Manual for the pd patch of “Wheel of Fortune” and explanation for per-

forming the piece

von Orm Finnendahl
version 1.0 (Sept. 2012)

1
Overview

The performance of the piece alternates between parts played from tradi-
tional paper score and parts played from the computer monitor in some
form. Following is an overview of the sequence of parts and where it is
played from.

part name played from

Sprache computer monitor

Intro II score

Extrapolation score

Transition score

ipat score

Kadenz computer monitor

Pavlov computer monitor

Markov computer monitor

Duration

The duration of the Kadenz, Pavlov and Markov parts is not fixed and left
to the performer. But the final parts should not be too short in order to
keep a well balanced proportion to the first part. The total duration of the
piece thus shouldn’t be shorter than 20:00 minutes but can be well longer
than 25:00 or 30:00 minutes.

2
Prerequisites

For a performance, the following items are needed:

• A MIDI-Grand Piano1
Note: For rehearsing the piece, a standard MIDI controller keyboard
(without sound) is sufficient.
2
• A separate expression pedal sending on controller number 11.
• Computer (Mac OSX or Linux) with a working installation of pd. For
3
video playback, it has to be pd with Gem included.
• Midi interface (often integrated in multichannel audio interfaces,
otherwise use separate interface).
• PA with preferrably 4-8 speakers including a mixing console in the
center of the room. For rehearsing, the headphone or internal speaker
is sufficient.
• For (optional) live control of the volumes of internal busses of the
patch and spacial movement an additional computer with tcp/ip con-
nection to the audio processing computer and Midifaders near the
mixing console are necessary.
• For a performance, a beamer and projection screen for the video and
an (optional) second computer for video playback are needed.
• The file archive “wof-main.tgz” containing all patches and soundfiles.

1
It doesn’t have to be a player piano, just a grand piano with some mechanism to
send the keystrokes of the pianist to the computer is sufficient.
2
this has to be a seperate pedal which holds its current position if the foot is released
from the pedal and not the conventional sustain pedal of a midi piano, which snaps back
to zero on release
3
Gem is a video extension for pd not included in standard (plain) pd. pd-extended for
example is a free distribution of pd which includes Gem.

3
 Setting up

Download and uncompress the archive “wof-main.tgz”. This will crea-

te a folder named “wof-main” with all necessary files inside. Connect
the Midi-piano and expression pedal to the computer and –in case of a
performance– the multichannel audio-interface and connect it to the PA
system.
There are two ways to realize the video playback: Either using a separate
computer for video playback or doing audio processing and video playback
on a single machine. In case of two separate machines the computers
have to be connected via tcp/ip (ethernet) and the adress of the video
4
computer has to be configured appropriately .
If video and audio are performed on the same computer, two pd processes
have to be started, one for the audio patch and one for the video patch.
For private rehearsing of the piece by the pianist it is suffucient to start
the audio patch only.

Startup

1. Videoplayer startup (not necessary for rehearsing): Start the patch “wof-
videoplayer.pd” in the subfolder “wof-videoplayer” with a gem-capable
pd. It should display a black screen plus a small window labeled “wof-
videoplayer.pd”. The black screen is the projection screen for the video
(1024x768) and should be placed on the beamer projection (1024x768) in
fullscreen.
2. Audioplayer startup: Start the patch “wof-main.pd” in the main folder
with pd.
The Main window (Abb. 1) should appear together with the display of the
first part (“sprache-score-display” (Abb. 4)).

4
For documentation please refer to the corresponding parts in the following explanation.

4
 name of current part

midikeyboard input display

current part dial

computer keyboard ctl enable

reinit configuration
live piano sound on/off
open configuration window

current part

connect to movie-player

loudspeaker configuration
and sound distribution

Abb. 1: main window

The main window is the status display of the piece and is always present,
sometimes partly covered by the displays of the different parts, which are
opened and closed according to the progression of the piece. Normally it
shouldn’t be necessary to interact with this window except for the initial
configuration and setup of the piece.
Following is a short description of the different items in the main window:

item function

name of current part The name of the current part

midikeyboard input display Displays pressed keys on the midi keyboard.

Useful for testing midi input

current part dial shows the current part in a horizontal dial.

