‘The Well-Sequenced Synthesizer’ by Luisa Pereira

'The Well-Sequenced Synthesizer' by Luisa Pereira

The participant of NYU’s Interactive Telecommunications Program Luisa Pereira has created an unusual series of sequencers titled The Well-Sequenced Synthesizer. Three devices created by Luisa operate on the basis of the 300-year-old rules, formulated by Johann Sebastian Bach in the cycle The Well-Tempered Clavier.

The first device The Counterpointer is programmed according to the rule of counterpoint. It works the following way: first, a melody is inputted; on the basis of this melody the machine creates a counter-melody; finally, the third step is creating a counterpoint melody.

The second device is titled El Ordenador and serves for generating random series of chords. Certain restrictions can be applied on these chords in accordance with features of tonality that were described by Dmitry Tymoczko in his book A Geometry of Music. For this purpose, there are three switches: the first controls efficient voice leading, the second – harmonic consistency and the third – diatonic macroharmy.

The third sequencer La Mec?nica is actually a classic music box, which plays back the sequences created by El Ordenador.

To date, all the devices exist in a single copy. According to Luisa Pereira, she is going to create more such devices in the future, and would love to see how musicians could use them in their work. She also intends to create more sequencers, inspired on other different concepts and algorithms.

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