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| Copyright MARVEL COMICS |
In a previous guest post on Kid's blog, I talked about some of the positive benefits that modern digital technology can offer, even for old-timers like myself who spend a lot of time mentally living in the past. In particular, I love the way that, now I've got more time on my hands, it lets me engage in creative activities that I've always had a hankering to do, but lack any natural talent for. During a recent side discussion with Kid, I remembered two other examples of this from a few years ago that may be worth mentioning. The first concerns the Avengers issue pictured above, which was one of the first Marvel comics I ever bought, while the second relates to Fireball XL5, which was the first sci-fi TV show I ever watched. If that isn't nostalgia, I don't know what is!
Another advantage of no longer having a day job is that I have time to write books on various subjects, and back in 2019 I did one called The Science Of Sci-Fi Music. One chapter of this deals with the 12-tone method of writing music, which as well as featuring in the soundtracks of movies like Planet Of The Apes and Dr. Terror's House Of Horrors (not to mention various Tom and Jerry cartoons) was also used by Frank Zappa in a couple of his songs. When I discovered this, I vaguely recollected seeing an ad for one of Zappa's albums in a comic-book I read as a child. I eventually tracked this down to Avengers #50 as pictured above (though I imagine it appeared in other comics around the same time), and the album in question turned out to be "We're Only In It For The Money" by The Mothers of Invention.
Having dug the comic out, I decided to do a short video of me flicking through it, complete with a specially written soundtrack courtesy of modern technology. I scoured the internet for MIDI clips of various songs from the album (four of them: "Who Needs The Peace Corps?", "Let's Make The Water Turn Black", "The Idiot Bastard Son" and "Mother People"), imported these into a music-editing program, made various adjustments to make them fit together in a reasonably harmonious fashion, and then changed the instrumentation from a rock band to a full concert orchestra. Here's the result:
Another chapter of my sci-fi music book deals with "algorithmic composition" - in other words, programming a computer to write music - and this led to another nostalgia-laden experiment. One musical form that particularly lends itself to algorithmic composition, because its rules are so prescriptive and mathematical, is the fugue. This hasn't had any great popularity since the early 1700s (because even when written by a human it tends to sound like it was cranked out by a machine), but I thought I'd have a go at a computer-generated fugue anyway.
The only real input the program needs is a starting melody, so for fun I chose one of my favourite tunes from my childhood, "I Wish I Was A Spaceman" (sung by Don Spencer) from the Fireball XL5 end-titles. The program itself was constructed using OpenMusic, a free app that's specifically designed for algorithmic composition. You can see it in the background to the video which follows - the "Fireball" input tune is up in the top left-hand corner, while the other inputs along the top row are lists of acceptable rhythmic units and chord progressions. Everything below that was generated by the computer itself, and (to my ears, at least) the end result does sound like a pretty convincing little fugue!
When I originally posted this on Facebook in 2019, I invited suggestions for other tunes I could plug into the program, but I didn't get any takers. I'll make the same offer now, although I can't promise I can still get the program to work! In fact I love these "X in the style of Y" experiments (I've also done rock and electronic versions of classical tunes, as well as orchestrations of pop songs as in the Zappa example). So requests are always welcome!
That's a nice crisp issue of Avengers you've got there, AM - you've obviously looked after it if it's your original comic. The Fireball tune sounds very fugue-ish, though it doesn't always sound like Fireball in places. However, I'm sure Crivvies will love them both. Thanks for taking the time and trouble of putting together another guest post.
ReplyDeleteThanks Kid - both for that nice comment and for once again letting me post this on Crivens, so it will hopefully reach a wider audience than it would on my own blog. Yes, the comic is in great condition for one I acquired when I was 10 years old, isn't it? Before I discovered Marvel I always treated comics as throwaway items, but there was just something about the quality of comics like this that made me want to look after them, even at that young age. And you're right that the Fireball theme gets buried very quickly, but at least it does surface again every now and then!
ReplyDeleteAt the time of typing this reply, AM, Crivens has received 66,980 hits this month, so I'd be surprised if your YouTube clips don't get at least a couple of extra views. Talking of Fireball, I've got the original blue label single from the '60s, as well as a couple of black label ones. And the Fireball Xl5 and Other Themes EP is a nice one to have as well. (I've got three, but I always was a greedy buggah.)
ReplyDeleteI can remember back to the 1970s a friend of mine had all the Anderson themes starting with Torchy the Battery Boy right through to Joe 90. I can not remember whether they were on an LP or a reel to reel tape, but it was good listening.
ReplyDeleteHere's my request, AM. Do the Goldfinger theme as a fugue. I've got an old album with various themes done in the style of Handel & Vivaldi and it sounds great, so it would be good to hear what you can do with it.
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I might have Torchy's theme, but I know I've got them all from Four Feather Falls right up to The Secret Service, LH, and that's only the puppet shows. I think I've got the UFO theme and maybe Space 1999 as well. I was just getting ready to go to bed when your comment came in, but I'll reply to any further ones tomorrow sometime.
