 Round House (Trains) for Brass Trio with Live Performance Graphics by Sam Stalos |
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A round house (or "roundhouse" being its appropriate spelling in this context), is a large structure where trains are routinely serviced. The tracks that lead into the arched structures look like spokes in a wheel, and at the larger sites, the tracks can be rotated to turn the engines around or shuffle them into different maintenance bays.
From Prokofiev to Gershwin to Strayhorn to Reich, trains have served us well. Planes, on the other hand, have not been so inspirational. Planes swosh and drone, but trains have rhythm. Trains chug, click, clack and chatter. Sure, planes can boom, but a train can blare with profound dissonance and portamento.
With trains, the melody is always in the rhythm. In Round House, the rhythm grinds, shifts and accelerates in the course of a few measures. The common rhythmic element accelerates from 100 BPM to 400 in the first 23 measures, and in so doing ... momentum.
There is no other brass trio -- that I know of -- in which the players appear on stage, acknowledge the welcoming applause, take their positions, wait until there is at least five seconds of silence, flex their lips, flicker their valves, wait, inhale, wait, and then…. blast their heads off. The first sound -- a triple forte blast-- four fortes if you've got them -- is to dismiss all expectations, and to lean on the visuals for interpretation. Tempo? There's no tempo. Key? There's no key. It's not even a chord.
But shortly, the connection of those sounds over time forms a recognizable rhythm that doesn't need a tempo. Train rhythm. Train sounds.
Excerpt 1.
In the visualization shown above, the French horn is controlling the timing and affectation of the bit mapped images, e.g. the tunnel, the wobbling globe lights that appear in the center of the tunnel after a few seconds, plus the images of the three brass instruments that appear a few seconds later.
Sounds from the trombone are controlling the timing and affectation of the abstract vector graphics appearing first in the center of the tunnel and then expanding from the center.
The trumpet is not involved in any visual affectations. In the setup used at the concert, there were two computers in use, each having their own software and each being fed by a microphone attached to a different instrument...except of course, there was no microphone attached to the trumpet. The output of the two computers was combined via a video mixer, which in turn fed the video projector in the theater.
The software driven by sounds from the French horn is controlling two layers of bit-mapped images:
1) the background layer consisting of the tunnel image, which also has a fade-in/fade-out parameter;
2) the foreground layer, which consists of a series of strobe lights constructed with still frames and run as a separate piece of animation, i.e. the wobbling globe effects. The wobbling globe animation is replaced by the instruments which burst from the center of the tunnel.
3)The instruments are just one bit mapped file, and the rotation and zoom effect are software affectations attached to this single file. Thusly, movement can be created solely by the software, e.g. the instruments, or created as joined still image frames similar to traditional animation techniques, e.g. the wobbling globe.
The timing for the changes in the bit mapped images is taken from the French horn notes. The software program is counting the number of notes above a certain volume and within a specified frequency range to trigger the next image. The "count number" is attached to the images via a complex assignment of "sets."
The abstract vector images are emanating from a second piece of software. The flowing graphics are reacting to trombone sounds in real-time. The background color flow is also programmed to react to the trombone sounds in real time. A separate script in .txt language contains the timing cues for transitions.
Please note that any jerkiness in the animation is caused by the conversion of the original files to make them Flash compatible. The resolution used for the concert was 1024 X 768, which fed a single video projector. Higher resolutions are possible with faster computers. The computers used in the concert were standard P4/ 2.4 GHz with 2-Gig of RAM. With current upgrade in computer speed using dual/quad core technology, mixing video footage (.mov and .avi) with the computer graphics is now possible.
Excerpt 2.
In this excerpt, sounds from the French horn are controlling the appearance of the bridges, the railroad crossing signs and the image of the French horn.
Sounds from the trombone are controlling the timing and affectation of the abstract vector graphics flowing around the bridges.
The fact that sounds from the trumpet are not controlling any effects can easily be observed in this excerpt.
Excerpt 3.
The M-shaped logo in the background and the two train images in the foreground are responding to sounds from the French horn. A software parameter is attached to the train images which causes them to rotate and move away from the center of the screen with each French horn note. The extent of the "displacement" is related to the volume of the French horn note. Once the French horn stops playing, the train image returns slowly to the center of the screen and remains stationary.
The "metallic" effect is also a part of the bit-mapped software, but it is not controlled by sound from any instrument. It is running on a clock all by itself, the speed of which is pre-programmed by the composer. The color pallet and its "rotation" through a specified range is also predetermined. The color pallet of the vectored image (the expanding frame), was simply matched to the color pallet used for the bit mapped images.
Although the sound from the trombone is controlling the vectored frame expanding around the screen, the construction of this image is intentionally void of much affectation.
Once again, sound from the trumpet is not controlling any effects, as explained above.
A detailed brochure describing the software and hardware used in the conference can be located on this page.
It’s time for the computer science and art department to join the music department.
The composer is offering to visit any organization or teaching institution that is interested in establishing a visualization course as part of its curriculum. Such a course would involve participation from the computer science department, the broadcast department for audio and video production techniques, and the art department for the visual aesthetics. In other words, the live, interactive visualization of music presents the classic challenge of combing technology and art.
Assistance in presenting a visualization program to your organization can be obtained sending us an email using our contact page.
Round House (Trains)
-- Chamber Orchestra
The complete score for the chamber version of Round House, which includes double string quartet (minimum strings), brass (trumpet, French horn, trombone), woodwinds (flute and clarinet) and 3 percussionists, can be found here.
If Round
-- Piano and Optional Narration
An example of visualization constructed for a piano piece with poetry can be found here.
Alliance-- Full Orchestra with Narration
A promotional video for the score to Alliance, which uses some of the same visualization techniques can be found here.
