Happy Fractal Friday! The old render farm has been working overtime and the output has slowed a bit even though I've increased the number of computer cores crunching away on fractals. So, nothing last week, but my latest effort is the bestest yet for having taken the extra week! This is the song
"Im Memoriam," set to the Fractal Animation Music Video (FAMV) called
"Valhalla After Ragnarök."Music:This piano piece is called
"Im Memoriam," and was composed, performed, and recorded on Memorial Day 2014. I recorded myself on my cell phone for the first take, switched to the right side and got an even better take but forgot to hit record on the piano's 2-track MIDI recorder, and so then did a third take with no video but with the MIDI recorded that was of course the best one and the one that ended up being used for my solo-piano-only album
"Paigan Productions Presents Piano Pieces (PPPPP)" (track #10). The first two takes I'm switching on and off a string layer over the piano sound for certain sections, but I dropped that for the final take.
This would be New Age Progressive Piano Instrumental as a genre, if I had to label it. Stylistically and mechanically, I'm doing some fairly "athletic" things here. The bass chords are hit with the left hand, while the right hand does a constant rhythmic chord backing, and the left hand crosses over every other beat to hit way up high on the keyboard to plunk out the melody notes, and then back down to the bass side to hit those notes. So lots and lots of "crossovers." This is a tune that I can actually play live, unlike most of my improvised stuff that exists only at that one time in the moment, never for me to play again. So I could "karaoke" or "finger-sync" a performance video to this 3rd take, but the song and the fractal video are thematically very similar and were a "perfect" match both in length and subject and in themes. ("Finger-syncing" is my term for lip-syncing a piano performance
). But I've included a link to the first 2 takes (#2 is far superior to #1 IMHO, and actually has a better ending than the final #3, but I made some clunkers and it was a shorter version. I didn't embed #1.)
Tonality and chords:Key of A minor. The chord progression is Amin, Fmaj7, Dmin, Em7, G.
Fractal Video: This is a CPU job, using computer cores to render, which means it takes a lot longer that the ones done with graphic video cards (GPU). But there's a LOT more that can be done on the CPU side of the house, at least until there's a better GPU version of the software. The fractal algorithm I'm using here is still from Mandelbulber 2.06, and is called
"Aexion." It's the first algorithm choice of the software (alphabetically) and normally takes way more render time that I've ever been willing or able to use to get anywhere with it. I should dial up the raymarching step multiplier (that's a thing, and controls quality) because there's a few artifacts here and there, but it would add an exponential amount of time.
From my earlier postings, you've seen that there are fractal balls/spheres ("Mandelbulbs") and cubes/boxes ("Mandelboxes"), which are about all the GPU version of the software can do. There are a bunch of other fractal algorithms, only available through the CPU version of the program. This is one of those. It's not very "fractally" at all, meaning there when you drill down on it, you don't see that the larger fractal is made up of smaller versions of that shape (which is the easy definition of a fractal shape). But this is another 3D shape created by a computer algorithm, and quibbles aside, it's a fractal animation video.
Themes and Setting:As the name suggests, this is
Valhalla After Ragnarök. Valhalla is of course known as the afterlife of the Norse Gods called the Aesir (or "Asgardians," thank you, Marvel Comics) and is also the fortress and capital city of the nation and land and people (and gods) of Asgard.
This is Valhalla, after the great Battle of the Gods and Fire Giants and others in Ragnarök, in which Fenrir the Wolf eats half the gods including Odin, and Thor battles the world serpent (and dies).
Quote:
The serpent Jörmungandr opens its gaping maw, yawning widely in the air, and is met in combat by Thor. Thor, also a son of Odin and described here as protector of the earth, furiously fights the serpent, defeating it, but Thor is only able to take nine steps afterward before collapsing. The god Freyr fights Surtr and loses. After this, people flee their homes, and the sun becomes black while the earth sinks into the sea, the stars vanish, steam rises, and flames touch the heavens.
My video description:
This is Valhalla of Asgard after the Jötunn (Fire Giant) Surtr has burned the world(s) and before everything restarted in a grand cycle of life with the sprouting of the World Tree Yggdrasil. This is Valhalla after the Fall, or Valhalla After Ragnarök. Across the Bifrost Bridge leading up to the burnt-out lands, fly through the ruins and the surrounding Asgardian mountains and then fly away from Asgard of the Nine Realms and exit to space, to see the roots of Yggdrasil, The World Tree.This topic and theme and story has been addressed in music most famously by 19th-century composer Richard Wagner with the title of the last of his Der Ring des Nibelungen operas, Götterdämmerung (1876), or "Twilight of the Gods."
Thematically, the song and video were a perfect match. The current video I'm working on (almost 100 cores working for the next 42 projected days) is another stab at using this same world and algorithm. So, there will be a
Valhalla After Ragnarök, Part II or something, to follow. It will hopefully have my latest Chapman Stick and Piano creation,
"Chromatic Jack," as the song. I've got about 42 days to become the BassGod that this tune demands, and I'm close. Can't wait to show you (and me)!
Your comments, impressions, criticisms and suggestions on the music or videos, and your deep thoughts on all things fractal, are highly appreciated!
Rocking it out on your Fractal Friday,
Stephen Sink, Paigan Productions
Youtube, Valhalla After Ragnarök (Take #3):[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CMhgxGYS39s[/youtube]
Vimeo (better quality and downloads): Adds:
http://vimeo.com/user42170657/valhallaafterragnarokSound Cloud, audio only, take #3 (studio quality):(Right side cellphone, Take #2, 30 pounds chunkier than now!)
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fbsh5-Gg7oU[/youtube]
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q7nz6Ij2vzM (left side version, take #1)