fig.1.) basic screen display with timeline.
When you start the software you will be presented with a mostly blank screen with a thin horizontal line running across the top, with numbers above it, and a thicker pale line down the left hand side. This is your timeline for a composition. The horizontal line represents the current play point, with the numbers indicated the time in minutes, seconds and milliseconds. Each component that is added to a composition has its own track added to the timeline, which builds up as a series of vertical lines with colour boxes on them. As a composition plays these move up the screen. As they pass through the horizontal play line the sounds and animations they represent are performed. The left-most track that always appears with a new score is the scrollbar for the timeline. You will see a small handle on this track sitting over the play line. You can click and drag this handle with the mouse to move back and forwards through the timeline of a composition once you have added some sounds to it.
fig.1.) basic screen display with timeline.
If you click with the mouse in the main area of the screen a pop-up menu will appear with the items BRANCH, CLOUD, GRID, LOOPS and NOTE listed on it. These are the basic music notations which you add to the screen to build up a composition. If you right-click, or click whilst holding down the control key (control-click), a different pop-up menu will appear with the visual notations: COLOUR CHANGE, COLOUR FADE, SPECTRUM. These are all explained below in more detail.
fig.2.) music notations menu.
Each time you add one of these notations, a new track will appear on the timeline with a coloured box on it that matches the colour of the new notation on the screen. The new notations will always appear at the point where the play line is. By clicking and dragging on the coloured box you can move it up and down the track. This will change the time at which that notation performs in the composition.
fig.3.) multiple tracks on the timeline.
When you move the mouse over the top or bottom end of the box a white square will appear over it. If you click and drag on this you can change the start and end points of the notation and how long it performs for.
fig.4.) adjusting the duration on a sound on the timeline.
When you first add a sound notation it will not have any actual sounds attached to it. You add these by clicking inside the middle of the notation and selecting sounds from the pop-up menu that will appear. The Spirits of Sound at the Teenage Fair uses a set of pre-recorded sound samples. These were created by the singer Hanna Tuulikki and percussionist Heather Corbett and provide a vocabulary of sounds from which to build a composition. the sounds are organised into groups based either on the instrument used to create them, such as xylophone or marimba, or the kind of sound it is, such as dry or long.
fig.5.) the sound menu.
You can move a notation around on the screen by clicking and dragging with the mouse near the notation's outside edge. If you right-click (or control-click) near the outside edge of the notation you will get a different pop-up menu that will allow you to change the animation ('painter') and possibly other aspects of the notation or select to remove the notation from your composition.
fig.6.) right-click on notation to select for adjusting animation ('painter') or removal.
When you move the mouse into any of the corners of the screen a small white box will appear. These are different control buttons. The top-left button will allow you to hide or show the timeline (it is shown by default). If you click this a few times you will see the timeline and numbers disappear and re-appear. The top-right button enables the notations to be visible or hidden during a performance. By default the notations are hidden during a performance.
fig.7.) top right corner button to turn display of notations on and off.
The bottom-right button is the play button, clicking on this will start and stop playback of a composition. If you have the timeline visible you will see the numbers counting the time and the boxes on the timeline tracks moving as it plays. You can also start and stop playback by pressing the 'p' key for 'play' and 's' for 'stop'.
fig.8.) menu for file actions in bottom left corner.
Clicking on the button in the bottom-left corner brings up a pop-up menu with the options: NEW, OPEN, SAVE, SAVE AS and QUIT. Select NEW to create a new blank composition. Clicking OPEN will bring up a file dialogue that allows you to select and load a previously saved composition. SAVE will save the current composition. The save system gives an automatic name to each new composition. If you click on SAVE AS this will open the file dialogue and allow you to change the name of the current score and save it with the new name. QUIT will close down the software.
fig.9.) the open file dialogue.
All the composition scores are saved into a folder called "SSTF" that is automatically created in your home directory the first time you run the software. On GNU/Linux and Mac OS X systems this will be created somewhere similar to: /home/yourname/SSTF. On Windows systems it will be somewhere such as: C:\Documents and Settings\yourname\SSTF.
