‘Drum Thing’ was presented at World Science Festival Brisbane 2017 as part of 100 Ways to Listen.

'Drum Thing' as presented at World Science Festival Brisbane 2017 from Music Technology QCGU on Vimeo.

‘Drum Thing’ celebrates the automation of percussion objects using computer-controlled solenoids. Written in Pure data this work explores various approaches to randomisation with an Euclidean rhythm generator, where the greatest common divisor of two numbers is used rhythmically to drive beats and silences (see Godfried Toussaint’s 2005 paper “The Euclidean Algorithm Generates Traditional Musical Rhythms”). The four circles represent dual 16 step Euclidean sequencers and show where the hits fall for each iteration of the loop.