Response #18

Jeromy · Post by **Jeromy** » Sun May 06, 2007 12:27 pm

it would be hard

hmmm how would you make 120?

unison
2 and a half octav interval?!

or one and two 10ths

I was going to do the entire message with the interval system, but after recording two lines, I realized that the response would have been like an hour long, and I can only do so many things in camera before we all get bored.

Jeromy

deagol · Post by **deagol** » Sun May 06, 2007 12:32 pm

chershaytoute wrote:I must be reallyreally bad off this morning...and the piano hasn't even been drinking...

I don't see a post from gidd...or anyone...'splainin', deag? Least, not here. I'll go lookin'... Thanks for letting me know it's around somewhere!

Sorry chers, it was in the other thread. Here you go:

http://www.lonelygirl15.com/forum/viewt ... 579#340579

deagol · Post by **deagol** » Sun May 06, 2007 12:42 pm

Jeromy wrote:it would be hard

hmmm how would you make 120?

unison
2 and a half octav interval?!

or one and two 10ths

I was going to do the entire message with the interval system, but after recording two lines, I realized that the response would have been like an hour long, and I can only do so many things in camera before we all get bored.

Jeromy

Ha! it took me an hour and a half to transcribe. The image was a nice touch, I just wish I had thought of using OCR on it last night. D'oh!

Yea a +2-octave interval would've kinda thrown me off. But 1 10+10 would've been even more confusing, i think. Oh well, who needs that silly 'x' anyway...

I was just listening to it again, playing along with it on the piano, and it's amazing that there's a distinctive I-IV-V harmonic progression (maybe I-ii-V) repeated 3 or 4 times on the reverse audio (as you used it). There's something about the way you sustained the notes letting them overlap, which when reversed creates unexpected harmonies, full with with sus4, sus2, and that beautiful Dm9 chord when you play that 10th followed or preceded by the 6th interval, but which only overlap in the reverse audio. Amazing.

chershaytoute · Post by **chershaytoute** » Sun May 06, 2007 1:07 pm

hippie happened to post over there...so I found it...but thanks for the link, too, deags! <beaming smile> You treat a girl so goodly!

deagol · Post by **deagol** » Sun May 06, 2007 1:44 pm

Alright. This is what the horrible piano in my video decoded to:

Question:
What are your ideas and expectations about a viable business model for this new media concept? Or is it just a cool way to promote yourself and your other commercial work?

Jeromy's response included beautiful music, which also embedded a code. The reverse audio as posted by QtheC is intervals played on guitar, in rythmic groups of 3 and some in 2, as he correctly pointed out. Last night I posted this link for the musical theory behind these intervals. If you're a musician (even not formally trained) you should be able to distinguish them by ear. It's basically the difference in pitch between the two notes being played, except when the tonic is played, which is a unison interval, translated as the number 1. Fortunately, every appearance of a 0 digit can be combined with an adjacent 1 to make a 10, and thus a 10th interval is used.

So the numbers are:

119 119 119 46 106 101 114 111 109 121 46 116 118 47 115 111 108 117 116 105 111 110 46 106 112 103

Decimal ASCII --> text:

www.jeromy.tv/solution.jpg

Play with the contrast and brightness to see the numbers more clearly. Then spend an hour or two transcribing them, or if you're smart or were not drinking like I was, pass it through an OCR tool. These then decode (again dec-ascii > text) to:

A viable business plan is in the making, and this short chapter of our game is part of that process. Similar to the phenomenon of a short film being made into a feature based on its original merits as a short. I am pitching the game and devising a business model with an agency, and I'm keeping those cards close to my chest because it's a competitive world. In the short term, I'm in the process of contacting all the bands who gave us permission to use their music to see if they are interested in letting me sell a soundtrack of Maddison Atkins, Chapter One, and I'm also considering a short run of the DVD of what we've seen thus far. Of course these two methods won't bring in enough money to mount a major production, but it will be good research for potential investors as I explore how to financially support myself as an ARG producer.

QtheC · Post by **QtheC** » Sun May 06, 2007 2:12 pm

I like the system of intervals as encoding digits, but wouldn't it be helpful to define the "unison interval" (i.e. the C key alone in this case, I think, at least in the first three W's) as your 0 rather than your 1? Then you could have explicit 0's and create any decimal number you want.

The 120 mentioned earlier would then be a 2nd, a 3rd, and a single note, as in CD CE C.

Also, I haven't checked, but is it true that in this particular code, the lower part of the interval is always the same note, or does only the interval matter, and not where it is located on the scale?

More information might be encoded if both interval and location are used in some combination. (by location, I mean the lower of the two notes in each pair played).

Example:

(Defining C alone as a '0')

C = CC = 0, CD = 1, CE = 2, CF = 3, CG = 4, CA = 5,
CB = 6, CC' = 7, CD' = 8, CE' = 9

Then Code:

Hello = 72 101 108 108 111 =

= [CC' CE] [CD C CD] [CD C CD'] [CD C CD'] [CD CD CD]

Here the base of the interval is always C, but if you can move the interval around, you can add information, or make the resulting "music" more interesting as in:

= [CC' EG] [CD B EF] ... etc.

robtomorrow · Post by **robtomorrow** » Sun May 06, 2007 2:18 pm

That was a lot of work to do to ask a question and get an anwser. Well done deagol, and Jeromy, even with an explanation it confused the hell out of me.

OOG

Interesting answer to the question.

deagol · Post by **deagol** » Sun May 06, 2007 2:30 pm

Those are all great ideas Q. However, the beauty in Jeromy's code lies in its simplicity. Unison = 1 is even etymologically correct. And remember, even this simple concept eluded everyone here. Also, check out what I was saying before about the rich harmonies that Jeromy brought out just by playing with the sustain and overlap of the plucked notes, and with reversing the audio.

In my opinion, the unison = 1 is more consistent with the music theory behind it, it's more intuitive, and it even plays beautifully, probably an artifice of the decimal ASCII representation of letters, since the number 1 is repeated so often, and thus the tonic is reinforced so much.

Emsmu · Post by **Emsmu** » Sun May 06, 2007 7:38 pm

Hahaha I wanted to wait till the solutions were posted so I knew what was going on before I said: That was the funniest of them all XD

I would totally buy the cd. There was some good music here.

chershaytoute · Post by **chershaytoute** » Mon May 07, 2007 12:06 pm

I loves the both of you...even if you do make my brain hurt!

marlasinger · Post by **marlasinger** » Mon May 07, 2007 5:19 pm

again. you guys are the reason this arg and any other for that matter, is so awesome.

I'm out of school for the summer. And being a mensakid, I might have a few puzzles up my sleeve as well. Oh the Mensa Days. The ARG is the closest thing I've had to mensa in a while...

deagol · Post by **deagol** » Tue May 08, 2007 8:39 pm

Response #18 by Jeromy (arr. by me)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iwlRhQnPXik

I made this harmonic arrangement on top of Jeromy's coded message (revver.com/watch/258902). It came out really cheesy and sappy but I had fun doing it.

It's also in midi format here: www.esnips.com/web/deagol-midi/

impulse · Post by **impulse** » Tue May 08, 2007 8:41 pm

That was a very cool message. You two are positively insane.

Jeromy · Post by **Jeromy** » Wed May 09, 2007 8:53 am

That was cool deagol. We are collaborators.

deagol · Post by **deagol** » Wed May 09, 2007 9:08 am

Yay! I so can hear it sung by Lionel Richie.

(no codes in this one hehe... other than yours of course)