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Hello! / Intro

Posted: Wed Aug 29, 2018 10:31 am
by ssingh
Hello LCCers!

My name is Subhraag Singh. I am a woodwind player/composer/inventor who has been tremendously inspired/influenced by the Concept. I recently connected with Bob Appleton on facebook, and he suggested I join this forum!

I had the good fortune to study the Concept with Andy Wasserman for a couple years starting back around 2004 or so. I was lucky enough to even have lunch with George and Alice at their home once. It was one of the all-time highlights of my life! I get chills even now just thinking about it :) I had to pull out my copy of the book to get the password for joining the forum, and I saw on the very first page what I have attached here as a picture (his note to me and autograph). Made me smile! (btw you see there my original name, "Brett"... I changed it after living in India for some years.)

A little about myself, and what I am working on these days:

About 4 years ago, I had a sort of realization that musical pitches are not merely limited to the 12 notes of the chromatic scale, but really there is an infinite spectrum of musical possibility. I think of it being like that just as a painter can paint with an infinite nuance of visual color, so can musicians make music with an infinite nuance of musical intervals. I am now endeavoring to how to solve this challenge of "freedom of pitch". (I am doing so in a totally tonal/harmonic sense... NOT free/avant garde/noise/etc). My first solution was to invent a new musical instrument, "the saxophone of the future", called the Infinitone. You can find out more about it on my website, http://www.infinitonic.com. Now I am developing software that will allow musicians to utilize an infinite multidimensional array of musical tones. It will be a gateway through which musicians can easily and effectively create new kinds of music and/or add nuance and color to older styles.

I feel that what George taught is truly a universal concept in music. I think the essence of his work applies not only to 12-tone-equal-temperament but also to pitch fields of all kinds (though each pitch field might have different scales/centers of gravity/etc). The harmonic/melodic structures in the harmonic series have an especially palpable pull of "tonal gravity" (George mentions this in his work, but defaults instead to "12ET" because it has been the standard tuning system in "the west" for the past couple hundred years). The structures in the harmonic series, however, offer many many (essentially infinite) harmonic/melodic possibilities not available on a piano. In the last years, this has been my primary field of interest/activity.

I look forward to reading/hearing what all of you are doing with the LCC these days, and I look forward to sharing some of my own ideas about new kinds of applications of George's work.

George is one of the great influences in my life, and I look forward to meeting all of you who have also been touched by him and his work!

Regards,
Subhraag Singh
george_autograph.jpg

Re: Hello! / Intro

Posted: Wed Aug 29, 2018 11:18 am
by bobappleton
Welcome Subhraag!

I met Subhraagh online in a new Forum dedicated to the use of timbre in music and research. I was blown away by the ingenuity of the new instrument he has built and the soulfulness of his sound. We became facebook friends and discovered a couple of friends in common - David Hykes and Oliver Lake. Today we had a conversation online and the coincidences just kept coming - knowing George and Alice, Andy, David, Oliver etc, writing software and making instruments to represent the whole spectrum of senses So without even knowing about the signed page in his copy of the LCC below, I suggested he join us here because several of you would really enjoy his work. Fresh ideas like his are rare. I'm sure he'll make a great contribution to the Forum.

Best wishes from a very hot and humid Toronto,

Bob

PS for facebook users - here is the new group we just joined called Tuning to Timbre Study Group - it's open to membership - https://www.facebook.com/groups/5204784 ... p_activity

Re: Hello! / Intro

Posted: Wed Aug 29, 2018 11:28 am
by ssingh
Dear Bob,

Such a warm welcome! Thank you, I feel honored. I am also very much inspired by your work (what little I know of it so far). What a wonderful bunch of co-incedences we share. Looking forward to participating in this forum, and even more so looking forward to experiencing the blossoming of George's work in all its facets!

Subhraag

Re: Hello! / Intro

Posted: Fri Sep 14, 2018 4:48 pm
by chespernevins
Hi Subhraag,

Amazing instrument you have created, and great sounds! Nice work.

I have sometimes thought about what an intersection of LCC and microtonal music might yield, but haven't gone too far with it. I'd be interested to hear some of your thoughts.

I did have the good fortune to study the 72 note octave with Joe Maneri quite a while ago, and performed some compositions on trombone. However, it's been a while since then.

Just reading your web site... The first time I saw the Lord of the Rings movies, everything was so realistic looking - meaning true to the book - because Tolkien is such a descriptive author. The one thing that left me dissatisfied was the musical score. Such a world of imagination, and yet the score was very nice, but very standard! What could Hobbit folk music sound like, etc. - so many possibilities not realized! Oh well.

Great to hear your music, and look forward to hearing more.