5
computer keyboard enable enable/disable keyboard shortcuts using the
computer keyboard. Note: The computer key-
board can always be enabled with the <f1>
and disabled with the <f2> keys of the com-
puter.

reinit Reinit the patch to its initial state. This is au-

tomatically invoked upon statup.

live piano sound on/off If practising with a keyboard without sound,

turning this on will generate the live piano
sounds in addition to the ones generated by
the patch. Note that damped keys (indicated
in the score) will not play any sound! The in-
itial setting of this toggle upon startup of the
patch can be configured in the main configu-
ration window of the patch (explained below).

open configuration window opens the window for the initial configurati-
on. Once this configuration has been made,
it can be saved by pressing the appropriate
button in the configuration window to auto-
matically load in future sessions.

current part Yet another display of the current part of the

piece. The vertical lsit shows the chronologi-
cal succession of the different parts.

connect to movie-player toggle the connection to the video player (eit-

her on the same computer or on a remo-
te machine). Note: If using the video display
make sure the video player is connected and
the patch “wof-movieplayer.pd” has been suc-
cessfully started before turning the connection
on.

6
loudspeaker configuration
and sound distribution
Shows the current loudspeaker setup (can be
configured in the configuration window ex-
plained below) and the current locations of
the different sound sources of the piece in the
listening field.

Patch control

In general the whole patch (except for the configuration) can and should
be controlled by special keys in the lowest register of the Midi Piano which
are damped throughout the piece as these keys are only used for the pur-
pose of controlling the patch. Under normal circumstances the pianist
should never have to interact with the computer using the computer key-
board or the mouse during the performance. Instead she or he should be
able to play the whole piece entirely on the keys of the piano except for
the parts, where preparations of the piano strings have to be applied or
removed as indicated in the score.
The keys and their functions are indicated in Abb. 2. Some keys keep their
semantics (meaning) throughout the whole piece, some keys have varying
semantics according to the current part of the piece. Their semantics are
explained in detail in the following explanations of the different parts.

7
 function-1 (E)
seq-stop (Eb)
all notes off (D)
clear (C#)
trigger (C)
next part (B)
previous part (Bb)
reset (A)

Abb. 2: Midikeyboard control keys in the lowest register of the keyboard

For convenience these keys can also get simulated by keyboard shortcuts
on the computer keyboard as indicated in the following list:

key on computer function

r reset

left-arrow previous part

right-arrow next part

t trigger

c clear

q all notes off

f function-1

i init patch

Note: The keyboard shortcuts only work, if key-enable is on (<f1> key or

8
toggle in Main window)!

The effect of the five main function keys is explained below:

name of function effect

reset should reset the current part to some defined

situation. The exact meaning depends on the
parts and is explained there.

previous part always switches to the previous part (if it

exists).

next part always switches to the next part (if it exists).

trigger triggers the start of some parts (sprache and

pavlov).

all notes off turns all notes of the sampler off (important
in ipat and kadenz.

9
Configuration Window

The main configuration window of “Wheel of Fortune” is shown in Abb. 3

with the default settings shown for reference. The window can be opened
and closed by clicking in the config toggle in the patch’s main window.

Abb. 3: Wheel of Fortune main configuration window with default settings

ls-setup configures the loudspeaker setup. It can be switched to different

loudspeaker setups, which are shown in the main window of “Wheel of
Fortune”. Note: For all multi-channel setups, the map-to-stereo toggle to
the right of the dials has to be turned off! For stereo setup, the first positi-
on of the ls-setup dials cannot be used. Instead use the second position,
which shows 4 loudspeakers in the corners and check the map-to-stereo
toggle as shown in the picture. This will route the signals of the rear two
speakers to the outlets of the front speakers. This setting is the default,

10
when the patch is unpacked and used for the first time and necessary for
rehearsing the piece with two speakers. Note: The numbering of the audio
interface’s outputs for all multi-channel and stereo setups always starts
with the front left loudspeaker at channel 1 and counts up in clockwise
motion from there.
international toggles between the german version and the international
version. The difference between the two versions are subtitles in the initial
movie and bilingual text display in the following part. The default setting
is international.
movie-audio-offset is the offset between audio and video in the opening
video sequence. It has to be adjusted in a way that the last impulses
from the spinning wheel sounds at the end of the movie are exactly syn-
chronous to the visual cuts (the last impulse being in sync with the last
pizzicato-like action in the close-up shot of the wheel). Experience has
shown that different hardware configurations differ with regard to this off-
set, but, once it has been set, to reliably keep in sync. In order to speed up
the setup process, the locator of the part sprache (explained below) can be
set to the end of the movie. Once the offset is set for a specific computer
setup, it should get stored with the save config button (explained below)
for succesive rehearsals or restarts.
local-echo has the same function as the local-echo toggle on the main
screen. For performance with a self-sounding GrandPiano it should be tur-
ned off, for rehearsal with a Midi-controller-keyboard it should be turned
on. Duplicating the toggle in the configuration window enables storing
and saving this property for successive rehearsals.
sprache-start-location enables setting different locations for starting the first
part (either starting with the introductory text, starting at the beginning
of the video or even starting after the video for rehearsal purposes). The
dial positions correspond to the location dials in the sprache score display
window (explained below).
revert-to-saved reverts all configuration settings to the last saved settings.
save-config saves the configuration to disk. This configuration will be loa-
ded on successive startups of the patch.

