Technological and Computer-based Projects



Circle of 5ths Clock
Work in progress
Using: Max/MSP, Arduino, vintage solenoids/modified relays, found glass and metal resonators

     Our perception of time is highly influenced by our hour-based schedule. But how viscerally do we experience the flow of time? In this piece I'm trying to learn whether by stretching out a fundamental musical progression over 24 hours, the connective tissue of time will become more apparent, or if having this constant progression will change one's perception of time in any way.

This piece was inspired during a year when I lived across the street from a monastery. I've always loved the sound of bells, and I found myself thinking often about how the regular tolling of the bells might help them achieve or maintain a state of awareness and meditation despite the monastery being in urban Chicago. Church bells, though, have a limited tonal structure and mostly just toll, peal, or play hymns. (And the way I feel about how carillon is generally played is a whole separate matter, best left undiscussed here.)

05 Jan 2010: Finished application for my first grant to make "5ths Clock 2.0". I'm proposing a permanent or semipermanent installation, with 5- or 6-foot-tall steel resonators. See my writeup for it here, which is perhaps in some ways the most eloquent I've been about it so far.

15 Nov 2009: I've left it running most of the day today, and the warped harmonic language of the various wine glasses, bells and metal gets more and more pleasing to my ear as I hear it repeatedly. Changed from version 1.0, where a single chord happened every 15 minutes, in this version the clock strikes only on the hour, but indicates the time by the number of chords in the progression. (Like a regular clock, I suppose, but with harmonic content.) So, 5:00 pm is a 5-chord progression leading to the key of the hour, in this case B Major.



Max screenshot! Ask if you want the file:





First video of "test mode", the shift registers simply counting from 0-255 in binary, causing each striker to fire half as often as the one before it.



The 5ths Clock plays, as best it can, the theme from "Jurassic Park".


A prototype of the striker, controlled by Max via Arduino via two 8-bit shift registers.