalem. They meet the actual Joe Camel (who is a washed up actor now) and manage to ease tensions in the Middle East, for a time.
The most amusing thing to me about this story is that there have been many stories in which people travel to India to find themselves. It’s the whole eastern vs western mysticism trope and it’s lazy. But I love that Duchovny twists that idea with the animals. Because the cow is treated as a sacred animal there. Elsie has fled western life and found salvation in the eastern spiritualism.
Until she meets some actual Indian cows, who are kinda jerks.
So yes, the book is slight, but good for some laughs. At its core is a serious message of peace and harmony with all animals (including people) and there’s really nothing wrong with that.
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