Experimental Apple Album

Lo-fi electronic music composed in HyperCard and performed by a trio of 68K Macs.Peter Jungers and Josh Burker collaborated to create a purposefully lo-tech approach to music making. They used HyperCard to script their music, sometimes creating pieces that were deliberately composed, other times using HyperCard's ability to randomize the music to strange effect.
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Piece Of - Based off the simple beat sequence of Piece, the left, center, and right tracks randomized with more instruments, notes, and durations. -PJ
Flutesichord - Built in the Music Madness stack, this composition used the two instrument sounds built into HyperCard, flute and harpsichord. Additionally, I recorded myself clapping. This composition was built from an example I found on the internet of how to script random music. When we were putting together the tracks I decided to reverse them all about half way through the piece. The resulting fluidity was surprising. Peter thought the hand clap, which used HyperCard's "tempo" setting (and thus clips a bit) sounded like fingers on a keyboard. -JB Piece Meal - Somehow based off of Piece Of, this was my first attempt to create a steady beat. I had the low12string and fretlessbass playing low notes in harmony with the pianochord1. -PJ
Button Button - A piano sonata of sorts. Due to duration of notes put into the script for each separate track, the left and right tracks were played three times (we pressed the button for each three times), while the center track played just once. -PJ
Noose Mitten - The last song I composed. I tried to create a droning effect. -PJ
Sound Off - The first song I wrote for the album, and my first realization as to how difficult it was going to be to have all three tracks play the same time length. I composed all my songs on the Macintosh Classic II, and we found out that it is impossible to play back three buttons simultaneously, the way we had written them, on one machine. How great it is though, that the difficulty in synchronicity created some really nice moments in the album. -PJ
Piece - Based off of Josh's Flutesichord in that we used the soundChannels to create rhythmic, often random in note, loops for each button. -PJ
Movin - Built from the same script as Flutesichord but with the addition of my sampled "go go go" vocals, one of the first recordings we made to test out the Classic II. This piece reveals the limitations of soundChannels in HyperCard, at least on the slower Macs. The soundChannels drop in and out as the Mac struggles to play all the sounds simultaneously. -JB
New Mutton - Speaking of timing! The three tracks lined up quite well at the beginning. This was done using the "wait" command in HyperCard. But this song is a great example as to how difficult it can be within HyperCard to create a song with multiple sections designed to begin and end at the same time. The timing does break off after the opening guitar section, but the song's end result is probably more interesting than if it had turned out the way it was "supposed" to. By this time the Mac Classic II was feeling a bit strained, which is evidenced by the record player-like noise in the background. -PJ
Sound Off On - Different instruments placed into the script heard on the left track of Sound Off and played alone. -PJ
Mac 60 8 K - More randomness. I recorded each word separately. The center track works its was through the phrases. The left track uses soundChannels to try to play the four different words simultaneously at different pitches and in different length "notes." The right channel does the same as the left channel but tries to play the words sequentially. -JB
Sum Beat - The sum of all beats. This was definitely my most ambitious track, though fairly simple to write despite it's length. I didn't worry (too much) about timing out different sections of the song, but wanted to create a very percussive, rhythmic beat which changed slightly throughout by using different instruments, yet kept its drive. Lots of tempo experiments here, drifting in and out of time. -PJ
You Got to Move - Layers of chaos. -JB