Unproven or rumored; unsufficient evidence to conclude
November 7, 2013 7:25 AM   Subscribe

Dream Battle note count: 272789. What Does the Fox Say? note count 1.1 million. Bad Apple note count: 4.6 million. "Fujiwara no Mokou's theme" note count: 21100000+. It's The Impossible Music of Black MIDI where there is no such thing as Too Many Notes.
posted by Potomac Avenue (28 comments total) 17 users marked this as a favorite
 
"Black Midi" sounds a lot like techno arranged for piano.

Which is not a complaint.
posted by Western Infidels at 7:37 AM on November 7, 2013


so the digital Black Page, then.
posted by blue t-shirt at 7:42 AM on November 7, 2013 [1 favorite]


or the sonic Treaty of Westphalia.
posted by blue t-shirt at 7:44 AM on November 7, 2013


It's appropriate that the 21 million+ note one is a remix of a Touhou Project song - composing black MIDI seems like it appeals to the same type of person obsessed with mastery of insanely complicated and difficult things as bullet hell shooters do.
posted by strangely stunted trees at 7:54 AM on November 7, 2013 [3 favorites]


It's appropriate that the 21 million+ note one is a remix of a Touhou Project song

Dingdingding! That's right, strangely stunted trees! For those following at home: Fujiwara no Mokou is the Extra boss in the Touhou Project game Imperishable Night. Let's have a look!
posted by Marisa Stole the Precious Thing at 7:58 AM on November 7, 2013


Ditto Bad Apple (the Alstroemeria Records remix of which was made famous by this video), the original of which is from the Touhou Project game Lotus Land Story.
posted by Marisa Stole the Precious Thing at 8:01 AM on November 7, 2013


(Hi, I like Touhou.)
posted by Marisa Stole the Precious Thing at 8:01 AM on November 7, 2013


But the MIDI events don't even register as notes when set off that densely. Yeah, I guess the technique produces strange artifacts that are perceptible, in their way, but it seems a weird way to highlight the limitations of the hardware it's being played on. The notes are there, but they're not there.

(I'm saying this as someone who rather enjoyed http://www.metafilter.com/123591/Call-Me-Maybe-147, whose emergent artifacts were oddly sublime.
posted by lumensimus at 8:02 AM on November 7, 2013


Wait, these are all Touhou: Dream Battle is also from Imperishable Night.

I do believe this is the most Touhou I've seen on Metafilter, ever.
posted by Marisa Stole the Precious Thing at 8:04 AM on November 7, 2013


And I have no idea what that is!
posted by Potomac Avenue at 8:05 AM on November 7, 2013 [1 favorite]


Emperor Joseph II: My dear young man, don't take it too hard. Your work is ingenious. It's quality work. And there are simply too many notes, that's all. Just cut a few and it will be perfect.

Mozart: Which few did you have in mind, Majesty?
posted by three blind mice at 8:05 AM on November 7, 2013


I just like the blips.
posted by Potomac Avenue at 8:05 AM on November 7, 2013


I hate to be a curmudgeon but I can't get into this. When it comes to banging out notes and making pretty shapes out of them I prefer simpler things like this retro game medley which is fun to look at and sounds great.
posted by komara at 8:07 AM on November 7, 2013


And I have no idea what that is!

Touhou Project is a series of bullet hell shooters made by this guy. And by that I mean he does the code, art, music and most of the testing. Here's a sample.

posted by Marisa Stole the Precious Thing at 8:09 AM on November 7, 2013


In terms of pushing a piano to its limits, this kind of remind me of the speaking piano.
posted by caaaaaam at 8:18 AM on November 7, 2013


Here's a sample.

Holy mackerel.
posted by Potomac Avenue at 8:28 AM on November 7, 2013


Here's a sample.

Holy mackerel.


To be fair, that's stage 5 out of 6, on the highest difficulty. The lower difficulties are a lot more accessible.
posted by kafziel at 8:54 AM on November 7, 2013


It's appropriate that the 21 million+ note one is a remix of a Touhou Project song

The first time I played a Touhou shooter, I sincerely thought the MIDI playback was broken and was playing two songs at the same time on top of each other.
posted by straight at 9:03 AM on November 7, 2013


Touhou's game titles read oddly like Culture ships.


