Text

For my text manipulations I used one quote. "Things should be made as simple as possible, but not any simpler" by Albert Einstein for all my manipulations. I used both the male and female tracks, mostly layered on top of one another.
This was a little tricky to do as base work because I had to take both audio files into audacity and edit them, using changes in tempo and splicing to have the two tracks lineup close. Of course they are still a little off, which works well with what I had planned and did carry out with the files.
My main inspiration was the quote itself, to deal with the barrier between what is the correct amount of complexity for a song. In several of the songs, I purposefully pushed the complexity beyond an acceptable level in some way, only to pull back and normalize in the end.

Pendledrom

Today in section we listened to the piece "Pendlerdrom" by Barry Truax. It was a very different experience to listen to one song without thinking about anything else for 12 full minutes, something I am unaccustomed to since I stopped performing (and listening to ) jazz music several years ago.
It was most interesting with this piece because it changed so much over the length of the piece. At the beginning, I know the composition was artificial, with cuts being faded in and out and layered over and over, but the piece actually sounded like sitting in a train station.
I then really enjoyed how the piece slowly moved form this starting point, and through the train station, also moving more and more towards more abstract sounds of trains and crowds. At one point, I felt like I could actually hear the train accelerating on the track and moving through the tunnels, although the sounds sounded their most abstract at this point as well.
I was very glad we took the time in class to listen to this piece. It was very interesting and I do not know if I would have absorbed the same amount from it if I had just take a cursory listen. Obvious evidence as to how I will hopefully listen to the rest of the selections before the end of class.

Concert Review II

Last night I attended my second concert. It wasn't a strict technosonics concert, but was instead a traditional performed a full set, half of the time with the accompaniment of a synthesizer, and half without. The band was "Quite my dear," and the played at the Bridge Progressive right off the downtown mall.

I was interested to do a comparison of the two "versions" of the band because I was skeptical as to much of a difference the introduction of digital sounds to their instrumental sound would make. I was surprised at how wrong I was.

First off, and I imagine this helped significantly, the band was very good. The two guitarist/vocalists knew what they were doing and could play off each other very well. The Bassist was very good at covering both melodic and rhythmic structures. The drummer, however was something else. He was very impressive, one of the best amateur drummers I have seen since I used to attend state jazz competitions in high school. His ability to take the sounds of the drums where he wanted, while still keeping time and providing a base for the rest of the band was delightful to watch and listen to.

The second thing that impressed me about these gentlemen was the fact that all of their music was written by them: no covers but no simple elementary melodies either.

Now, there straight instrumental music was very good, very straight forward and almost "pure" I would say. It was easy to listen to, and simple fun. While the music was still lighthearted and fun with the addition of the synthesizer, a welcome level of complexity was added.

The synthesizer was used for several different purposes. It was used for an introduction to one piece featuring the sounds of the wind and whooshing noises. For another, it was used for a sine-sounding keyboard instrument.

Through all its use, the synth player (one of the Guitar/vocalists) did a great job of mixing the very different sound of the synthesizer into the rest of the band's composition. Even as it was adding another, very different layer of tonality and texture, it wasn't overlapping or overpowering what was continuing with the bass, the guitar, the vocals or the drum pattern.

Now, the layer of complexity that the instrument added was not just one from another instrument. It was largely because of the significant contrast between the digital and technological sounds coming from the synth, versus the acoustic/electric sounds coming from the rest of the band.

The one criticism I had of the performance, and this was unfortunately especially critical during their acoustic/digital pieces, was their sound levels. The performance venue was not prime for a concert, it was basically a small concrete room. As such, it was hard at times to hear the more delicate parts of the vocals, guitar or synth selections without having them drowned out by the more rhythmic parts of the band's playing.

Overall, I was very impressed by the music. I walked away from the concert especially impressed with how even a subtle introduction of digital music can add such delightful maturity and complexity to a live performance.

Student Review: The Beats of Maria Tchijov

For my review I looked at the 10 beats and the beat composition for my friend in our class, Maria Tchijov.

I started off by listening to her composition itself. I enjoyed much of the individual beats, and especially the way she seemed to be exploring the sounds as the piece progressed. However, I think I liked her beats better than her overall composition. While the piece was very interesting, it felt like it simply moved through a list of sound files, adding some and then subtracting some. It didn't feel as layered or as temporally as complex as I would have liked.

One thing I did like was how she layed different beat patterns together. This can be especially heard around the 7 second mark. Here we have three beats, her base beat and two more rhythms built on top of this. The top two seem intentionally out of sync with the base, and as they continue for several repitions, they seperate themselves. This reminded me of the several examples we have seen in class of polytemporal experimentation, or the natural slight difference in sounds making its difference heard over time.

The beats more than made up for these small distractions though. Not only the sounds themselves, but how she used them in her final piece - slicing and recombining them at a minute level to make different sounds even out of the 10 basic beats she had at her disposal.

My favorite beat was by far Beat 5 - it sounds almost like a small metallic marble being dropped onto a hard surface and bouncing once. I really thought the sound was unique, and I really liked how she used it in her composition, splicing several of them together to make a trio of bouncing balls.

