Guardian of the Non Sequitur

BoingBoing had a really interesting two part conversation between Xeni Jardin and Peter Kirn of Create Digital Music and Matt Ganucheau of Expression College about generative music.

There was a question asked toward the end about the next direction for Guitar Hero.  I didn’t feel that they had a good response (off the top of their heads) to it, so here’s my (had some time to think about it) opinion.

There are two directions to go from the current state of Guitar Hero, and in opposite directions.  I expect to see offerings in both directions in the future.

With regards to generative and collaborative music, there is the more creative direction (which as mentioned is less emotionally safe) in which people are collaborating in new composition.  It would be interesting for the software/game to lay a background and others to layer on that.  Perhaps with the software reacting and changing depending on player input.  Think drum circle with more instruments.

The other direction is toward more realism in instrument play.  I can’t recount how many times I’ve heard musician friends say “why would I want to do that when I can play real music?”  I can imagine a future generation of this style of gameplay that takes input from “real” instruments.  Using a MIDI interface is the most obvious choice.

Whether either of those directions will ever be as popular as the current Guitar Hero and ilk is unlikely in my opinion.  The dumbed-down, lowest common denominator game play is what leads to this genre’s popularity.

Video embeds for the conversation that got my mind churning:

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I dreamt I was doing a video podcast on candies that had songs written about them.  I was in the airport shooting a display in a shop of a Mexican candy called Wás which Café Tacuba had a song about.

It was yellow and round and waffle-like but crunchier.  With some gooey sugary carmel-like covering.

Media coverage of iPhone application development (what? why is media even covering this?!) goes in a stereo-typical cyclical pattern that is almost weekly in its oscillation.  This week chiming in is the New York Times: Hoping to Make iPhone Toys as a Full-Time Job.

The Lede on this story sells the Gold Rush, no doubt leading young men West to dig in the dirt.

This article does point out the other side of the story briefly:

But the chances of hitting the iPhone jackpot keep getting slimmer: the Apple store is already crowded with look-alike games and kitschy applications, and fresh inventory keeps arriving daily.

But they quickly return and glorify the Get Ri¢h Story.  They return to 6-figure pronouncements and phrases like “minimal skill” and “only 7 days”.  It sounds like late-night hucksterism.

There are currently about 2000 apps released in the store per month.  Less than 1 a month is a get-rich-quick winner.  And those are usually gimmicks and one-offs.

There is a middle ground.  A reasonable expectations and reasonable skills balance.  But you won’t likely hear that story in the press.

I also wouldn’t be surprised if there were some big boys that back out of the arena in a year or two because of the dilution of perceived value.  They spend big bucks on game development and need to reap it back.

Of course, evolution in the hardware available is going to continue to change the landscape.

So, this was some debugging output that I was going through yesterday. My whole day was like that. And this particular one, pointed me toward one of my problems.

Rr2rrrrrrrrrBCDrr1w3wwww8wwwwwDww
"10-14" = Wr2rrrrrrr0rBCrrr1w3wwWw8wwwwwDww;
"15-19" = Wr2rrrrrrrrrBCDEr1wrwwWw8wwwwwDww;
"16-19" = Wr2rrrrrrrrrBCDrF1wrwwWw8wwwwwDww;
"8-12" = Wr2rrrrr8rrrrCDrr1w3wwWw8wwwwwDww;
"9-13" = Wr2rrrrrr9rrBrDrr1w3wwWw8wwwwwDww;
"9-14" = Wr2rrrrrr9rrBCrrr1w3wwWw8wwwwwDww;


Yes, this is what I do during the day.

I was recently reminded that because I was so busy this year and didn’t make it to SXSW, that I had forgotten about the SXSW Bit Torrent.  I went looking and it didn’t take long to find that some had indeed put one together for 2009.

I was quickly reminded that the AirPort Extreme Base Station by default protects me from the wilds of the Internet and to get the torrent running you have to bypass to ports and directly map them to your inside computer.

I found an old write-up to tell me how to do it, but it’s very out of date. I figured it out from there, but anyone who’s non-technical likely couldn’t.  

I’m not going to take the time right now to explain the details again.  But you should be able to follow his text and my screen shots to get the gritty work done and allow you to bypass your default firewall with the current 5.4.1 Airport Utility.

A few days from now I’ll have more music than I need and it will likely take me months to sift through it all.  But I do have a new, big media drive just waiting.

So, here are the screen shots, if you have any questions, let me know! Continue reading