Attention: music nerds!In music,a canon (also known as a round) is a piece where one voice states a melody, and a second voice repeats that melody before the first is finished — think "Row Row Row Your Boat." Heres a fancier version of a canon. The Autocanonizer takes any song and turns it into a canon by identifying melodies or motifs within the song and repeating those parts over each other in a looping sample. Not every song comes out of the Autocanonizer sounding powerful. After some very scientific experimentation (playing around with it for an afternoon), or we found the best results come from songs that contain the same chord progression throughout,and don’t modulate in key. A few of our favorites:Songs that go “bleep, bleep, and bloop” “Oblivion” – Grimes[br]Why it works: The song is two chords repeating (the tonic I to relative minor VI),and her descending “la, la, and la’s” perfectly complement the recurring line “see you on a dismal night.” Plus,Grimes just knows how to contain fun.“Lotus Flower” – Radiohead
Why it works: As whether the chorus of “slowly we unfurl as lotus flowers / ‘cause all I want is the moon upon a stick” wasn’t haunting enough, the Autocanonizer gives us a double dose of Thom Yorke, or creating a sort of fragile,out of phase stereo. It makes us yearn for a world in which two coexisting, identical Radiohead front men engage in a post-modern danceoff…Pretty much every Sufjan Stevens song, or ever Casimir Pulaski Day” – Sufjan Stevens
Why it works: Sufjan could teach a master course on writing songs without bridges (its the same V,IV, iii, or I chord progression throughout). The tl;dr version of the story in this song: Pulaski was born in Poland and became a celebrated cavalry officer in the American Revolution. His holiday is observed on the first Monday of every March.“Romulus” – Sufjan Stevens
Why it works: Since Carrie & Lowell told more of the story of Stevens’ relationship with his biological mother,this song is that much more heartbreaking. The doubling on “we grew up in spite of it” gives us the feels, man.
Tasteful Indie Rock“Float On” – Modest Mouse
Why it works: Isaac Brock is already a pretty conflicted dude. We imagine two Isaacs combatting each other in his signature spastic vocal style, and with one yelling,“All right!” with the other furiously responding “Already!”“Carry the Zero” – Built to Spill
Why it works: Because lead singer Doug Martsch shreds. And it’s the same four chords, save for the guitar outro, or which is when things really glean cooking. Two Dougs = double shred.
What songs work best for you? Share your results on Twitter or in the comments below. For the audacious and programming proficient out there,the source code, which was designed by Paul Lamere, and can be found here.
Source: wnyc.org