A composition is built up from selecting and combing from a set of five different forms of music structure, each of which has it own notational form. When a music notation is first created it will have no specific sounds attached to it and will be displayed with white inner line indicating that. To add a sound you click inside the white line area and select a sound from the list that will appear. When a sound has been added the outline will be coloured. When moving over a notation, the mouse cursor changes to a crosshair to indicate an area that a sound can be attached to. This is particularly useful for the BRANCH and LOOPS notations as sounds can only be attached in the 'empty' areas of the notation.
Once a sound has been attached to a notation it can be selected and edited. To do this right-click (or control-click) on the notation and a pop-up menu will show a list of sounds that are currently attached. Click on the name of the sound to hear a preview of it, or select the 'adjust' option to change the sound settings, or 'remove' to remove the sound from the notation.
fig.10.) right-click on sound to select for adjusting or removal.
All sounds can be edited in the same way. A dialogue window opens with slider controls for adjusting the volume, pitch and pan of a sound. Pan is the balance between right and left stereo channels. Click and drag with the mouse on a slider to change the sound. To reset to the default value of a slider right-click (or control-click) on it.
fig.11.) editing a sound.
All sounds also have a 'painter' that animates in response to the sound during performance. You can set the colour for the painter, and in some cases also properties such as the speed it draws at, by selecting the 'painter' option in the notation menu (right-click or control-click at the edge of the notation). Colours are set with four slider bars. The first is 'colour' for selecting the basic colour you want, then 'light' which gives you a strong vivid colour at the far left and fades to white at the far right, and 'dark' which goes to black at the far left and changes through grey shades as you move right. The 'opacity' sets how transparent a colour is, how much the colours beneath can show through.
fig.12.) editing a colour.
This is the simplest of all the music components, it simply plays one sound at a time.
To create a NOTE:
1.) click on the screen and select NOTE from the pop-up menu.
2.) click inside the white circle, and select a sound from the audio menu.
fig.13.) the NOTE notation.
You can add as many sounds as you wish, but only one sound will be played. If more than one sound is attached to a NOTE then each time the composition is performed, one of these sounds will be randomly selected. The sound is always played at the start of the NOTE and unlike other music components, the duration of the NOTE on the timeline does not alter what you hear.
When performed, the NOTE produces a simple animation of broken circles painted over each other. These continue for as long as the natural length of the sound.
fig.14.) the animation for a NOTE.
The sounds attached to NOTE can be edited in the basic manner described above, you can change the volume, pitch and panning of the sound. The animation can be set to paint in different colours, again following the process described above.
NOTE allows you to create a simply structured free-form arrangement of sounds as distinct points or colours, similar to Anton Webern's Klangfarbenmelodie compositions.
The CLOUD produces one of the most complex sound structures in The Spirits of Sound at the Teenage Fair but is one of the simplest to use. Whereas NOTE plays just one sound at a time, CLOUD can take one or more sounds and plays them back as multi-layered sound, like a cloud of sound particles, each moving at different speeds. Some sounds are looping in short fragments, others play through completely. The CLOUD relates to a form of music composition known as stochastic music, developed by composers such as Iannis Xenakis, György Ligeti and Krzysztof Penderecki.
To create a CLOUD:
1.) click on the screen and select CLOUD from the pop-up menu.
2.) click inside the white circle, and select a sound from the audio menu.
3.) click and drag on one of the handles to change the size of the CLOUD, a bigger CLOUD you will create more variations of pitch and volume in the soundtexture, whilst a small CLOUD will produce a much denser texture.
fig.15.) resizing the CLOUD notation.
When the CLOUD is played back it produces an animation of overlapping circles building up a wash of colour in the background.
fig.16.) the animation for a CLOUD.
The individual sounds within the CLOUD cannot be altered in terms of volume and pitch as this is controlled by the CLOUD itself, but you can change the colour of the animation following the standard process.
