This is an early build of a game engine was working on in 2020, designed to produce a procgen roguelike world.

If you watch how badly the chess games go you can see that the distributed gameplay logic engine didn’t work so good. Distributed consistency is really hard you guys.

Honestly the procgen music engine wasn’t… terrible. As procgen music engines go it’s… on the verge of listenable. If this were playing while I were wandering around in a forest for a long period of time I wouldn’t be TOO MAD.

The goal was to create music that just ran forever in the background and never really drew attention to itself, which is kind of where it’s at.

I put a lot of effort into this “taking model-generated MIDI, using heuristic rules to sort it and apply structure to it, then running it through a javascript in-browser synth” project, but not a year later models like Suno could generate full pop songs so this was basically obsolete before it ever launched.

Honestly, watching it go and listening to it is kinda charming.

Here’s another, later concert from a slightly later build:

There’s a little special song at 13:50 that is one of the worst things the engine has ever composed.

Whenever I played this for anybody who was at all interested in music they were actively mad at me for doing this to music.

So, this released a few years back:

Need to do some BUSINESS! in the 1990s?

If you can listen to this without a little pixelated city coming to life before your very eyes, you had a very different childhood than I did.

@ArmyofOneandaHalf - 2 years ago

Ah yes, this delivers unparalleled value to the consumer

Okay, what about if you’re playing a little SNES game with prerendered graphics about a plucky little apple?

@egg_mittens - 1 year ago This album has perfect nintendo game flow.

• World 1: Large, more powerful than the player, but very easy to outsmart. A simple fellow to help you get the controls.
• World 2: The game starts showing you a bit of its edge. This boss is entirely antagonistic, but is also very charismatic and you kind of grow to love when they’re on screen. Thinks they’re very cool.
• World 3 mini-boss: duck
• World 3: Coming right around the midpoint of the game is the first proper challenge: a doppleganger boss. Propells the main story forward, genuinely a little scary. Defeating this boss feels like a huge achievement.
• World 4 mini-boss: Yeah, it’s a little silly, but also kind of a tank and you don’t fully believe it’s a mini-boss. It plays around with the environment and hits like a truck.
• World 4: We’re nearing the big bad now, so this is a huge challenge in the game’s core mechanics. The fight itself contains a puzzle aspect that is really frustrating because it’s like playing tic tac toe with lava.
• World 5: Final thing before the big bad and while they’re tough to beat, it’s nothing you haven’t seen before. They’re really there to hype you up and to get you pumped for the final boss. Making you overconfident. What’s the worst that can happen?
• World 6: Complete lovecraftian horror. A full departure from the lightharted, kind of campy aesthetic the rest of the game has had, it is now you against an unfeeling, all-powerful darkness. The threat they pose is existential, every time you die to it you feel stabbing pain and fear in your heart. This is the worst thing that can happen.

There are some things I just can’t ever stop thinking about, to my own detriment.

Like, in the party anthem “Evacuate the Dance Floor” by Cascada, the lyrics of the song indicate that the song is both dangerous and infectious, which makes me think that evacuation is the wrong move: this calls for a quarantine of the dance floor.

Dr. DJ should lose his medical license.

I went to the local symphony orchestra last night, and it was nice

but I am left wondering what an orchestra is meant to accomplish, nowadays

so many people playing at the same time accomplishes big, room-filling sound, and it’s the only way to accurately experience some compositions the way they would have a hundred years ago,

but does electric amplification and live audio mixing render a lot of old orchestra tech obsolete?

we simply do not require large bands to make big sound anymore

when I see modern folks on youtube chasing big band sound, they do it with much smaller groups in rooms littered with sound pickups

although honestly there’s still a lot of ’em, I guess there’s some fullness of sound you simply can’t get without a bunch of people playing it simultaneously

@filmaj:

i really liked LinkedIn when I was a teenager, with songs like “Numb” and “Crawling” but honestly it’s a bit too angsty for me now that I’m adult

i wanted a Netflix documentary about “hired gun” studio musicians who were talented working professionals who you’ve probably heard on loads of pop songs but who are mostly unknown

and the only thing I reliably recall about it is was that Billy Joel is an asshole who often didn’t bother to learn the names of people he’d work with for weeks at a time on major albums and Alice Cooper is a kind, thoughtful guy who would keep sending folks Christmas cards for years after working with them

“I’m a big fan of Starman”

“You’re a fan of David Bowie?”

“David who?”

lot of people out there making songs about love and heartbreak and rejection but nobody making songs about stuff I care about, like AUTHENTICATION or INSANELY SOFT SUPERMARKET FRENCH BREAD or THE WAY THAT COFFEE SMELLS

It’s kinda weird to think that before TV and recorded music, people just had, like, their friend who could play music and local live theater and that stuff was so much more important than it is now.

if you wanted to share a cool song with your friends you literally just had to be good at music and learn it

if you wanted to watch a fun story with your friends you literally had to put on masks and grab some sticks and read it dramatically out loud

innate musicality lost so much cultural cachet

it used to be one of the highest tiers of human skill

honestly, I think that’s something that feels genuinely lost

Some of my grandparents were successful hobby musicians, they would participate in vaudeville style variety shows, and since not everybody had a TV, this kind of entertainment was vital and important - and, like, they were nowhere near world class, but the lack of broadcast media meant that people didn’t have to be world class to find a place for themselves.

