Patch challenge #28 Minimalism

Weirdly I was looking for an excuse to posting this somewhere — and this seems an apt place

anniemurphypaul.substack.com/p/freedom-is-bad-for-creativity

Here's my entry, I challenged my inner maydonpoliris for this one (although it's nowhere close to the original 😉).




Patch breakdown:

2OSC/d provide 4 voices, MM-DIV for the rhythm, a 2ENV with 2 looping envelopes as a modulation source and clock for the MM-DIV.

4VCA using the gates of the MM-DIV for the voices and the Nyle Filter to filter / distort / resonate.


So 5 modules (if you don't count the 4IO used for the output), it was tough to get down the count down but fun.

I like the idea of this challenge. I will definitely try my hand at it once I have recorded my last patch. Too many modules is a first world problem, a challenge like this helps to reset your modular mindset.

he he, i guess this is where we have to delve into Raymond Roussel and the many many constraints used in literature centuries previous to him ..

all leading to the OuLiPo .. coincidentally started in 1960 , the year of this sited Dr Seuss challenge..  the OuLiPo has a music offshoot ( the OuMuPo ) but it’s not very big ... though in reality constraints have been in music for centuries ..  ‘scales’ are , of course, an artificial constraint in themselves .. and techniques such as palindromes, retrogrades etc etc have been part of composition for hundreds of years ,,  
 it’s interesting the huge rekindling of interest in early electronic/concrete music ,, which was itself born of the MASSIVE constraint of having to use equipment not designed for composition for several decades ...   we don’t have that ‘luxury’ now  
 but constraints could be fundamental to worming your way through all the modular possibilities ..  we probably should start our own league..
PoMoRé , ie: POtential MOdular REstrictions ! or RePaSt ! ( REstrictive PAtching STrategies ) perhaps 

... robert is already helping with the V7-case of course. 
recently I have stuck to just a cassette player through 1 (or 2) effect pedals to make recordings ,, though Chase Bliss pedals are already so complex it might not be an actual restriction !  it’s probably as much as my brain can handle at one sitting, I will get back to ornament&crime in a 1x 12 row setting soon and shuffle the other 9 slots around for fun..
I am currently in bed with Flu AND a sprained ankle ... so please forgive my ramblings, it’s a subject with long standing fascination for me..

I never made that connection, good call. Guy Maddin’s ‘The Forbidden Room’ is inspired by Roussel , though more the end results Roussel’s constraints forced him into ,, a lot of nested stories within stories.. but it’s an absolutely mind boggling watch and can be seen over and over as you’ll only ever remember about 3% of the detail ,, and probably will fall asleep in sections!
 his ‘Seances’ website gives a flavour , it makes up a new short film just for you every time ..  
seances.nfb.ca/skipIntro
 it doesn’t seem to work in safari on ipad anymore but it does in Ipad firefox when you click the full page thingy. it’s from 2015/16 and a few years beforehand in the making .. but you can weirdly see echoes of all this current AI gubbins in there i think.

 Roussels main torturous ‘restraint’ .. and he’s doing this in french so imagine the headf*ck for a translator in ANY other language .
 first think of phrases that sounds phonetically the same BUT have completely different meanings ..  i’ll try make up a simple english example ..er say “ Sergeant Pepper’s lonely hearts club Band “ then “ Marge & Pippa’s foamy parts dubbed ‘grand’ “ ..  ok that’s a poor example,  but then Roussel uses one phrase for the beginning of a chapter and the other for the end AND then has to think up a plot line that can connect the two phrases , also playing other weird constraint games in the body of the text!! aaarrrgggghhhh! the end result , as you can imagine is pretty damn surreal and nothing you would come up with from your own thought processes. everyone in France hated him at the turn of the 20th century until the surrealists came along and said “ that’s OUR guy! “ though he wasn’t that keen on them..

 I am flummoxed as to how such a technique could be translated into modular patching though!!  and the results certainly aren’t ‘minimal’ as this patch challenge asks...  perhaps two recordings using exactly the same patch mapping BUT randomly swapping the modules!! but that would be a lot of annoying work..  perhaps use exactly the same patch diagram make a recording THEN just shift all the wires, keeping the same diagram, by one module to the right and see what happens? make a 2nd recording & mix the 2? anywee , worth pondering on...

You will need some clock pulse, some modulation(s) and soundsource(s) to get someting not too static otherwise you can just record the output of a VCO, one module patch much wow such minimalist.