a new way to micro-tonal / ethnic music

NEO DO-DO-I-TSU
- Six Japanese folk songs -

by Formant Brothers

1/ 8

NEO DO-DO-I-TSU
- Six Japanese folk songs composed by

Formant Brothers
(Nobuyasu Sakonda & Masahiro Miwa) played by Eugene Okano (MIDI-keyboard) Yumiko Tanaka (Shamisen) at The University of Tokyo on 20. Dec. 2009

Video: Hiromitsu Murakami Camera: Koji Ueda, Kenichi Hagihara English narration: Robert Darroll Special thanks: Hermann Gottschewski, Nonoka Yabumoto, Arisa Wakami Supported by NUAS, Nagoya University of Arts and Sciences IAMAS, Institute of Advanced Media Arts and Sciences Graduate School of Film and New media, Tokyo University of the Arts
2009 Formant Brothers (Nobuyasu Sakonda & Masahiro Miwa)

2/ 8

Notes for NEO DO-DO-I-TSU

NEO DO-DO-I-TSU ..... composition of "singing itself

"Do-do-i-tsu" is a Japanese traditional party song since 17th Century Edo era. The text of this genre has erotic or vulgar implications and has a colloquial but xed poetic form (typically 7-7-7-5 syllables), sung traditionally by Geisha. Formant Brother's new work "NEO DO-DO-I-TSU - Six Japanese folk songs -" is not only a composition based on new melodies or lyrics for the Do-do-i-tsu genre, but also based on the composition of "singing itself" with an articial voice.

BKPT Standard
As you know, the technology of speech synthesis has been developed greatly and has become ubiquitous in our daily life. Now in Japan, even software producers are offering virtual singer programs for amusement purposes. However, they are always text-tospeech technology which requires a pre-composed text in advance. A technology which allows the creation of speaking or singing voices "directly" according to our immediate creative wishes, does not exist. Formant Brother's challenge for 10 years has been the production and control of articial voices in realtime. For this we developed not only an original Formant synthesis engine for vocalizations using Max/MSP, but also a standard which dened the mapping of all the phonemes in Japanese language to specic notes for controlling the synthesizer. It is called "Brothers Keyboard-to-Phoneme Transfer Standard for Japanese language (BKPT Standard) ". According to this standard, each phoneme is usually played as a chord, a combination of notes for vowels and consonants. (appendix I)

Chord Average algorithm

In "NEO DO-DO-I-TSU", we implemented new two algorithms to our BKPT standard, "Chord Average algorithm" and "17-tone Equal Temperament algorithm" which allow the microtonal control of the pitch below half-tone. Using "Chord Average algorithm", all note-numbers of one chord (up to 5 notes) are averaged immediately and we can produce ONE fractional pitch. This allows us to play 1/20 or 1/40 tone vibrato.
3/ 8

g01

Chord playing of a phoneme (left hand) and averaged pitch (right hand)

17-tone Equal Temperament algorithm

This "Chord Average algorithm" allows the microtonal control of the pitch below half-tone. However the basic structure is still dependent on a 12-tone equal temperament. We felt that we needed to critically examine this fundamental presupposition, and have decided to question the problem of the temperament system itself, in the search for another temperament system, which is both rational and suitable for various traditional forms of music in Japan and other cultures in the world. The preliminary result is a "17-tone equal temperament algorithm". There are some reasons why we decided on seventeen. One reason is that it includes a specic music interval, which is very close to perfect 5th, so called "good 5th". As you know, we can get a "circle of 5th". In the 12-tone equal temperament the interval 5th corresponds to seven units called half-tone. Repeating this interval over and over again, we can get a diatonic scale made up of seven notes from this circle..

g02

Circle of 5th and diatonic scale in the 12-tone equal temperament

4/ 8

But in 17-tone equal temperament, the interval corresponds to ten units. And we can get a diatonic scale made up of nine notes.

g03

Circle of 5th and diatonic scale in the 17-tone equal temperament

The "17-tone equal temperament algorithm" can automatically select twelve notes which are tonally closely related to each other, starting from any note in the 17 tone scale and it can automatically assign twelve pitches for chromatic notes on a MIDI keyboard. The most important thing that we want to emphasize here, is that we can assume another rational system of temperament in addition to the 12-tone equal temperament, which has a closer afnity to many traditional music forms in the non-Western world. A deep investigation into this theme may allow us to construct a "Music theory which could have been". We aspire to renew all music text books in the world.

New way to Micro-tonal / Ethnic music

Thus, "NEO DO-DO-I-TSU - Six Japanese folk songs -" is a song which can be accurately described in a traditional Western notation score and which can be played by a pianist (appendix II). The important thing is, that we composed "singing itself" only with musical notes, including not only melodies but also words, vibrato, intonations, and many delicate microtonal expressions for vocalizations. This is a historical step in the evolution of music. It means that we can open a new dimension in which we may compose "ethnic music" today, by regaining "style", which remains essential for any musical culture, but Modern rational thinking has ignored as an irrational residue because it has been eliminated from the grid of the notation system.

5/ 8

Lyrics of NEO DO-DO-I-TSU

Today's lesson is about breathing etiquette for beginners. Oh my sweetheart, now it's much too soon to groan with passion, ah-i-uh-eh... My darling, you always bully me, always telling me to be quiet. So I beg you to exchange my formant with a cat's formant. Making love with you in a park at midnight. Mom and dad can hear neither us nor the mosquitos. I hate the morning hours. I want to stay with you all day long. I hate the constant labors of Kronos. Deceiving God, Prometheus stole re from him. Now it can burn in you, my sweet. We see the stars of Orion gliding across the roof of heaven. Now they are sinking down into the water of Oceanus.

appendix I ___ Brothers Keyboard-to-Phoneme Transfer Standard for Japanese language

6/ 8

appendix II ___ Score of NEO DO-DO-I-TSU (excerpt)

7/ 8

Formant Brothers is a composition / media art cooperative started by Masahiro Miwa

(big brother - left) and Nobuyasu Sakonda (little brother - right) in 2000. They have been focusing their interest on voice and machine and working with the articial voices generated in realtime with their original formant synthesis system. Not only creating unique compositional works, but also their vocal synthesis system and Brothers Keyboard-to-Phoneme Transfer Standard for Japanese language (BKPstandard) they invented in 2003 allows anyone to perform speaking and singing in realtime with highly emotional expressions using a conventional MIDI keyboard and explores the possibility of exact notations of them. And also their cutting-edge remarks on todays crucial problems concerning the relationship art and technology are watched with keen interests by world-wide theorists or critics in the elds of philosophy, aesthetics, media theory and musicology. Main works;
La Internacio (2001): commissioned by Kiyonori Sokabe (tp), in witch Formant Brothers challenged a realtime transformation of the sounds of trumpet the player performed into singing the song Internationale. Ordering a Pizza de Brothers (2003). In this live performance, Formant Brothers played a keyboard to generate an articial speech via telephone. They could succeed in both musical and economic activity and the audiences got a piece of pizza as a side-effect. The documentation is available on Youtube. Le Tombeau de Freddie (2009), awarded Prix Ars Electronica 2009, Digital Music category, Honorary Mention. Here Formant Brothers actually realized as a fact the impossible assumption that one rock star who is already dead sung the song Internationale in Japanese. The music video is available on Youtube.

8/ 8