11
Explanation of the different parts of the piece

Sprache

Abb. 4: Sprache score display

The piece (and the part) gets started by pressing the “trigger” key on the
Midi-Keyboard (lowest C on an 88-key keyboard). The start location de-
pends on the setting of the location dial. Pressing the “reset” key at any
time immediately stops and rewinds the part to the last locator positi-
on. This enables rehearsal of different sections of this part. In addition
a “mute-zuspiel” toggle right of the locate number box can be checked
to mute the background sounds for rehearsing this part (make sure this
toggle gets unchecked before entering the next parts!).
After the end of the introductory video sequence (ca. 2:18), two small oran-
ge cursors below and above the staff systems will automatically start mo-
ving across the notated score. That’s the first moment, the performer ac-
tually starts playing on the Midi-Keyboard. Playing the notated pitches re-
sults in the playback of prerecorded spoken words, each word correspon-
ding to one key of the keyboard (the words are mapped to the keys in

12
alphabetical order). The four staff systems cover the whole keyboard: the
top system is notated in violin clef two octaves higher, the second system
is notated in standard violin clef, the third system from the top is notated
in standard bass clef and the bottom system is notated in bass clef two
octaves lower.
The position of the cursor should only be taken as an approximation. It
gives a rough idea of the timing, but the timing should be adjusted to the
needs of the interpretation aiming at a more or less natural regular flow
of the different words and the separation of the phrases. The colours in-
dicate different polyphonic voices of parallel texts. These different voices
are distributed to different positions in the listening space enhancing the
separation of the voices for the listener. In addition the words are projec-
ted on the video screen. These projections are triggered by the keystrokes
of the performer.
Therefore it is extremely important that the sequence of keys is strictly
followed and playing errors (wrong order, wrong, missing or additional
keys) are avoided. If errors occur, a (rather primitive) score tracking me-
chanism tries to catch up, distributing the voices appropriately. The state
of the score follower is reflected in the green word on the bottom of the
window (“sync”, “no sync!” or “realign”). Ideally it should never get out
of sync displaying the “sync” symbol at all times.
For rehearsing, different locations can be chosen with the predefined loca-
tion dials. The position chosen with a dial will be the position, the part will
locate to when pressing the reset key on the keyboard. Pressing “trigger”
will start the part from there.
The rightmost dial is special: It will remember the last position set in the
number box right of the dials enabling an arbitrary position to be remem-
bered. In order to set this number box either
– click in it once (the number turns red) and type a location (in seconds)
using the number keys of the computer, confirming with the <return> key,
or
– click in the number box, but keep the mouse button pressed and move
the mouse up or down to change the value. During mouse movement

13
the cursor will follow the number to facilitate easier positioning. Clicking
somewhere outside the number box will confirm the setting, turning the
color of the number from red to black.
Once this number has been set, choosing the rightmost dial of the location
dials will locate the cursor to that position.
Note that the score following mechanism doesn’t reset to the correct posi-
tion when starting in the middle of the part. It requires a couple of correct
keystrokes on the piano until the score follower gets back in sync. This will
be corrected in future versions of the patch.
After the last pitch of the sequence has been played, the window will close
automatically after some delay.
Important Note: If the score follower is out of sync at the end of the piece,
the automatic switch to the next part doesn’t get triggered. If the sprache-
score-display window doesn’t close some time after the end of the part and
the state is not “sync”, the next part has to get triggered by hand, pres-
sing the “next part” key (lowest B) on the Midi-Keyboard.

