99% Invisible - 99% Invisible-19X- RJDJ Reactive Music

Episode Date: March 21, 2011

This week, the radio audience heard episode #10, but for you web and podcast listeners, I have a story I did about a year and a half ago, about the reactive music app called RJDJ. I did this piece for … Continue reading →

We get support from UC Davis, a globally ranked university, working to solve the world's most pressing problems in food, energy, health, education, and the environment. UC Davis researchers collaborate and innovate in California and around the globe to find transformational solutions. It's all part of the university's mission to promote quality of life for all living things. Find out more at 21stCentry.ucdavis.edu. This is 99% Invisible. I'm Roman Mars. This week the radio audience got a rebroadcast of episode number 10 about Chris Downey, the blind architect, which is often cited as an audience favorite, so you should go

download it if you haven't heard it already, that's episode number 10, called 99% sound and feel. But for you podgasters, I'm pushing out a special, never before released piece that served as the basis for episode number 3. I'm 99% invisible, but it's never aired and it's full glory until now. Think of it as a. Slightly thesis shifted, double-length director's cut of episode number three. The story is about how a new technology in this case, the smartphone and the RJDJ adaptive music app can not only change your consumption of music but can also change the very nature

of music itself. I think it's actually a pretty stunning development in the evolution of music and has even bigger implications than it seems on the surface. So check it out. When I moved out to San Francisco a dozen years ago, I stopped over in LA to visit my friend Max. And as he drove me around the Hollywood Hills, the song Screen Riders Blues by Soulcoffee and came on the car stereo.

Exits to freeways twisted like knots on the finger. car stereo. And it seemed to sync up with everything in the world at that moment. When the turn signal was flipped on, it always kept the beat. Headlights whizzed by in concert with the bass loop, and the song would crescendo just as a new amazing vista presented itself through the windshield. It is why they am. And you are listening to lots and joy. If you're of the Walkman generation or the iPod generation or if you take a lot of drugs, you've probably had this happen to you.

And Michael Bridenbroker is a big fan of the sort of musical serendipity. That for me was always very magical moments. That's one of the reasons he created RJ DJ. A musical iPhone app that tries to give you that feeling every time you put on your headphones. We're combining the world around you with your listening experience. So, you know, the door closes and something really amazing acoustically could happen. Then I'm always feeling like I'm more in a movie The door closes and something really amazing acoustically could happen.

Then I'm always feeling like I'm more in a movie, but basically take the movie away and put your life into it, and that's RJDJ. Robert Thomas is one of RJDJ's composers. RJDJ creates what we call reactive music, which is a new format of music, which changes in relation to what you're doing. RJ DJ is comprised of scenes, which are analogous to songs, but there are more like instructions for songs.

There are bits of music, code for the iPhone's own built-in synthesizer, audio filters, and these are triggered by the user, according to the composer's plan for the scene. I call this quantum composing. You think of all these different possible ways that it could be listened to, and try to come up with lots of different ways that that will create something very interesting to happen in the music. When a sound coming in from your surrounding is very loud,

you could have lots of really fine notes kind of going. Do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do- You can have all kinds of path changes in the music based on the analysis of their behavior in their environment. So, sounds like Mike changed the song. But so does the accelerometer in the phone, that's the thing that senses movement. Time spent listening can be a factor, and even GPS data can be incorporated. And all these stimuli work in concert to create an augmented reality. Which is the kind of mind-blowing thing when you're listening to it. The way I see it is it kind of feels like you're seeing some inner beauty and everything. And I think that's where the really great scenes that people have made so far really work.

I mean, the most famous one that people get that from is a single eargasm, which is this kind of harmonic overlay over reality. I had my wife May put in the patented white earbuds and check out one of the scenes for the first time. This one's probably the girl. Sorry. Wow. It's what, there's still grudder when It's what I still grudder would hear, I still grudder could hear.

It's kind of like being in a horror movie, but not quite horrible. You know, it definitely has a horror movie soundtrack. It's got to be like, something that is coming, but we haven't hit the... Oh, but now we have, because there it is. like something that is coming but we haven't hit the thingy thingy you know yet oh but now we have because there it is so most users report that the eargasm scene makes them hear the beauty and all

things and in the environment where my wife is listening she said it felt more like a horror movie and that's kind of RJ DJ in a nutshell it's almost as if we have been in a silent movie before and now you're all of a sudden in a movie that tests a soundtrack. The possibilities are endless. If someone made the born identity chase music into an endless reactive music scene, I swear there is nothing the CIA could do to stop me.

Yeah, you heard me, Panetta. But the makers of RJDJ aren't content simply changing your perception of reality. They're really looking to change music itself. To understand the sort of consequences of this advancement to composition of music, you kind of have to look at it over a really wide time scale. And thousands of years ago music was something that I guess passed between people. And as a song was heard and replayed by someone else, it changed constantly.

Relatively recently we've invented notation which tries to record what that is, what piece of music is in some kind of more definite form. And then very recently we've got used to the idea that music can be recorded and frozen in time into some form of conceptual object and that object could be a CD, a piece of vinyl, a tape or an MP3. They're all conceptually exactly the same thing. And at this point, a single version of a song, a single performance of a song became the song. And those thousands of years of mutability ended.

But the technology of RJ DJ puts an end to that. Now, the studio is actually inside the iPhone. And that's essentially what RJ DJ is really is a studio inside an iPhone. When that happens, when the delivery point of music is actually a studio itself, something really magical happens because it means that that mix down, that way of freezing music in time in a recording is no longer really necessary. It means that you can have multiple possible ways of experiencing a piece of music. So it's kind of like worlds of music that you can

explore. The promise of RJ DJ is an unparalleled musical synchronicity with your surroundings. Rather than putting on a set of headphones to block out the rest of the world, RJ DJ listeners will plug into a constantly changing, unique soundscape that connects them to what they're doing and where they are in the world. I imagine walking around San Francisco, listening to a mashed up composition of punk and hip hop that gives me a history of the neighborhood I'm traveling through. And the GPS will trigger a sound clip from Alphechcock's Vertigo when I pass through NAPIL.

And the tempo will speed up as I scurry out of the way of an obnoxious bike messenger into the path of an unnoticed, oncoming cable car. My sudden lack of all movement as I lie on the pavement will elicit a pleasing harmonic drone from the iPhone earbuds which will mix beautifully with the sirens from the paramedics as they approach. Stop! Or you can choose your own adventure. Well that's the show for this week.

I hope you enjoyed it. Stay tuned in the coming weeks because I have lots of stories from me as well as stories from some of the best radio producers in the world who happen to be friends of mine, which is rockin' that they're doing pieces for 99% of visible. I'm so happy about that. So stay tuned for that. And spread the word. You guys have been so great.

So Twitter and blog and Facebook and join up on Facebook and like it on Facebook. I would really appreciate it. I'm still trying to get funding for the back half of the year. So everything you can do to spread the word helps us out. All right, thanks so much. Take care.