This update is intended for paying supporters of my work.
I’m experimenting with putting it on my personal site, DRM-free.
Please let me know what you think!
Hi there, it’s me. And this is another weekly episode of the…
🐸 TODEPOND PONDCAST 🐸
What’s new this week?
I’ve been playing with Arroost. I’ve been making loads of scrappy little tunes in it, and I’m enjoying it a lot. One or two extra features have got it into quite a fun state for me.
One of those is - you can change the pitch of sounds. First, record something with your microphone. Then, drag it up and down to make it higher or lower (in multiple ways).
You can use this to tweak the sounds in your looping song. But you can also make mini musical instruments. First, record something long and constant, like humming, or whistling. Then, play the recording, and drag the sound up and down to modify its pitch during the playback. It sounds something like a slide whistle.
Arroost has many goals. But one of them is to normalise sharing scrappy fiddles.
Normalise sharing scrappy fiddles is my jokey way of saying that I want it to encourage people to have fun making little bits of music in it. And I want them to feel comfortable with sharing what they make (with other people). Maybe they perform it in front of someone. Or maybe they post it online. Either way, it’s a shared experience.
I’ve played musical instruments since I was young. And I originally had a lot of anxiety around sharing the creative experience with other people. I think there was a lot of pressure to ‘be good’.
I find this depressing, because it wasn’t the same with other creative outlets. Sharing dodgy drawings and artwork involves so much less pressure. And in the creative coding world, there’s a whole community around sharing work-in-progress creations. Sometimes, the ‘work-in-progress’ is just me. Me, getting better at the artform.
I became disillusioned with music because of this. I didn’t want to play anymore.
It’s only through certain musical artists, and their tools, that I’ve learned to love playing music again. Such as… Maywa Denki, and Toshio Iwai. The focus is on the joy of playing. Not how good you are.
I’m happy to say that Ivan Reese has now shared a scrappy fiddle from Arroost - less than a week after telling me that he doesn’t like sharing scrappy fiddles! Arroost fixed him ;)
Under instruction by multiple people, I’ve made a wiki, or blog, or digital garden, or whatever you call it. Apparently it’s also a memex !?
So far, I’ve writted and published (at least) one post per day. The posts are about a range of the usual todepond topics. Like coding, slightly odd attempts at poeticness, and a couple of hidden themes.
I’ve been pleasantly surprised by people’s response to it. As in, I’m surprised they’re responding at all to it. I guess people wanna read stuff!
It’s also been quite useful to me, just as an exercise. I’ve been able to write down some thoughts and ideas that have been bumbling around my head. It’s helped me get them in order.
I do write here too, on this weekly update. But I try to keep this at a decent-ish quality. I try to keep it at least a little bit engaging. On the wiki / blog / garden, I let loose a little bit more.
If you’re interested in checking it out, go to todepond.com/wikiblogarden
Thank you for all your support! This pondcast is intended for paying supporters of my stuff. If you’re somehow listening without paying, and you’ve made it to the end, then please do consider signing up. If you are a paying supporter, then I thank you from the bottom of my heart for letting me work on these things. I’m continually overwhelmed with how kind you all are. And… hey, I hope you have a great week 🐸
Days since tode fell asleep: 301
Days since bot went missing: 266