Pipe Dream

Pipe Dream
	;
Available on:	Animusic 1 DVD, Animusic HD
Animation Length:	3 minutes and 23 seconds
Previous Animation:	Drum Machine
Next Animations:	Acoustic Curves
Follow-Up:	Pipe Dream 2

Pipe Dream is the fifth animation in the tracklist for the Animusic 1 and Animusic HD DVD. Pipe Dream 2 was the follow-up on this animation.

Summary/Description[]

A bunch of instruments play on a room completely surrounded by pipes. This animation begins with the ball firing testing on the bass/bongo double instrument. The stage is mostly made up of a circular vibraphone fountain, bass/bongo/ banjo/bongo double instrument, and a drum kit with a slide-bar marimba on top. They are all played by ball bearings that shoot out of certain pipes. The room's walls are either white or pink and the floor appears to be made out wood. The instruments are all connected to the pipes.

Instruments[]

Instruments in the order they're presented:

Two double instruments, one is a bass guitar, the other is a banjo. Both are equipped with bongos.
Percussion, including:
- A drum kit (One bass drum, one snare drum, six toms, two crash cymbals and a spinning platform with a cowbell, a hi-hat, a splash cymbal, and two woodblocks.)
- A circular vibraphone fountain
- Tubular bells
- A Slide-bar Marimba

Ranges[]

Bass Guitar: D1-F3
Banjo: G3-D4
Vibraphone: C2-G5
Bells: G4-D5
Marimba: C2-G5

Composition[]

This song is played mostly in the key of C minor at 148 BPM.

Miscellaneous[]

Popularity[]

On September 12th, 2006, an email was sent, stating this segment was partially a real machine built at the University of Iowa using farm equipment. The hoax mail also said that it took 13,000 hours to make the performance (equivalent to about a year and a half), including building, calibrating, etc. This inspired the computer technology company, Intel, to build a real-life version of Pipe Dream on their demo for the Atom microprocessor.

Check out this farm equipment. Read the information below before
clicking on the attachment.

This incredible machine was built as a collaborative effort between The
Robert M. Trammell Music Conservatory and the Sharon Wick School of
Engineering at the University of Iowa. Amazingly, 97% of the machines
components came from John Deere Industries and Irrigation Equipment of
Bancroft Iowa, yes farm equipment!

It took the team a combined 13,029 hours of set-up, alignment,
Calibration, and tuning before filming this video but as you can see it
was WELL worth the effort.

It is now on display in the Matthew Gerhard Alumni Hall at the
University and is already slated to be donated to the Smithsonian.

Notes[]

Trivia[]

While the bongos on the bass are tuned to reflect the corresponding strings, the bongos on the banjo are all tuned to the same note.
This animation is the only piece from the first DVD to have a full-HD version on the Animusic HD Blu-Ray. Harmonic Voltage, Aqua Harp and Drum Machine were included in high-bitrate SD.
This name of this animation references the phrase "pipe dream," meaning "an unattainable or fanciful hope or scheme."
Pipe Dream was written in 2001.
Throughout the piece, the ball bearings always bounce into the pipes every time the instruments are played, while in real life it would be nearly impossible for the balls to ricochet consistently, especially off of guitar strings. This is illustrated in the commentary, where it is mentioned that the environment has numerous dents in it, suggesting that many ball bearings had misfired during testing and prototyping and the finished animation is "a good take." As Wayne Lytle notes, "There's an extent [...] to which it violates physics [...], but in the Animusic universe, that's all okay."
In the commentary, Wayne Lytle states that Pipe Dream is the most prominent example of why Animusic is not animated in real time.
Ironically, Pipe Dream was reanimated in real time in for an ATI Radeon 9700 demo.
Pipe Dream had a working title of "Bounce".
Solo Cams:
- CAM 1: Bass Guitar with Bongos & Banjo with Bongos
- CAM 2: Drum Kit
- CAM 3: Vibraphone Fountain & Tubular Bells
When a ball hits a cymbal, the cymbal rotates slightly.

Goof[]

If one looks closely, when the balls enter the pipes, they disappear once they are inside the pipes.

Cultural Influences[]

YouTuber Aaron Freeder did a performance video under the title, "One Band Man: Animusic."

Gallery/Video[]

This is the gallery for Pipe Dream.