Intro II

Intro II is played on the keyboard only. Therefore there is no specialized

window for this part.
The next part gets triggered automatically at the end of the score (indica-
ted with the red “Trig!” mark (measure 23) in the score).
Important Note: If the chord below the “Trig!” mark in bar 23 isn’t played
correctly, the patch will not switch to the “extrapolation” part. In this case
again use the “next part” key of the keyboard to keep the patch in sync
with your playing!

14
Extrapolation

Abb. 5: Extrapolation main display

15
The extrapolation is just played on the keyboard. Again a score following
mechanism tries to keep up with the keyboard playing and no action
should have to be taken on part of the performer to switch to the next
part. The display window of this part is for information purposes only.

Transition

Abb. 6: Transition main display

The transition part will get triggered by the first pitch of page 4 in the
score (marked with a red “Trig!”).
The part has two states indicated by the dial in its main display window.
The second state is switched to by the last chord of measure 4 on page 4
with the “Trig!” mark above. The trigger enables the “ipat” functionality of
the next part, which generates sequences from two simultaneously played
pitches. This is occuring for the first time in bar 14 on page 4.
Note: The performer should make sure this state gets triggered and
should repeat the chord in case it doen’t get recognized!

16
ipat/kadenz

Abb. 7: Ipat/Kadenz main display

The “ipat/Kadenz” part triggers sequences depending on simultaneous in-

tervals pressed on the midi keyboard. It is automatically started on the
last beat of bar 40 on page 5 (marked with “Trig!”). The performer should
make sure this gets triggered.
Sequences are only triggered for major seconds, minor and major thirds
and fourths. The articulation and volume of the sequences depend on the
articulation and volume played upon triggering them and different articu-
lations and sequences can get superimposed on each other.
For the ipat part the tempo of the performer should be very precise (1/4
= 80). The display of the ipat/Kadenz part is shown in Abb. 7. The sli-
der in the display shows the current position of the expression pedal and

17
the green number shows the current tempo of generated sequences in
beats/minute. In the first part (“ipat”) the expression pedal doesn’t have
to get used (although an accelerando towards the end would be nice, but
great care should be taken, that the accelerando of the machine and of
the performer stay in sync!). In the “Kadenz” the pedal can and should
be used to change the speed of the triggered sequences. The movements
of the expression pedal get reflected in the green tempo indication left to
the slider. There are two ranges of the speed slider: The narrow range (66-
96) is indicated by the bottom position of the dial below, the wide range
(5-1226) is indicated by the top position of the dial. The dial’s position can
be changed using the “function-1” key (lowest E) on the Midi keyboard. In
order to avoid sudden “jumps” of the speed, the color of the speed slider
turns red on changing the dial and the speed range is not changed un-
til the expression pedal will pass through the middle position (controller
value 64) of the slider (the middle position indicates a tempo of “80” in
both ranges). If the slider passes this position, the color of the slider will
turn grey and the new range is accepted. This procedure is repeated each
time, the range dial gets changed.
The “Kadenz” (cadence) immediately follows the last notated passages
of the written score. Its workout should be done at the discretion of the
performer and should explore the possibilities of the textures using the
sequence generating patch to its fullest extent. At the end of the cadence
a very dense and wild texture should build up leading smoothly to the
playback of the spinning wheel which gets triggerd by the performer pres-
sing the “next part” key (lowest B), ensued automatically by the next part
(“pavlov”).

18
Pavlov

Abb. 8: Pavlov score display

The Pavlov part is a rhythmic part superimposing regular beats with metric
4:5 proportions on different levels. The pavlov display shows different po-
lyphonic voices of the regular beats of different tempo in horizontal lines.
Each line resembles a track which contains a regular pulse. The vertical
position of the tracks indicate the key on the MidiKeyboard, which has to
be played to activate it. These positions denote a chromatic scale of 13
pitches, starting from the lowest F on the keyboard and ending in an F
one octave higher (like a keyboard turned 90 degrees counterclockwise,
comparable to a piano-roll notation of a sequencer program). The hori-
zontal tracklines with greyed background resemble the black keys on the
keyboard to facilitate easier orientation for the performer. All the keys in
this range on the MIDI Piano have to be prepared (muted) beforehand as
indicated in bar 61 on page 6 of the score.
Only the first pulse in each line has to be played by the performer, the
other pulses will be generated automatically once the first beat has been
played. Once a line has been started, a square on the left hand side of the
keyboard will be colored green to indiate an active (playing) track.
The exact timing of these pulses is shown with a cursor moving across
the “score” display. The first pulses, which have to be played, are indica-

