call for scores for toy chihuahua

CALL FOR SCORES 26 beats long to be performed on Disklavier by this toy chihuahua at Qubit Machine Music festival NYC Feb 13th.

You can send a score as a MIDI file or written. Here's the details:

The chihuahua (nicknamed Conlon) yaps 26 times per cycle. Each yap can trigger one or more notes - so chords or clusters are fine - but the notes have to start on the yap - I mean on the beat. After the 26 beats, there's about 3 or 4 seconds before the next person's score begins. That is all!

posted by moonmilk (13 comments total)

Not sure if I made it clear - this is my project for Qubit. It's my fault and any submissions can go to me!
posted by moonmilk at 12:15 PM on January 22, 2014

Each yap can trigger one or more notes - so chords or clusters are fine - but the notes have to start on the yap - I mean on the beat.

"One or more" or "zero or more"? Are rests possible?
posted by this is a thing at 12:50 PM on January 25, 2014

Also: tied notes? Does a note triggered on Yap #3 have to end by Yap #4, or can it be sustained through some specified number of subsequent yaps?
posted by this is a thing at 12:52 PM on January 25, 2014

You're right - I should've said zero or more: rests are OK. A note can be held for several yaps.
posted by moonmilk at 4:56 PM on January 25, 2014 [1 favorite]

Cool. These are fun constraints.
posted by this is a thing at 5:11 PM on January 25, 2014

Excellent. :) I hope you get MANY and I'll probably do one!
posted by kalapierson at 3:17 PM on January 26, 2014

Actually, assuming the yaps are controlling acoustically through a mic, the interesting question at this tempo is how much latency there is between yap and key strike. (Or are you amplifying the Disklavier so much that the audience can't really hear the yaps?)
posted by kalapierson at 4:29 PM on January 26, 2014 [1 favorite]

I would like the chihuahua to be audible over the piano. The disklavier itself has 100-300msec latency, and the yap detector will certainly add some more. I think you'll just have to work with the uncertainty here :)
posted by moonmilk at 5:04 PM on January 26, 2014

Got it, so a yap's triggered note(s) will sound a few yaps later - uncertainty is the name of the game with animals, after all. :)
posted by kalapierson at 12:45 PM on January 27, 2014

Since there's about 3 yaps per second, I don't think the latency could be any worse than 1 yap. I'll do some experiments with tracking soon (and report back here) but I won't have access to the Disklavier for a while, so we'll just have to leave that animal as a mystery.
posted by moonmilk at 2:05 PM on January 27, 2014

Just to defend my mathematical honor here :P there's about 6 yaps per second, hence the "few"....
posted by kalapierson at 12:10 AM on January 28, 2014

Yes, you're right!
posted by moonmilk at 12:08 PM on January 28, 2014

Here it is! http://music.metafilter.com/7256/Short-Ride-in-a-Fast-Chihuahua
posted by moonmilk at 6:26 PM on March 22, 2014