Stanford Laptop Orchestra (SLOrk) at Macworld

[metabog]

In the computer music field we are sick of rehashing the same technology over and over. We've made hundreds of analog synth emulations and generic synthesizers and effects. We're trying to push it forward a bit and explore some different approaches to sound and music. A real orchestra will never make this sound or come close to creating this type of rhythm, and THAT is the goal. Yes, it sounds like droplets of water. Problem?

[metabog]

If you cannot hear the rhythm and intricacy of this piece, you need to rethink the way you approach music. You will not hear this in your music shop next to Katy Perry, and you don't have to. You have to actually listen to the texture, not wait for some message or feeling to come from it. I hate to sound like a snob, but yeah I guess this type of music isn't for everyone, but I myself found this very interesting, and I have no problem seeing the correlation between the conductor and the laptops.

[pingsterdan]

This is high on my list of dumbest shit I have ever seen, and I've seen some dumb shit.

[crisiswhitelight]

Are all the good videos seriously of the people talking and to actually experience the orchestra we have to watch this pixelated stuff?

[DoubleGauss]

Beethoven wrote all his symphonies, piano sonatas and string quartets... and Mozart wrote all his operas piano conertos and the rest with nothing more than pen, paper and their minds.

These no talent hack professors blow taxpayer money to mimic the sound of a leaking toilet and call it 'computer music'.

[DoubleGauss]

Modern "composers" : Long on technology. Short on talent.

[pandemicpwnsn00bs]

fail on part of the author of the piece, the composer, and the musicians. Really should practice your forms better people. So boring, monotonous, when the electronic pioneers were experimenting they sounded way better then this. SHame

[areufkingkiddingme]

what the fuck is this shit

[ramsoccer3792]

i can go to the bathroom and listen to this.

[TheHawkdaddy]

I TOTALLY WANT TO PAY MONEY TO WATCH ASSHOLES CLICK BUTTONS ON COMPUTERS I CANT AFFORD, WHO NEEDS TALENTED MUSICIANS WHEN YOU HAVE MACBOOKS

Jump off a cliff and die

[darbeel1]

Worst conducting ever, lol

[Webyvolve]

This is incredibly rich rhythmically. I'm curious what more tonally based pieces would sound like.

[roflsteaksauce]

sounds like a water fountain lol

[hankvessel]

check out Llork...my high school's laptop orchestra.

[thwopcribart]

I guess some of you are not familiar with John Cage. This is technologically phenomenal. Who said music has to be tone? No one.

[darbeel1]

@thwopcribart i agree, but i found early Cage quite enjoyable, but not so much his electronic work. I much prefer the electronic workings of Stockhausen and Risset.

[Orgoneart0com]

it's programmed sound....it's all written in coding...try to respect the method, not necessarily the end product (the silly sounds). if they all were running Ableton Live it would obviously have infinite x infinite possibilities haha :)

[Orgoneart0com]

surprised they don't any of the tilting of the laptops like they sometimes do (because there are motion sensors in the laptops similar to a Nintendo Wiimote)

[listentosimon]

all that mac power for this! rubbish!

[satinhooks]

just sound.

and this sound sounds like nothing.

this is the class at Stanford where you know you're gonna get an A.

i'm sure this class fills up very quickly. why is a GPA booster class at Stanford and Princeton getting national media attention?

it's not 'weird' sounding either. i have no problems accepting any sound as musical material. this is just sad

[edv11nas]

yeah. this is not music. Boo stanford

[blairerox]

kinda boring

[victhais]

very interesting kind of music... would be hard to get with real instruments, which makes it special... lots of rhythm, but it maybe lacks a bit of melodic aspect...

Good job to SLOrk though... :)

[VinnieMonRow]

I don't know what people expect this kind of music to sound like. Forget the notion of real instruments. I see it like a Virtual Geek Drum Circle. I don't who does what or what the conductor is doing, but I dig it. I think this is some very funky shit.

[adabeie]

Somewhere, Steve Reich is smiling.

[satinhooks]

but his smile isn't for this stuff. i'm sure he'd laugh at this and say something really mean about how bad it is.

[tubingvideo]

why need a conductor? just program out the music... which sounds... like the same throughout...

interesting concept... but doesnt sound nice.

[bajero]

i guess its totally different perspective of what music is. interesting concept but not for my liking i guess. haha.

[boris989]

shit's annoying, they play bad, really bad... they suck...sounds like music for retards....what kind of music is this anyway?

[Ftwiiner]

fail!

sounds so strange...

[TechieTriumph16]

I see the conductor motioning for dynamics, yet I dont here any dynamics? or change in the sounds for that matter

[allisonicarts]

@TechieTriumph16 I think he's motioning for pitch and rhythmic changes. When he gradually raised his hands up, the pitches rose to the top of the range. He also seems to be directing different patterns to different groups. Since the laptops each have their own speaker, I imaging that being in the audience you could hear the patterns change as they went across the stage.

[metabog]

@TechieTriumph16 He's not 'motioning' for dynamics, he's relaying other information such as filter cutoffs and pitches. I think a lot of people here are expecting something else from something called an "orchestra". If you listen properly you can hear there is structure and some amount of control, although I agree it could be a little more varied. The emphasis is on timbre, spectral content and rhythm, not on melody like in 'modern' mainstream music.

[cifi10]

a bit repetitive

[bboston7]

why not learn a real instrument?

[cifi10]

why not synthesize it with a mac?

