Cereal Music

Robert Willey

The name comes from a respelling of "serial music" to indicate its irreverent improvisational implementation. Originally serialism was a method of controlling pitch proposed by Arnold Schönberg, in which no note is repeated until the other 11 notes in the chromatic scale have been played. This insures the equality of pitch and avoidance of tonic. You may use the patch to perform other types of tonalities. The note being played on the keyboard can be heard as well as the generated notes, in which cases minimal riffs may work better, or at least ones that use simple harmonies so that triggered notes do not clash with what is being played by hand.

The order of pitches in the row can be inverted or played in retrograde using pedals assigned to controller numbers 68 and 69 or set in presets. While the pitch class is recorded in advance, the register is controlled by the performer. If the row is C, E^b, A, etc., and the performer plays a high D, then a high C (the first note in the row) will come out. If a middle D and low D are then played together a middle Eb and low A (the second and third notes in the row) will be heard, with whatever velocity the keys are pressed.

Examples:

cereal.mid: 12-tone atonal improvisation, changing parameters by clicking on the presets in the top rows between phrases. During the second half (sax and organ notes become more prominant) you can hear both the note that is being played (piano timbre) as well as the triggered notes.
newminor.mid: a different set of pitches (C minor), presets farther down
newmajor.mid: another preset calls up notes in F major.
blues11a.mid: improvisation using blues riff rather than row. Output split among different channels. Go through program changes by pressing program change buttons.

Schönberg's followers extended the idea to the serialism of timbre, dynamics, duration, and articulation. My implementation allows the windowing of the row so that fewer (or more) than 12 notes can be cycled through. A row of timbres is also available. Dynamics, as usual, have been left to the control of the performer

In addition, panning and reverberation/chorus are serializable allowing for a serialization of position (angle and distance). Chorus increases with reverberation as an experiment. These values are sent out just after a note is released so that the channel will be set up the next time a note is played on it. Current development is concentrating on serializing video processing parameters.

The set of pitches, timbres, channels, pan, and reverb/chorus settings can be changed with presets, called up conveniently with program changes from the controller. Making a group of changes with one button press frees up the performer and gives the controller the feeling of being "programmed". It also hides the details from the audience.

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