In B-Flat (2009)
Really lovely idea and brilliant execution.
For people who don't get the reference, one of the defining pieces of the Minimalist movement in 20th century music[1] was "In C" by Terry Riley[2]. Minimalist pieces often (but don't always) include elements of non-determinsm like in this.
[1] Minimalism here doesn't mean "not many notes" it means deliberately restricting the range of harmonic and rhythmic materials available to the composer. Steve Reich, Philip Glass, John Adams, and Arvo Part represent well-known composers with very different takes on the style if you want to check out more.
[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/In_C to read about "In C" or try https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tbTn79x-mrI&pp=ygUQaW4gYyB0Z... as an example performance.
Related:
In B-Flat - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15941838 - Dec 2017 (43 comments)
I remember showing this to a roommate's mom over a decade ago. She wondered aloud if it was like The Emperor's New Clothes or if we simply didn't understand music well enough to know why we shouldn't enjoy this.
I still like it, whatever it says about me.
Best thing I've seen on the internet this year
Doesn't run on mobile, which is fine not everything has to. But could someone describe the page for those of us who can't right now?
Can someone please explain why does this work? Did they agree what everyone would be playing? I am not a musician, but it seems like tempos and time signatures do not match. Or is the whole point that they didn't agree to anything upfront and it still somehow works? Are they all actually playing in B-flat?
I imagine that part of the selection process was ensuring the Bb videos were all in-tune. I'm imagine there were many videos rejected because they were out-of-tune.
> In Bb doesn't run properly on mobile devices. Please use a laptop/desktop. If you'd like to try anyway please click OK.
But I am running this on a laptop.
I enjoyed playing with this. On a different note, do you gather data about the different ways visitors play the videos?
God, I love this kind of thing. Beautiful!
That was MUCH better than I would have expected. Really beautiful 15 minutes.
I don't have individual volume slides, do you all have them?
For a moment, I felt like Philip Glass. Thanks!
Getting some Godspeed you Black Emperor vibes
This brought a smile to my face :D
This was a delightful experience
<3
[dead]
I am deeply offended by the key of Bb. </dryhumor>
I really enjoyed these 3 together:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lOSfM2V8EkI
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HB7NxVpskI0
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PmKWkiDAm5k
Great atmosphere. Makes me think of a good video game soundtrack. Interestingly they don't sound good if you only play 2 of them, you need all 3 to pull the harmony together.