[HaxorLee]

Major Fail :P

[kev3000]

errrrrr. its sounds the same!

[weld3z]

boring

[cjp132]

WOW this is like the strangest thing i have ever seen... and i have seen some very strange things.

[scheffmusic]

sounds like the men's restroom!

[get2shaping]

Watch my Cal vs. Stanford dance off.

[Jumpstylemachine]

ooooh... so like 20 students sitting around and some weird guy standing in the middle? i actually like the concept but it just wasn't that intresting? if the could like make som REAL song THAT would på cool!

[eagle324]

fail

[newobtterb]

so dumb.

[sirnubenegra]

so... nothing happens?

[warewolf213isMoB]

Bust.......

[heardyetforsaken]

haha they should've totally done this at the inauguration instead of that strings crap :P

[boboy2u]

Hey, that strings stuff was really amazing.

Let's see you play like that, and then you can say that.

[chris3037]

now i really have to go to the bathroom

[jezdan141]

gay.

[gamerjoe22]

w=that was pretty cool

[oklaquo]

well that was retarded

[andysreviews]

stupid

[ipod1234567]

i think there useing ableton live

[leaghaire]

There must be something wrong with me. I enjoyed this. :)

[DJwipspeed]

ye me to ;)

[randomperson1101]

I kept waiting to see if they would do anything interesting. Didn't happen.

[michaellewisjohn]

what the fuck was that ! what a load of fucking shit ! if you think this is good then you need to get a fucking life you bunch of dickhea. wish you could rate videos in half stars because this would get half a star from me but now it has to get a 1 wich is a bit to much !!

[Rivahratt95]

Weird. Why did you record this Chris?

[bretw]

This may be the dumbest thing I have ever seen.

[zeller123]

my farts sound better yea me and my buddy group around my house start doing something like this!! ahah

[silentpenguin123]

okay

[199crazy]

gay

[dangerousprimate]

too much geek going on!! crap vid poncy computer users.

[DethMagnetik]

that was the weirdest thing i have ever heard...it would be funny if one or some of the computers would have crashed

[hardcore4parkour]

I love the music!  I would like to have a copy of this piece!

[davross600]

lol.

[plipmanzz]

i bet you they are just Instant Messaging with each other. Making fun of that guy in the middle using AIM or MSN

[BigCowz]

Lmao @ the conductor

[TheAwesomeJayandGray]

So is that guy controlling the sounds with his hands? Or is he just conducting everyone else?

[dangerousprimate]

rubbish!!

[johnisironman]

I agree. That's not even a music!

[MrTech40]

Not impressed

[beejm90]

This is excellent. Great Concert.

[DojoSimo3]

wow no life much

[Probewitch]

Higher education does extract it's price.

[TechJamieLake]

1:16 here come the crockadile LMAO

[plipmanzz]

4:30 was epic

[H0RNL1N3]

gay 1 star

[Sha1dov]

I don't get it.

[cuoio]

No Offence, but i could get the exact same noise from a leaky sink..=/

[IMPMAC]

maybe that was the theme

[ScottRobot88]

hahahahahhahhahahhahah

[adsicks]

When is it going to kick in?

[xxNutcasexx]

wow that guy doin the thing in the middle LOSER... sorry

[rpgromaster58]

does anyone know what time (gmt time) chris does most of the talking on cuz i allways seem to miss it :(

[mobilesuitrxle]

can i buy this track on itunes?

[NotUploader]

ew...

[KlezHunter1]

OMFG WOW it sounds like my bath.....:|

[Jaylikescookies]

Wow, that sucks.

[gmcnewlook]

lol and everybody mocked tripod for the microsoft keynote

[jawnsondotcom]

That was way too quiet for my taste. I'm glad nobody laughed; it really would have overpowered the music!

[darrenc12pdg123]

that was terrible ces was way better than macworld

[sabuissuicidal]

TERRIBLE, DAMNNNNN

[windowsVSapple]

that sounds stupid? a lil kid can play like that?

[gilitos92]

Sounds like crap I couldn't stand hearing the same sound so many time so I forwarded the video, I thought the rythmm or at least the sounds would change, but they didn't 6:23 mins of my life wasted -_-

[bogieman987]

it wouldnt be so bad if there was normal instraments played on the laptops like a proper orchastra but without the actual instraments themselves

[gilitos92]

u are absolutely right, I was expecting that too, but I only got those horrible sounds

[starchest]

Kinda sucks.

[cptcrunch26]

.....

[spockles]

makes me wanna pee

[Gamerdudeeee]

hahaha xD

[vitralizer]

too much procussion and no lead or bass instruments

[runie360]

kinda....

suck

[termodox]

they didnt played on it

[souldagger14]

yeah i don't think this will catch on

[thisbeadam]

I gotta be honest, this is horrible.

Like it just sounds like a track played over and over again..

[Simoncanada]

call me stupid but i don't get it...

[Grei3]

booooo......i don't get it too....

[LoCoBoi187]

=]=]=]

[iTJS]

first rating

(*****)

[willfinal]

geek to the 94th power

[carlheanerd]

I see like, all of them are Macintosh computers. Love the coordination here!

[apuz5]

well it is macworld

[massmanthaman]

wat

[mimzy1990]

chris you are upload crazy!! today

[KYkMan]

Very nice all i can say

[spacemonkey2009]

Sweet Video!

[YellowToonlink]

cool

[DicePSPTv]

awesome