64Digits

Music compo entry - Eight more new preludes
Posted on February 11, 2012 at 22:25

The theme is adventure. This is an adventure of the mind, the torments and bloody pains of my damn life.

Here: http://soundcloud.com/stevenobrien/sets/eight-new-preludes

-Steven

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Comments (5)

Composing live stream!
Posted on January 20, 2012 at 21:32

I'm bored and need to do something to take my mind off of certain things. Come and watch me struggle to compose something and do other random stuff. Maybe I'll even start my V4D entry!

http://www.justin.tv/selobrien

- Steve

+1

Comments (4)

Where does art come from?
Posted on January 03, 2012 at 04:25

I apologize in advance, I'm not a terribly good essayist and I generally have a lot of trouble articulating my thoughts into coherent text (hence why I don't blog very often), but I really wanted to write these thoughts down, so hopefully you'll be able to get the gist of what I'm trying to say.

In the naivety of my less mature self from a few years ago, art (Meaning anything from novels to symphonies to films to games to paintings etc.) to me was very much a highly calculated thing. My interpretation of a "genius" was one that could easily perform complex calculations and tasks in their head, one that could see the bigger picture of how everything would come together at the right moment without having to sketch it all out and spend years working on it. In other words people like Mozart, Kubrick, Picasso, Stravinsky, Glass and Beethoven were all just very well trained craftsmen who knew some big secret about how to encapsulate their audiences and stimulate their emotions in a very calculated way.

Over my past four years of composing music, I've developed my own complex, calculable system of constructing melodies and tying them together through the use of classical forms, which could frankly be very easily written out and turned into a program that could theoretically produce thousands of new symphonies and piano sonatas every few seconds.

Why am I or any other composer in the world relevant if music could be easily mass produced in this way? This question has bothered me, as you might imagine.

It has been done, there is a "game" for the 3DO called "CPU Bach", which can randomly generate a work in the style of JS Bach (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IbGO0a5P0M8#t=1m41s). Somehow the works (to me at least) have a very empty feeling to them, as if they are missing something important. On the surface however, they are almost indistinguishable from Bach's compositions. There is clearly something more that goes into art than plain skill.

I find that when I compose aimlessly, not really thinking about what I'm doing and just following my intuition, what comes out is generally multitudes better than what would have come out if I tried to work everything out consciously using my internal algorithms. Ironically, when I work in this way, I always find that what I've written feels so planned and balanced that it's almost as if a computer did write it, just with a much fuller feeling than I get from something generated in CPU Bach. This might sound slightly odd, but it's almost as if each piece of music I write is something complete that already exists in my subconscious and is transcribed, phrase by phrase, into music using my own internal, calculated methods.

Does the best art come from the artists that don't really know what they're doing?

Is creative art really just a transcription of an artists subconsciously stored life experiences into a form that can be understood by an audience?

It really feels this way to me. I find when I compose, that there is something inside me that tells me what exactly what the next note is meant to be, as if it is already prewritten in the back of my mind. This generally leaves me with a sense of dissatisfaction, as if I haven't worked hard enough, but in the end, it all sounds so perfectly calculated and planned out to me as if it took years, and much effort to create, even if it initially sounded very messy. I can also somehow feel the general state of mind I was in at the time that I wrote the piece, as if there is indeed something more to the work. It's a really strange thing.

There's something so inherently human that can be deeply sensed in good art, something so much more than what's on the surface. There are certain Shakespeare passages that I can listen to again and again, not because I find the story entertaining or that I enjoy his style of writing, but because there's something else, indescribable that one can feel in them.

Am I talking out of my ass or do other people find this too?

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Comments (24)

64digits Minecraft Castle Wars
Posted on January 02, 2012 at 18:38

It's time for another minecraft community project thingy! This time, we'll be playing a little game we've devised called "Castle Wars". Participants will be separated into two even teams. Each team will be given a limited amount of resources and an immovable glass block. Each team will be given two hours to build a castle around their glass block with the purpose of protecting it from destruction by the opposing team. Once the two hours are up, each team will take turns attacking the enemy team's castle. The goal of the battle is to either destroy the enemy's glass block, or to completely wipe out the enemy team.