The GRID allows small structures of repeating sounds to be created. Whereas the sounds in CLOUD are chaotic and unpredictable, all the sounds in a GRID play at an even tempo and in a fixed order. GRID is like a simple sequencer, one of the most widespread ways of making electronic music, or like a conventional notated music score in regular time. The GRID is made up of a grid of squares. Only one sound can be attached to a single square. As you go from left to right along the squares you move forward a step in time. The vertical rows allow you to have multiple 'tracks', so that different sounds can be played together. If you have a grid with three rows and a different sound in the same column of each row, then all three sounds will play together at the same time.
To create a GRID:
1.) click on the screen and select GRID from the pop-up menu.
2.) you will see a set of three squares in a line, click and drag on one of the handles to change the size of the GRID, as you make it bigger more squares will appear, and these will disappear as you make the GRID smaller.
3.) click in a square and select a sound from the pop-up menu.
4.) add sounds to different squares to make up a sequence.
fig.17.) a GRID notation with sounds added.
When re-sizing the GRID be careful that you don't loose sounds. If you make the GRID smaller, then big again, you might find sounds that are in squares of the bigger GRID are lost. The trick is not to let go of the mouse until you have the GRID the size you want. As you drag the handles about the GRID changes without loosing it's original contents, but once you let go of a handle the GRID adjusts to the new size and will remove any sounds that are no longer visible.
You can edit the individual sounds within a GRID by right-clicking (or control-clicking) on each one. You can also change the overall tempo of the GRID by right-clicking (or control-clicking) at the side of the notation. Changing the tempo of the GRID will change how fast or slow it moves from one column to the next, but will not change the speed of the individual sounds themselves.
fig.18.) adjusting the tempo for a GRID.
The visual animation of the GRID moves horizontally across the screen, painting larger dots for each sound.
fig.19.) the animation for GRID.
LOOPS, like GRID, enable sounds to be played in a repeating pattern. Whilst a GRID plays all it's sounds as part of one synchronised repeating sequence, a LOOPS allows for sounds to be repeated at different individual rates. This creates a rhythmic process known as phasing which is found in the work of Minimalist composers such as Steve Reich and Terry Riley, who in turn drew influence from the multi-layered rhythmic systems in certain Indonesian and African music traditions such as Gamelan music. In contrast to a GRID which has a fixed rhythmic pattern that the sounds fit into, the phasing rhythms of a LOOPS emerge out of the changing relationships between the different sounds. Each sound in the LOOPS is individually represented by it's own circle shape. These can be made bigger or smaller thereby changing the duration of each loop. A bigger sound loop circle will take longer to repeat than a smaller one. Note that the sound itself is only played once at the beginning of every loop repetition.
To create LOOPS:
1.) click on the screen and select LOOP from the pop-up menu.
2.) click inside the white rectangle, and select a sound from the audio menu.
3.) a circle with a smaller circle intersecting at the top will appear, this represents one sound loop, a box with handles will appear around each sound loop when you move the mouse over it, drag on one of the handles to change the size of the sound loop.
fig.20.) adjusting a sound within the LOOPS notation.
When you right-click (or control-click) on an individual loop you can edit or remove the sound. Each sound can have its volume, pitch and pan set separately.
The LOOPS are animated as a line being drawn, moving from the top to the bottom of the screen. There is a separate line for each sound loop within the one LOOPS notation. Each time a sound loop repeats the line circles back on itself, almost like a knot being tied in a piece of string. You can change the colour of these lines and also how fast they move, turn and spiral. Changing these will produce different types of animated line varying form the tight straight line that is the default animation, to very loose spirals that unwind across the screen.
fig.21.) the animation for LOOPS.
A BRANCH notation allows you to create a semi-random linear ordering of sounds. You can think of this as a simple melody which is able to vary over time but must still follow a certain sequence. This relates to a kind of music known as aleatoric, or chance music, like that of John Cage, in which some elements in the music are decided in advance whilst others can be selected randomly during the performance. Sounds in a BRANCH notation are represented as individual circles that are connected by lines. These connections determine the order in which sounds are played. A set of sounds connected only by single lines will play in the order that they are connected, making a kind of linear melody. With a sound that has several lines connecting it to more than one other sound however, the melody can choose which of the lines it follows, thereby making the melody branch off in different directions. The order in which sounds are connected is thereby fixed in advance, but the particular path that is followed in a performance can be selected at random from within the options of the branch pattern.
