different ways to sequence music

[adamj]

I've lurked around these forums for a while. Definitely some interesting discussions going on. I need to bounce some ideas off other people, so here's my first post. Hello!

I spend a lot of time playing with different approaches to sequencing. I used to always think of sequencing in terms of the step sequencer / piano roll / tracker interfaces that are popular in a lot of software. These interfaces are all about placing notes and events within a timeline.

At some point I started making custom music software and it opened up my eyes to sequencing with no timeline. Each event is dependent on previous events instead of a higher level time structure. For example, instead of "play a note on beats 1 and 3 and 4", it's "play a note immediately, then 2 beats after that note, then 1 beat after that". In other words, timing is based on delays from the previous event.

Each sequencing approach has distinct strengths and weaknesses. For example, it's really easy to stop and restart a timeline-based sequence at an arbitrary time because there is a specific time when everything happens. Getting back to a "sync point" is trickier with the non-timeline approach. But with a non-timeline approach you can do some interesting things like inject extra beats into the sequence and really mess with rhythmic patterns on the fly.

I would like to explore these differences further and write about them. The issue is I don't really know how to talk about this stuff concisely. I need some terminology. I considered "absolute sequencing" and "relative sequencing", but I often use relative timelines within an absolute timeline, so those aren't good choices. Maybe "timeline sequencing" and "delay-based sequencing". I don't know...

So, does this make sense to anyone? Any thoughts on what terminology to use? Anyone else out there experimenting with non-timeline sequencing?

Adam

PS - If you want to hear some of my music you can find it over here: http://compusition.com/web/audio
I don't stick to any particular genre. The newest song is more upbeat electronic, the previous two are sorta classical, and a lot of the older stuff is pretty experimental.

[Wout Blommers]

adamj

In my view sequencing has always to do with a time line. I like the term 'relative' sequencing, which means a sound depends on the sound before using certain parameters. I have my doubts about 'absolute'. Maybe 'fixed'. Although, absolute/relative is a well known couple. 'Hybrid' as the mixed sequence?

Wout

[Antimon]

adamj!

Interesting thoughts. I often feel that the 16-step sequencer limits th possibilities for expression, though I like sequencing as such. It will be interesting to read further explanations about what you've found. i think relative and absolute will do as a starting point.

My own late experiments have concerned either skipping the quantised timeline completely - placing samples or events in a gridless environment - or messing with homemade arpeggiators. I'm not sure how sucessful this has been. Reading your post has put a couple more ideas in my head for something to try out on the monome.

/Stefan

[Antimon]

BTW, nice tracks - I've listened to the top two so far.

/Stefan

[blue hell]

I always start with the old ones, I liked what I heard there too.

[adamj]

Thanks for the replies.

I agree "relative sequencing" is a good way to describe it.

I like the suggestion of "fixed sequencing". I was avoiding "absolute" because that means something else to me. Say there's a basic drum pattern on beats 1,2,3,4. If I start playing that pattern on the second measure (4/4 time signature), I'd say there's a fixed sequence on beats 1,2,3,4 that starts at an offset time of 4 beats. The absolute time would be 5,6,7,8. The relative sequencing times would be 4,1,1,1 (or 0,1,1,1 with an offset of 4).

To sum up these ideas:
Absolute times are the offset from the start of the piece
Fixed times are the offset from the start of the subsequence (a motif or musical phrase or whatever)
Relative times are the offset from the start of the previous event

This is just slightly different ways of looking at the same thing: where in time does an event occur? (BTW, Wout you are right: all sequencing has a timeline, I just didn't know how to explain it).

I'm sure most of us switch perspective like this while writing music without necessarily realizing it. I haven't found any discussions of these different perspectives of time anywhere. If anyone can recommend some reading material that might be relevant, that would be awesome.

I believe forcing yourself to switch perspective has value because it can change the way you write music. I know that relative sequencing can make it easier to work with complex polyrhythms like 7,7,7... vs 13,13,13,... Try that with fixed sequencing, it's a pain! Most people probably wouldn't ever use rhythms like that in a traditional sequencer, because the representation of time limits them.

[blue hell]

[Acoustic Interloper]

The relative times seem to be an application of iterated function systems to meter.

[dewdrop_world]

More comments about sequencing later, but I have to say first, I just listened to "The Mirror" and I appreciate the harmonic variety very much. A whole lot of music gets locked into a chord progression and can't find its way into any neighboring territories, but clearly you catalogued some harmony variations and deployed them with careful pacing to keep things interesting.

I love love LOVE harmony and it's the thing I miss most about a lot of electronic music... people don't know their harmony. Not all electronic music obviously, but it seems like that's always the first to go...

James

[plagal]

[adamj]

Blue Hell: yes, that's kind of what I meant when I said these are all slightly different ways of looking at the same thing. I had a realization: When we talk about time in music, we need to use a number, like this event happens 1 minute or 9 measures into the piece/section/phrase/whatever. Those numbers are meaningless unless you have a reference point. With fixed sequencing, the reference point is stationary. With relative sequencing it's constantly shifting. I think that's really the difference between these types of sequencing. The term "absolute" doesn't really apply when you look at it that way.

Acoustic Interloper and plagal: thanks for the links, they look very interesting. Might take a while to absorb.

James: I'm glad you noticed! I really, really love harmony too. One of the cools things about modern music software is almost anyone with the motivation can make music, but unfortunately there are many aspects of musical tradition that are lost on most people. Maybe it's because I had to write a lot of 4-part harmony in school, I usually start from chord progressions as the basis of a piece and go from there. Somewhere along the way I became too caught up in minimalism and used a lot of static harmony, but lately I've been trying to introduce more variation by modulating keys, etc. I'm happy with the results in "The Mirror" and hope I can take it further in future pieces.

[Acoustic Interloper]