東方靈異伝 ~ Highly Responsive to Prayers (ZUN Soft 1996)
東方封魔録 ~ Story of Eastern Wonderland (ZUN Soft 1997)
東方夢時空 ~ Phantasmagoria of Dim.Dream (ZUN Soft 1997)
東方幻想郷 ~ Lotus Land Story (ZUN Soft 1998)
東方怪綺談 ~ Mystic Square (ZUN Soft 1998)
東方紅魔郷 ~ the Embodiment of Scarlet Devil (Team Shanghai Alice 2002)
東方妖々夢 ~ Perfect Cherry Blossom (Team Shanghai Alice 2003)
東方萃夢想 ~ Immaterial and Missing Power (Collaboration between Team Shanghai Alice & Twilight Frontier 2004)
東方永夜抄 ~ Imperishable Night (Team Shanghai Alice 2004)
東方花映塚 ~ Phantasmagoria of Flower View (Team Shanghai Alice 2005)
東方文花帖 ~ Shoot the Bullet (Team Shanghai Alice 2005)
東方風神録 ~ Mountain of Faith (Team Shanghai Alice 2007)
東方緋想天 ~ Scarlet Weather Rhapsody (Collaboration between Team Shanghai Alice & Twilight Frontier 2007)
東方地霊殿 ~ Subterranean Animism (Team Shanghai Alice 2008)
東方星蓮船 ~ Undefined Fantastic Object (Team Shanghai Alice 2009)
東方神霊廟 ~ Ten Desires (Team Shanghai Alice 2011)
東方心綺楼 ~ Hopeless Masquerade (Collaboration between Team Shanghai Alice & Twilight Frontier 2013)
東方輝針城 ~ Double Dealing Character

I... must think on this further. [retreats to bomb bay]
posted by Devonian at 9:06 AM on November 7, 2013 [7 favorites]


You forgot Unthinkable Natural Law!
posted by kafziel at 9:07 AM on November 7, 2013 [3 favorites]


I neither thought nor did not think. I cut and pasted from Wikipedia.
posted by Devonian at 9:08 AM on November 7, 2013 [1 favorite]


This is a roundabout way of inching back toward FM synthesis and to pure noise. I like it.
posted by ignignokt at 9:17 AM on November 7, 2013


(This animated rendition of a Touhou boss battle in three dimensions is pretty great.)
posted by straight at 10:13 AM on November 7, 2013 [2 favorites]


Is Dream Battle really in the same category as some of the others? It's a lot of notes, but most are just used like a drone, and there is still a melody over the top that's picked out with individual notes.
posted by smackfu at 10:42 AM on November 7, 2013


Hang on, MIDI has a defined baud rate of 31250 bps. And a note takes 3 bytes. So you can't have more than 10416 notes per second. Plus you have to turn the notes off from time to time.
posted by doiheartwentyone at 11:28 AM on November 7, 2013 [1 favorite]


I suspect that a lot of the sound of this music arises from the behaviour of the playback program under stress. It would be interesting to hear the different interpretations of the same score run by the different programs.

I'm pretty sure for instance in the fox one, where the chords come in that contain every note, the top notes get played first. You get that "pew" sound you also hear on the techno kick drum.
posted by doiheartwentyone at 11:49 AM on November 7, 2013


Hang on, MIDI has a defined baud rate of 31250 bps. And a note takes 3 bytes. So you can't have more than 10416 notes per second.

I'm an amateur at best at stuff like Audacity, but couldn't they just copy and layer tracks over top of each other?
posted by Marisa Stole the Precious Thing at 1:42 PM on November 7, 2013


Yes, or you could use multiple MIDI controllers. but I suspect that when your computer plays a MIDI file it doesn't enforce the baud rate, only when it goes down a wire.
posted by doiheartwentyone at 11:26 AM on November 9, 2013 [1 favorite]


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