To create a BRANCH:
1.) click on the screen and select BRANCH from the pop-up menu.
2.) click inside the white rectangle, and select a sound from the audio menu.
3.) a circle will appear, this represents one sound, add several sounds so that you have more than one circle, you can move circles around by clicking on the edge of the circle and dragging the mouse.
4.) to connect two circles, click inside the middle of one circle. A line will appear connected to this circle and following your mouse as you move it around. Click with the mouse inside the middle of the second circle to connect the two sounds together. To remove a link, just click on one of the existing lines and it will disappear.
fig.22.) a BRANCH notation with several sounds linked together.
When you right-click (or control-click) on an individual circle you can edit or remove the sound. Each sound can have its volume, pitch and pan set separately. One of the sounds in a BRANCH must be selected as the starting sound. This is shown as a solid circle. When you create a new BRANCH the first sound you add is automatically selected as this but you can change the starting sound by right-clicking (or control-clicking) on it and selecting the 'make start sound' option.
fig.23.) a BRANCH with different start sound.
A BRANCH is animated as a series of curving lines that branch off from each other as the sounds change. You can change the colour of the animation and the speed at which it is drawn.
fig.24.) the animation for BRANCH.
The visual notations allow you to change the background colour during a performance and add in a visualisation of the frequency spectrum of the sounds.
fig.25.) visual notations menu.
Visual notations can be edited or removed by right-clicking (or control-clicking) on the contation.
fig.26.) selecting to edit or remove a visual notation.
The colour change and colour fade notatoon will display a white inner box if they have not been defined, and a colour matching that chosen for them when they are defined.
fig.27.) animation with different colours.
This will make the background colour of the screen change to a new colour. The change happens at the start of the notation and, like the NOTE notation, the duration on the timeline is not important.
To create a COLOUR CHANGE:
1.) right-click (or control-click) on the screen and choose COLOUR CHANGE from the pop-up menu.
2.) right-click (or control-click) inside the notation to open the colour picker, set the new colour you want and click OK.
fig.28.) colour change notation displaying the colour it has been set to.
This will make the background colour of the screen gradually fade from whatever its current colour is to the new colour you select. The duration of the notation on the timeline determines how slow or fast this happens.
To create a COLOUR FADE:
1.) right-click (or control-click) on the screen and choose COLOUR FADE from the pop-up menu.
2.) right-click (or control-click) inside the notation to open the colour picker, set the new colour you want and click OK.
fig.29.) colour fade notation displaying the colour it has been set to.
The SPECTRUM animation gives you a visual idea of the frequencies (or pitch range) within the sounds as the music performs. These are depicted as a series of horizontal lines that move from right to left across the screen. Lines at the bottom of the screen indicate low frequencies and lines towards the top indicate high frequencies. Note that low frequencies will always tend to be more present in the SPECTRUM animation than higher ones, even if the human ear can hear the higher sounds more clearly. This is due to the fact that there tends to be a lot of low frequency sounds that our minds filter out when listening to music.
To create a SPECTRUM:
1.) right-click (or control-click) on the screen and choose SPECTRUM from the pop-up menu
fig.30.) The spectrum notation.
There is nothing to alter or edit in the SPECTRUM animation. The animation will last for as long as it appears in the timeline. It is a good idea to allow the animation to continue for several seconds after the sounds have stopped.
fig.31.) spectrum display animating across screen.
There are a few keyboard commands you can use:
| p | plays current composition |
| s | stops current composition |
| t | turns timeline display on and off |
| n | turns notation display on and off |
| m | turns mouse display on and off |
| control+n | creates new composition |
| control+s | saves current composition |
| control+q | quits software |
fig.32.) all display functions turned on.