The latest episode of Aux.tv’s This Exists takes a look at Black MIDI – a genre that gets its name because the music is so densely sequenced with notes that, written out, it approaches solid black:
Black MIDI music recalls the work of classical composer Conlon Nancarrow. Nancarrow composed for player pianos, because they allowed him to create music that was incredibly complex and effectively unplayable by a human pianist. But, while Nancarrow’s multiple simultaneous tempos, with complex relationships, Black MIDI composers tend to be more concerned with pushing the limits of what their machines are technically capable of playing. One Black MIDI composer, Xinyu Qian, notes that “There are more than 12,000,000 notes in the last 2 seconds,” of one arrangement.
Check it out – and let us know what you think of the genre of Black MIDI!
via Jon Stubbs
“MIDI used to sound like this…”
Er…no. MIDI never sounded like anything.
I’m off to smell some gravity.
cool name…but like in everything…excess is not good …IMHO
If you want busy geometric patterns to accompany your music, make a music video :p
Kinda cool though, though I prefer the less busy “midi art” style of visual midi, where they use the note bars to make patterns that sound and look interesting together.
The compositions themselves seem totally banal.
JAPAN NUMBER ONE IN BIZZARE NERDISM
THEY JUST KILLED THE BLOGOSPHERE YET AGAIN WITH THIS NEW HYPERNERD TREND
All I heard was pink noise with a faint melody on top.
such many. how fast!!! wow
Since when has MIDI been used to play Guitar Hero style games?
The ‘guitar’ is basically a very large, and oddly shaped gamepad.
Also, don’t the vast majority of phone ringtones now used MP3, or similar, audio files?
They used midi files to program the sequences you would have to match with the controllers.
Gentlemen may I introduce to you Conlon Nancarrow who was doing this stuff of player pianos back in the 50’s & 60’s…
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conlon_Nancarrow
Sounds like crap, but would make a great t-shirt design. Someone get on it.
music is not art, music is music, arrest this banal crud..
????
Some people are weird
To me the most fun part of it is when humble old MIDI brings the playback to its knees and practically breaks the playback system. That it even sounds somewhat organized is kind of impressive.
I’m not saying its beautiful. But its like a nerdy version of speed metal.
I wish I had never heard or seen this.
Meh.
Cool. Reminds me of demoscene…
bah, that is nothing… once i put 5 milion Midi notes on a computer chip, then i ate it!
Its the opposite of glitch. It should be the new state song of Texas.
Mad.
Thank god the comments here aren’t like how they were on facebook. So much work must’ve been put into stuff like this. The layering of notes sound so interesting in some ways.
That’s a cluster fuck if I ever saw one.
I didn’t listen to it, but I was able to hear it in my head simply by sight reading all the notes and CCs. A little music concreteish.
Black midi = cluster. Classical example: György Ligeti: Volumina for organ 😉
http://youtu.be/wbLcI9-Js0U
bro do you even synth?
haha sorry, i don’t think it’s bad, but you could get the same effect with 99% less notes with some effects.