I have to concur that is a lovely copy of one of my favourite Avengers issues ( sadly I only read this in the UK Avengers comic). The Zappa influenced music was excellent, great stuff. I hope that when I retire (mid /late 2025) I manage to be more creative in my free time ( which seems as rare as hens teeth at present).
ReplyDeleteWow over 66,000 views in less than a day, that more than I get in 3 months! Very impressive Kid
ReplyDeleteJust up for a quick wee, McS, so may as well respond to your comments. No, that's for this month so far, not for a day. (It's now 67,385, by the way, at time of typing this.) I've got Avengers #50 in a Marvel Masterworks volume, but I don't have an original ish. (I DO have #1 though, as well as 2 & 3 (and other issues). Right, back to bed for me.
ReplyDeleteI love baroque music such as Handel's Water Music and Royal Fireworks Suite so the Dr Who theme in that style would be interesting, Andrew.
ReplyDeleteThere you are, AM, that's two suggestions so far (mine and CJ's) for you to be going on with. Any more, anyone?
ReplyDeleteThanks for all the comments on my post - all much appreciated. I hope McScotty gets as much fun out of retirement next year as I've managed to do. With my fairly specialized interests and limits to my natural ability, I don't know what I would have done without the internet and all the sophisticated software that's now freely available - but it wouldn't have been anywhere near as interesting! And thanks to Kid and Colin for the music suggestions - both excellent ideas, and I'll give them a try over the next few weeks.
ReplyDeleteAs I've previously said to Kid via email, I'm hugely impressed by his viewing figures, which are ten times what my blog usually gets.
Still pretty good figures Kid.
ReplyDeleteI've had higher, I've had lower, AM & McS. I used to get more hits from the States than anywhere, but Hong Kong seems to be leading at the moment. If only the number of comments matched visits, you'd have more to read here.
ReplyDeleteIncidentally, the LP I referred to above is called Great Film Music In The Style Of Handel & Vivaldi. It's a stoater. You can find it on YouTube.
That's strange As HK is number 2 on my lists (US still the most views). Yeah it seems to be pretty much the sane on mist blogs with only a core number of folk replying .
ReplyDeleteThe US used to outnumber the UK by around twice my number of daily visits, McS, but now it's #2 after HK, with the UK coming 3rd. Makes you wonder how many people hang around to read the posts, or do they bale/bail (take your pick) out after the first couple of sentences?
ReplyDeleteIt just occurred to me to look at the breakdown by country for my own blog, and it too shows the largest number from Hong Kong (6.3k in the last 30 days, compared to the US in second place with only 1.3k). This seems too much of a coincidence. You could believe there were thousands of people in HK interested in comics, but why be interested in my subject too, which is much more obscure? It seems far more likely that these are automated "bots" rather than real people, either indexing a search engine (the Chinese equivalent of Google, perhaps) or else scraping data to train a ChatGPT-style AI.
ReplyDeleteAs for comments always coming from the "usual suspects" - it may be that some readers prefer to comment where they see a post, rather than on the blog itself. For example, I share all my own posts with Facebook and LinkedIn, and most of the (still very few) comments & reactions I get appear on those platforms rather than the blog itself. It may even be that if one of your posts is widely shared on social media by other people (i.e. going viral, which I can imagine might happen occasionally with some of Kid's posts on popular topics), then you might never get to see a lot of the comments at all.
Incidentally, Kid, thanks for pointing me at that LP on YouTube - hope you're not expecting anything in that league from my little computer program!
I've suspected before that automated 'bots' might be behind a fair percentage of my hits, AM, but that being the case, wouldn't we both be getting the same number of hits from there? This month I've had 71,767 hits, 10k of which are from Hong Kong. Bit of a mystery, eh?
ReplyDeleteAs for the LP, of course I'm not expecting anything in that league - I'm expecting BETTER!
Oh no, Kid - there I was trying to "manage the customer's expectations" as the saying goes, and it backfired on me! But that's a fair point about expecting the same HK numbers on both blogs. It just goes to show that it's never a good idea to think too deeply about these statistics, or you end up disappearing down a rabbit hole.
ReplyDeleteThese days, I find it difficult to think too deeply about anything, AM. Whenever I try to work something out in my mind, I get shrouded in brain fog before very long. If you gave me a piece of paper with 'P.T.O.' written on both sides, I'd be confused for hours trying to work out what was going on.
ReplyDeleteHappy Easter, Kid - have you got an Easter egg? I haven't but I bought some Creme Eggs over the last few weeks.
ReplyDeleteAnd Happy Easter to you (and everyone), CJ. I've scoffed around three medium-sized eggs over the last few days (as well as several Creme Eggs) and I'll probably buy some more when I'm out later today. (If there are any left in the shops.)
ReplyDeleteHappy Easter everyone !!!!!!
ReplyDeleteAnd the same right back at ya, LH.
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