Ch 22: Music Experiment

~
(David

My attention span is not what it used to be. I’m still reading about Trithemius, but after reading several paragraphs without absorbing anything, I instinctively reach for my Neuro Sonic Composer. No wait, I remember I can use the new SRI tech now. It’s the one that allowed me to create three complete tracks.

This time, I’ll try not to get so lost in it that I forget to eat and shower.

I start messing around with the SRI, neurotech on, and the headband on. It’s still unbelievable the way it works, directly connected to the auditory and visual centres of my brain, in a way the developers apparently don’t yet fully understand. It’s incredible new technology. I’m fortunate to be alive at such a time.

As I get into a flow, this music I’m making, as weird and alien sounding as it is, is coming much more easily than it did with the old NSC system.

But here comes the familiar burning electric sensation, slowly rising in my chest. I don’t know if I’m strong enough to take a really punishing bout of pain right now. I pull out of it for a minute and let the pain subside.

I decide to look at that track “Fractice” that Finn liked. I take off the headband and listen just as audio, like a regular listener. And there it is: “FRA”. It happened almost as soon as I hit “play”. In my mind, I see the letters “FRA”. It’s hard to explain, but it’s like a sudden image in my mind, but the image is the letters. They keep popping up while the song plays, insisting that I notice them. This is real. I suppose I could be in a state of delusion, but I really don’t think so.

I want to see if I can figure out how this is happening. I put the SRI headband on and pull up the working project file for Fractice. I look at this thing I made in my creative frenzy the first time I used the SRI. The project does look a bit wild. Way more complex than my older stuff.

The system has saved the original under a version name so I can fiddle around with this one without losing whatever I did in the original.

Wait—I first have to see if it’s something in me that is causing these letters to appear in my mind. Is it really just the SRI doing it?

I disengage from the SRI, headband off, and spend some time listening to bits and pieces of various music in the same style as well as several different genres and styles. No magic letters are coming to me. Good—I’m not just going crazy.

A couple more things to check. I listen to several of my earlier snippets of “music” I made with the old NSC system. Nothing. No letters.

I fire up the NSC system. Wow, it fees so clunky compared to the SRI. I go into a couple of these old NSC projects and fiddle around with the pitches and rhythms and then listen back as simple audio. Nothing.

I’m satisfied that it’s the SRI causing this strange effect with letters appearing in my mind.

I can’t help wondering if I can control this “language” effect of the SRI somehow. I fear that if I tell anyone about this, I’ll be perceived as crazy. But if it’s proven to be controllable, it could represent a new or alternative way of thinking about music production.

I go back into the Fractice project file and start rearranging it a bit. I change the melody a bit. I don’t know if I can really call this a “melody”, because it’s just me fiddling around by bending the pitch of notes until I think it sounds good. Maybe this would be called microtonal music. But I do it almost accidentally, by trial and error, without any theory behind it.

I’ve changed the melody so that a section of it sounds reasonably ok to my ears, and another section is just hitting random pitches. I pull up the audio file of the track which the system renders for me. I close out of the SRI and remove the headband—listening like a regular listener, neurotech engaged.

As the track plays back, I get nothing from either the “musical” section or the random-notes section. No magic letters. I play it again—nothing.

I listen again to the original version of Fractice. Headband off, SRI off, neurotech on, just audio. And there it is: “FRA”. In my mind. I still can’t describe it adequately, but it’s there.

So the pitches of notes are connected to letters? What about rhythm? I change up the rhythm of the notes. Play it back as plain audio, and get nothing.

I again go back to the original version, so the pitches of the notes are all in the original form. But I change the rhythms of only the percussion elements. Listen to it as plain audio – nothing.

Back again to the original version. I change some of the pitches of the notes just very slightly using continuous pitch bending, like doing small moves trying to dial in some frequency that I don’t know.

I listen back to the audio. I get letters – “TRA”. I did it. I somehow changed the “F” to a “T”!

I save that as a version and go back to the audio version of the original. No headband, no SRI. I get “FRA”.

I have to check some more variables. Next I’ll experiment with just the percussion elements.

As I work, my legs start to feel a subtle sensation, sort of like vibration. I know what’s coming next. The electric burning sensation in my chest comes on, then in my head, steadily escalating in intensity, like it’s fading in. My eyes start burning. Why always the eyes? My vision gets slightly blurry. I have to keep working at this.

I go back to the original version of “Fractice”, the project, and change just the rhythms of the percussion. I go really random with the rhythms. I listen to the audio and get “QBRPQF”.

The original still gives me “FRA”.

These changed rhythms were played over a cluster of notes as well as a bass line. Lots of pitches or frequencies happening all at once.

I try simplifying the rhythm over this cluster of notes. Just a solitary thumping kick drum with a simple 4x4 pattern.

I play the audio and there it is. I get “QQQQQQQQ”. As long as this loop plays I get the letters: “QQQQQQQQ”

One more thing to test. I go back to the original project, SRI engaged, and I change the simple kick drum sound to random percussion sounds playing over the cluster of notes. Same simple 4x4 rhythm, but random sounds. I disengage the SRI, play the audio and my mind sees “BPZ”. It’s like some of the percussion hits kind of missed the correct frequency or combinaton of frequencies. Or frequencies and rhythms? Something like that.

This is incredible. This SRI technology is somehow creating letters in the mind of the listener. I could be just imagining it I guess, but I really do believe that I am somehow changing the letters that get “embedded” in the music by changing the pitches and the rhythms of not only the musical elements but the percussion elements as well. Somehow the pitches or frequencies are attached to certain letters, but then the letters are also changed by rhythms playing on top of the music. But the sound of the percussion elements also affects the letters. I’ll do some more testing using different fundamental frequencies of the percussion elements. Like a snare drum that hits mainly at 200 Hz, and then another one that hits at 300 Hz. Or a metallic cymbal sound that hits way up at 10 or 12 KHz. I wonder if you could even use ultrasonic frequencies. I also have to test different rhythm patterns playing over the notes. I’ll test all of that.

But right now I’m wincing and straining against the burning pain, and my eyes are burning so bad, and it’s getting hard to focus. I stick my head in the bathroom and look in the mirror. My eyes are blood red. I have to get out of here for a while. Out to the park. I’m careful to make myself reasonably presentable. Clean clothes. Running shorts, running shoes, t-shirt and light jacket, also a cap. I’m a regular, sane guy out for a walk in the park, maybe stopping off for groceries on the way back.

The pod banks itself left, into a curve around another residential building complex, toward the city park. I always enjoy the gentle g-forces of the turns.

But this music thing, the SRI. This could be a whole new art form. Creating music or sounds that contain language that’s perceived in the mind. Maybe this is insane, but what if i could “type” out a whole series of words in the music so that when people listen, they perceive the words?

But it would be such a monumental task to figure out how to do it, how to control it, through just trial and error. There are so many possible combinations of pitch and rhythm that it would take a lifetime to learn how to do it consistently and deliberately. Somebody more knowledgeable than me will figure it out. They’ll build a whole theory and art around it and start using it to embed poetry within the music. Or lyrics. Or propaganda. Most likely propaganda.