What will happen to the castles after the war is over?
The map will be backed up before the battles commence. Once the battles are over, we'll paste the castles into the creative world and build towns around them. If all goes well, we might even have further battles in the future. If things go extremely well, we might even make it a regularly scheduled event.

Rules
- Each player will start out with:
-- 1 full set of iron armor
-- 1 iron pickaxe
-- 1 iron axe
-- 1 iron shovel
-- 1 iron sword
-- 1 lighter
-- 1 bow
-- 1 stack of arrows
-- 5 gunpowder
-- 3 stacks of wood
-- 1 stack of cobblestone

- Each player on Team Blue will spawn at x:-500,z:0
- Each player on Team Red will spawn at x:500,z:0
- A glass block will be placed at each team's spawn. This glass block must not be made inaccessible (players have to be able to spawn on it anyway) and must not be moved.

- Teams will be given exactly 2 hours to mine their resources and build a castle around their glass block.
- Exactly two hours later, the server will be stopped and the map will be backed up, regardless of whether or not both teams are finished.

- Team Red will be attack Team Blue's castle first, being given 5 minutes to navigate their way to Team Blue's castle and to set up siege weapons outside their castle (Siege weapons are not allowed to be built within castle walls during setup time).
- Team Blue are also allowed to make preparations during this time.
- Players are not allowed to attack each other during this time.
- After the 5 minutes of setup time are up, the battle will commence.

- Players are not allowed to destroy or place blocks during the battle.
- Players can only destroy blocks during a battle through the use of siege weapons.
- Players are allowed to burn blocks.

- Players will be allowed to respawn up to a maximum of 5 times.
- Players will respawn at their home castle and will have to make their own way back to the enemy castle.
- Once a player has died 5 times, they will be put into a spectator mode.

- If Team Red is completely wiped out before they manage to destroy Team Blue's glass block, Team Blue wins.
- If Team Blue is completely wiped out, Team Red wins.
- If Team Blue's glass block is destroyed, Team Red wins.

- After this battle, the map will be restored from the backup and Team Blue will attack Team Red's castle in the same manner.
- We will play 4 rounds in total.
- If there is no winner, we will have a tiebreaker round, and randomly decide who will be attacking who.

- Players can come and go as they please during the building time and between rounds.
- Players will not be allowed to join a battle that's already in progress.
- If a player leaves during a battle, they will not be able to participate in the same battle when they rejoin. This includes if your internet breaks or if minecraft crashes.
- If the teams are uneven before a battle, the players who have been playing for the least amount of time on the largest team will be put into a spectator mode until the end of the battle.

Start time
We will start building our castles on Saturday, January 7th at 21:00 GMT (1PM on the West coast, 4PM on the East coast). Exactly 2 hours later, the battle will commence.

If you'd like to join in, leave your name in the comments below, and you'll be randomly sorted into a team.

I'd really like to join in, but I'm not sure if I'll be able to make it
Unless you're absolutely sure you can't make it, put your name down anyway, the more the merrier. If the start time/date is an issue for people, please let me know.

If anyone has any suggestions for the rules, please let me know.

Team Red
Stevenup7002
marbs
DesertFox (Kitsune)
Alert Games (agMark)
Kilin
CyrusRoberto
SMP
LoserHands
Gift of Death
JID

Team Blue
JeremyDF93
Kabob799
Josea (gmlJosea)
Kyoutu
Grand-High Gamer (Gradius)
colseed
Qwilderwibben
LAR Games
Aliorrsome
Moikle

Participating, but currently unsorted!
None

Chickens
Kamira
Extravisual

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Comments (92)

Eight new preludes for piano
Posted on November 24, 2011 at 18:25

http://soundcloud.com/stevenobrien/sets/twenty-four-preludes-op-2/

9 down, 15 to go.

Note: Prelude No. 1 in C major has already been posted here, so just start on the second track if you don't want to hear it again.

Enjoy,
-Steve

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Comments (14)