Another Time

Generative music. Tap to play/pause.

In piano improvisation, there is a trick to move through time signatures without the usual mental effort. Play 3 notes with your left hand, then cycle between 4, 3, or 2 notes in the right. This moves you through 7/8, 6/8, and 5/8 time very fluidly. It has the lovely effect of implying tempo changes in your arpeggios, even as your note durations are constant.

"Another Time" is a generative music collection built on this technique. Time is at the core. We play with time signatures, as I mentioned. We also play with left-right channel phase: the stereo channels begin in sync but drift apart over time, as if one melody is being cleaved into two timelines.

And the genre, the character of these tones--when I hear music like this it makes me think of another time. A mood from a not-so-distant past; a collective memory of our shared experience.

Each mint of "Another Time" is a unique generative composition exploring one finite path through an infinite sound space. All sounds are generated in real-time in your browser. Music is coded in tonejs. Animated visuals are coded in p5js.

Notes: i) older mobile devices may experience audio clipping due to processing constraints; ii) background textures may vary across different browsers due to the way very thin lines are rendered.

Made by Idlebit in May, 2022.