Holbrow, C. (2019). Tempic Integrator: A modern tool for composing with sliding polytempos as conceived by Henry Cowell in 1930. In Audio Engineering Society Student Design Competition. Dublin, Ireland.

Abstract

Tempic Integrator presents an algorithm and interface for composing with sliding polytempic music. The concept of the sliding polytempo, or the experimental musical technique of simultaneous parallel tempos that smoothly accelerate and retard relative to each other, was first proposed by Composer Henry Cowell in the early twentieth century. Since his time, the technique has seen little development. We review the uses of the sliding polytempos in the last century, show an original derivation of an algorithm for generating parametric sample-accurate sliding polytempos with support for synchronizing phase alignments in parallel tempos, and describe a custom interface that makes it possible to insert sliding polytempos directly into a DAW, making composition with sliding polytempos possible in a modern digital workflow.