THROUGH THE WARMEST CORD OF CARE: jonny, computers, and programming in Max/MSP

Because Jonny is good at everything, he's also a computer nerd that likes writing his own music software. As a kid, he would write programs in BASIC on his ZX Spectrum computer. Around the Kid A sessions, he found existing software to be limiting, and wrote his own using Max/MSP. In this post I'll also highlight the general fondness he has for computers as well.

I highly recommend reading this post by the King of Gear, which goes much deeper into the technical aspects of Jonny's computer usage.

(VPRO 3VOOR12 'Dubble Check', June 11th 2003)

Jonny: "Yeah, exactly, plug-ins, and even sequencers, and even things that put things in order for you, and are meant to be... you know, so... I'm really... I've kind of gone one lower and I've started programming and writing software, like I used to when I was a kid, that was kind of my big hobby, I was one of those nerdy kids with the first home computers, the Sinclairs, I was like eleven or something."

Sander: "ZX Spectrum, I had it."

Jonny: "I had one too!"

Sander: "Like in BASIC..."

Jonny: "Exactly, BASIC, and just started some machine code and stuff, and loved it. And then I felt like computers were taken away from me and it wasn't, you weren't... kind of using the computer in a very pure way anymore. And now I found out how you said, plug-ins, instead of using plug-ins, I'm writing... I'm writing software, you know, I'm creating... you know... The sound comes into the computer as numbers, and it's that kind of program, and I love it. It's really good because you can think in very pure terms about what sound is and what music is and what you want to do. You don't have to kind of use anybody else's idea of reverb is meant to be or what, you know, how music should be sequenced. Or what tempo is, or anything, you're much freer."

(Computer Music Journal, 2003?)

The idea is that taking a laptop off a shelf is like picking up a guitar or an organ. Newer technology, but not better, just different. Having said that, I can't imagine using it alone.

When we play the song Gloaming live, the laptop takes over for the end section, using a Max/MSP patch which steals sections of what everyone else is doing, and carries on when they all stop. But I don't use laptops for generating sounds very often, mainly sound manipulation and MIDI generation. I prefer generating sounds other ways.

I've always felt uncomfortable having to use other people's software to make music. However limitless sequencers, audio editors, and plug-ins claim to be, you still find yourself being forced, however subtlely, to work in certain ways. My copy of Emagic Logic insists on looping the first four bars whenever it can (although it's good software in lots of ways)… With Max/MSP I finally got to think about sound and MIDI, and their manipulation, in a much purer way… I felt that all direct contact with computers had been taken away from me, until I found Max/MSP.

Max/MSP… suits my chaotic, wire-filled constructions. Lots have half-finished ideas embedded in them, which aren't used, and they've a tendency to crash during concerts. But I love it all: I could fill pages with obsessive stuff about Max/MSP. I've even started lurking in chat rooms, and idolizing shadowy figures like jhno and Karlheinz Essl.

(X-Ray, august 2003)

"You need to take computers back from the software programmers," says Jonny Greenwood, excitably. "I've gone back to making my own programmes, and I feel free again. It's like computers have been given back to me. Since the 80s, there's been this barrier in the way, and we're not talking to computers any more. For me, that's the future, using computers in a much more raw way, not using anybody else's idea of how something should work or sound. All these things, like Cubase and Logic and Photoshop –- things that supposedly free you up – you feel like you're on tramlines, and being guided to do certain things. So it all comes out the same. We didn't use any software on the new album. We wrote it all. That means you can come up with ideas on what sound is and what sound does. Traditionally, bands get to our stage and lose focus, becoming more interested in their collection of sports cars. We're still interested in making new sounds. "

(Undercover, May 2004)

JG: Yes that's true. He's our age and he just kind of grew up with us so when we're recording songs we're working and when we're not recording songs we're talking about the home computers we had in the eighties and reminiscing and playing computer games together.

(New York Times, December 9th 2007)

SHORTLY after Radiohead released its album “In Rainbows” online in October, the band misplaced its password for Max/MSP, a geek-oriented music software package that the guitarist Jonny Greenwood uses constantly. It wasn’t the first time it had happened, Mr. Greenwood said over a cup of tea at the venerable Randolph Hotel here. As usual Radiohead contacted Max/MSP’s developers, Cycling ’74, for another password. “They wrote back,” Mr. Greenwood said, “‘Why don’t you pay us what you think it’s worth?’”

(Intro #157, February 2008; translated from German)

Q: Radiohead has come to characterize itself by using a completely new set-up for each record. What was the equipment that was important for your latest production?

A: I've been using a tool called Max/MSP a lot, it's really good. It's kind of like a low-level programming language. The approach is to think about sounds in a very pure way, thinking about mathematics and the mechanics of music as well. You build on the basis of sound, you don't use other people's ideas. You don't have to conform to predetermined ideas of what reverb is or what a sequencer should be. You construct it all yourself, physically, based on mathematics, the numbers. I found that very interesting, and a lot of results from that work went on the record.

(The Word #64, June 2008)

"It's borderline some kind of syndrome, isn't it?" says Greenwood. "He'd have been very happy in this building 40 years ago, walking round in a white coat. Working with Spike Stent felt a bit too much like there was an adult present. With Nigel we can reminisce about old ZX Spectrum games. He's our generation. It feels more like we're in it together."

(Uncut #167, April 2011)

"I play the piano a lot at the moment," he says after a pause. "I don't know, I'm a bit low on hobbies. I used to do lots of photography... I don't know. What do I do? What do you do? I just generally worry about things, I think? And daydream ideas for programming." That puts him back in his stride. "The programming is really fun at the moment, very satisfying. I spend half my time writing music software, computer-based sound generators for Radiohead. Trying to bypass other people's ideas of what music software should do and how it should sound, going back a step. It's like building wonky drum machines, not using presets, basically. It's like 'Mouse Trap', you construct things."

(Rolling Stone #1155, April 26th 2012)

Tall and shy, constantly sweeping a long curtain of black hair from his face, Jonny is the only member of Radiohead without a college degree; he left his studies in psychology and music at Oxford Polytechnic College when the group got its record deal in 1991. But he is arguably Radiohead's most gifted musician: a classically trained violist who also plays violin, cello and keyboards. Jonny also created the software program used to sample the instruments on The King of Limbs. "I was never happier," he says, "than when I was in my bedroom as a kid, working on rubbishy computer games.

(Mini Interview: Jonny Greenwood, Jan 2014)

"With programming? Well, a friend of Nigel Godrich (our producer) told him I should use Max, because it's what they were teaching at his music college. He was right! It was the first time I got to reconnect properly with computers. I used to love them - I grew up programming home computers for fun, playing around first with Basic, then these primitive hex assemblers. Just simple bits of machine code - the closer I got to the bare bones of the computer, the more exciting I found it."

(The rest of the article continues on in a similar vein–I'm not gonna paste the whole thing here. Just read it.)

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