19
ted with red dots and later with blue dots. The difference between the red
and blue dots is as follows: The red dots have to be played with an au-
dible attack of the key exactly at the location indicated, whereas the blue
dots should be played as silent as possible between the blue dot and the
following black dot in the same line. The result of starting this track will
only be heard when the cursor crosses the black dot following the blue
dot. The sounds of these “blue dot lines” are clusters of piano sounds,
whereas the “red dot lines” are percussive sounds without pitch informa-
tion.
While in the process of starting tracks, the pianist can temporarily silence
already started, active tracks by pressing and holding down the respective
key which started the track. The color of the muted tracks will change to
indicate the muted state.
After the first 7 tracks have been set, the markov score display window
will open in addition to the open pavlov display and the next part can be
started to be played at the discretion of the performer while the current
rhythmic tracks are still active.
After all 14 tracks have been activated, the “delete ready” toggle in the
pavlov score display window will be set. After this, individual tracks can
get removed completely (and not to be reactivated again) one by one at
the discretion of the performer to make a smooth transition from this part
to the final markov part of the piece. To delete a track, the performer has
to press the “function-1” key which will be signaled by a flashing “delete”
sign in the pavlov window. Pressing one of the keys representing the tracks
will delete this track, removing all subsequent black dots in this track and
resetting the color of the square left of the track. When all voices have
been deleted, the pavlov window will go away.
During the whole part, the expression pedal can be used to add a flanger
effect on the pulses of the tracks at the discretion of the performer. Great
care should be taken not to overemphasize this effect!
Note: If something goes wrong with setting the tracks and playing the
markov part it might happen that it is impossible to access and delete
tracks. In this case, pressing the “next part” key should result in closing

20
of the pavlov patch and automatically deleting all active tracks.

Markov 01 and 02

Abb. 9: Markov score display

The markov part is the final part of the piece. The score display shows
keys to be played in black. The pianist should play the keys in the nota-
ted sequence. It is intended and possible to play several keys of the se-
quence simultaneously as a chord. From time to time the pianist can go
back a couple of steps in the sequence and replay the sequence from there
possibly in a metrically or articulatory different way as if recollecting and
reformulating a harmonic field, shadowing it differently. Each performed
pitch of the sequence will be greyed out to indicate which pitches have be-
en performed already. Once all of the last three black notes in a sequence
have been played (and are greyed out), the performer can choose between
one of the possible successions, indicated in a different color (red, blue
and green). As soon as the first pitch of this sequence has been played,
the score display will be updated, shifting the sequence to the left until
the first pitch of the previously colored sequence will be right of the ver-
tical black line at about 1/4th of the score display width right of the left
margin. The prviously colored sequence is colored black and grey and new
possible successions will be presented in color right to the sequence.

21
During this process the computer will participate in some sort of dialogue
by generating pitches from this sequence by itself. The performer should
react to these generated notes at his discretion by restating pitches or
completing sequences started by the computer. Any action of the perfor-
mer concerning timing and jumps (backward or forward) in the sequence
are noticed by the computer and added to its “repertoire” of possible se-
quences to generate. The more the performer jumps back and forth and
the faster she or he playes, the more the computer will do the same, so-
metimes resulting in somewhat unpredictable sequences. This can lead
to situations where the computer gets stuck, not being able to continue
with a valid sequence. in this case the pianist plays any key in the middle
range which seems appropriate in the situation and presses the “reset”
key. The computer will regenerate a new score display, starting with the
last performed note and the process can continue.
At the discretion of the perfomer it is possible to “silence” the compu-
ter by pressing the “stop sequence” key. Note that the computer will im-
mediately start generating new sequences as soon as the performer has
played the next pitch (of course this can be stopped again by pressing
“seq stop”). The horizontal white slider above the markov score display
will show, when the next pitch of the computer is going to be played: the
slider starts moving as soon as the computer has made a decision and
the key will be played, when the slider reaches its right margin. Playing a
key on the keyboard will immediately reset the slider to the left.
The expression pedal can (and should) be used to determine a statistical
microtonal deviation of the pitches generated by the computer. If the pe-
dal is all the way up, there is no microtonal deviation and all generated
pitches will be in the tempered scale. When the pedal is fully depressed,
the microtonal deviation is maximal (+- a quarternote).

22