And you know what? Engaging in this kind of thing, community theatre, low-level entertaining, it was fun and rewarding and accessible - and there’s just not much space for it in modern society.

in interview, Weird Al has mentioned that Albequerque is one of his most requested songs, presumably because it’s length makes it seem like it would be difficult to perform live: but actually it’s quite easy.

When asked which of his songs would actually be most difficult to perform live, he responded with Hardware Store, which has never been performed live: it’s impractically difficult to execute live.

which, uh, listening to the song… yeah

when someone rolls into karaoke and requests an Adele song you know they’re either a pocket ringer or about to have a bad time

I can’t imagine someone rolling into karaoke and requesting Hardware Store under ANY circumstances

I’m going to become impossibly rich when I find a way to monetize the feeling you get when someone under the age of 20 agrees that one of your dusty old-man obsessions is cool

why yes, Timotheigh, this is Discovery, by Daft Punk, and it bangs

The Killers: I’ve got soul

Me, taking a big sip of my water: Ah, I bet that’s because he’s a soldier

There’s an old man sitting next to me, making love to his tonic and gin. (gross)

He said SON CAN YOU PLAY ME A MELODY

I try not to make eye contact

‘CAUSE MY DICK’S IN THIS GIN

BUT IT’S NOT QUITE ALL IN

(muffled shouting as he’s dragged out of the bar)

YOU CAN’T KEEP ME OUT, I’LL BE BACK

I like some Christmas music but I’m not and have never been Christian and sometimes people shouting very specific things about the primacy of Jesus can be a little uncomfortable on the ol’ playlist -

anyways, Vince Guaraldi just plopped the Greatest Christmas Album on YouTube, and this particular album has always been a tent-pole in the ol’ winter playlist:

Jingle bells is fine although it promises a level of fun that I don’t think a one horse open sleigh is able to deliver, that is tech that has been subsumed by the snowmobile, which IS fun, although songs about it are not forthcoming.

i could swear I’ve heard this somewhere

…

no, this is much better

wait, why do I feel so happy and relaxed right now?

oh

it’s the background music that came on

Sometimes I go looking for public domain music in hopes of finding something good.

I think I’m going to find undiscovered treasures - but usually, I don’t.

Most of what I end up with, when I go on my expeditions into the public domain of music, are just, like, a single unlistenably crackly version of Turlet Vance and the Columbia Singers Present: Dogs are Swell.

Anyways, here’s the crackly garbage thing I found most recently:

https://archive.org/details/78_oh-is-she-dumb_eddie-cantor-gottler_gbia0041064a

I’m shocked and appalled that the fold-up stage Nord from Carole & Tuesday doesn’t exist as a real product yet.

This is just the whole pitch for Carole & Tuesday right here:

No content warning, turn the volume way up and play it at work.

I want to talk about why Sweepstakes is an underrated Gorillaz masterpiece.

It’s more experimental than pop can get away with. It gives you loose, sparse musical ideas kinda bouncing off one another, confusing tempo, noise, it’s a messy, disorganized, chaotic, formless song that doesn’t feel like it gels.

And it doesn’t resolve this by tightening up the grooves, by fitting things together better, it resolves this additively, by adding more and more and more elements. At about 58 seconds you get a telegraph booping along to Mos Def’s tempo and then some crunchy synth elements that start to gel the song together, and it starts to work. “Hey, this is kind of a bop” Then, another full minute in, the drums join the party, and horns.

It’s a lot, all at once, each of the elements that felt out of place and chaotic before now gelling in a groove that feels heavy and inevitable, it’s still a big noisy cacophonous mess but everything is aligned in this huge messy crescendo of horns and cymbal crashes and flow.

And that’s the point where you turn up the volume, because you must. It’s a banger.

It makes me think of Ravel’s Boléro when I listen to it, which was also, uh, controversial on account of Bolero’s musically sparse repetition with successively added elements, building to a huge crescendo.

Decoding the music masterpieces: Ravel’s Bolero — a sinuous and sexy composition with ‘no music in it’

https://theconversation.com/decoding-the-music-masterpieces-ravels-bolero-a-sinuous-and-sexy-composition-with-no-music-in-it-149528

if you look at the floor and see it needs sweeping but still your guitar gently weeps, you have confused your guitar and broom.

this is a common problem.

despite what you might think, it can not be resolved with a blistering solo.

you need to put down the guitar and fetch a broom. you can’t solo dust away.

Have you heard Gran Vals by Francisco Tárrega?

Well, I can absolutely guarantee you’ve heard PART of it.

Evaluating The Jungle From AC/DC’s “Welcome To The Jungle” For Its Suitability As a Corporate Retreat Location

pros:

• extremely welcoming
• fun and games
• has everything you want
• has people who can find whatever you may need
• good if you have money
• take it day by day
• bright lights
• learn to live like an animal
• you can have anything you want

cons:

• has your disease
• wants to watch you bleed
• won’t get there for free (usually the case)
• gets worse here everyday
• gonna bring you down/to your knees
• you’re gonna die

once again we have decided to go to Orlando

and you may find yourself

behind the wheel of a large automobile

and you may ask yourself

“how did I get here?”

and you may ask yourself

“where does that highway go to”

and you may ask yourself

“am I right, am I wrong”

and you may say to yourself

“My god, I should pull over and check the maps application on my phone”