I also was really impressed the simplicity and versatility of Beat 7. This - I believe - is the beat Maria used as the base rhythm for her composition. It was reminiscent of a snare in some ways - a small, short, brief little hit with little reverb or echo. But at the same time, it felt more hollow than a snare hit or any other sort of drum. It almost felt like it was only defined by its start and finish - the middle, as short as it was, was irrelevant. Again, I really enjoyed how she used this small basic unit to make the underlying rhythm, a series of a series of varied repetitions of this one sound.

For her more unusual beats, I particularly enjoyed Beats 8 and 9. Beat 8 sounds to me like a stone moving across a table - a nice, slow grating noise. I thought it was particularly neat because although a beat, it conveys a definite sense of movement even in one instance, whereas most of her other sounds conveyed stopping or starting, but only suggested action with repetition. Beat 9 was similar in that it was a little longer, but as the beat ends it feels like it as coming to some form of close. It doesn't sound like movement, or perhaps movement that is coming to a wall or the edge of the table and stopping. Really, this sound mostly reminds me of a frog's ribbit - I am very curious as to how she was able to make this sound, and what software she used.

Overall I was very impressed. I wish there had been a little more complex layering and perhaps even repition of certain beats used multiple times in her composition, but perhaps she was trying to showcase the wonderful diversity and creativity of her beats, which she more than accomplished.

A Pox on Melody

I thought this was going to be the easy assignment.
After having a good deal of difficulty avoiding and removing melody and rhythm from my clouds assignment, I assumed that a project where I COULD use melody would be an easier assignment for me. Oh how wrong I was.
I was previously accustomed to thinking of performing music as being either melodic, rhythmic or ideally both. I also came into this class with a conception about how music should be played, how the notes should be chosen. It was a traditional view, focusing on instruments and technique, not a mouse and choice. I enjoyed messing around with the patches for MAX/MSP before this week, but they don't feel like instruments to me.
At least when I was working with clouds the entire project was a new experience. But for this week I was trying to incorporate the new technology and techniques into a structure that I "understood."
Of course, working on this sort of thing probably expands my horizon more than any other type of work I did this semester. I still prefer instrumentation that is more traditional, I enjoy the creativity forced by using a very limited set of producible sounds. But, music that can be made by the techniques I used this week can still be very beautiful and obviously filled with intense labor.

Concert Review I

For my first performance of the class I decided to go see "Lightcatchers," and acoustic and dramatic program put on as part of Take Back the Night Week.

Now, for me, this performance was divided into the acoustic and the dramatic portions, with some bleed inbetween them. This was for several reasons. First, I thought the two portions of the performance existed seperately, and while the music continued into the dramatic performance, I thought the transition as the play began was slightly abrupt. Second, I had criticisms for the nature of the dramatic performance that had nothing whatsoever to do with the music.

I will go through, briefly, my criticisms of the dramatic portion first, and then move on to the acoustic performance.

I have been heavily involved with Sexual Assault and Domestic Violence issues for several years now. I see programs, presentations and videos fairly regularly. I have friends talk to me about their experiences or stories as a survivor on a more regular basis than I wish for the world. I don't know if I have ever been as uncomfortable or as unsettled as I was during this performance.

Now I know to jar one's position is a significant point of this sort of activist production, especially one of with this level of audience interaction. But, I felt unprepared for what was going to happen. Instead of feeling positive about the experience, I know some of my friends simply felt awkward as they left, and I think this pushed them away instead of pulled them into the issue.

Now, the one point of intersection between the two for me was the tense buildup of emotions during the climax of the production that was significantly helped by Professor Burtner's playing. As the obvious point of this portion of the performance was to increase the tension, it achieved it's job remarkably well. His choice of sounds and style - using the guitar as a controller as had sounds running through the speakers on stage and pointed at the audience fit very well with the scene of domestic abuse that was taking place contemporaneously.

I also enjoyed the music that served as the introduction. I thought the method here was very interesting. The way Professor Burtner and the actor playing the child of the couple were using small objects (I assume either marbles or pennies) to cover the speakers and change their tone completely was very cool. The sounds themselves gave me a sense of peace and calm, without being boring or simplistic.

However, it was this very sense of peace and calm that made me feel a disconnect between this piece and the drama that followed it. If this was meant to be a play showing some form of resolution, or healing that the music seemed to suggest, then I felt it would make more sense for the music to follow the drama. However, I can see how this may suggest happy endings for a subject in which that would be too simple and not truthful to the reality of the problem. But by having this music before, it paints the the child's worldview as being innocent before the argument, when in reality this problem seemed to be one that had existed for some time as the play presented it.

Either way, I enjoyed the performance, but felt that better warning of the serious nature of the content was needed, especially if this happens again next year.

Here comes....DIGITALIS

I am very very curious as to how our concert will go next month. It seems like there are so many moving parts that I have no idea how it will work. To place the concert on a binary of how it might not work, I am afraid that each person will either have too much influence or too little.

By this I mean, I think each classmate and visitor with a computer may have too much power, with each of us working seperately and creating nothing but chaos. The other extreme is that this chaos will be funneled accordingly through several people, so that the size of Digitalis - all 180 or so strong - won't be represented and the music we produce will not be significantly different from what 70 or maybe even 20 more skilled musicians could produce.

Of course, this is a good deal of pessimism and I know this has happened in the past, so I am sure that the concert itself will fall somewhere in the middle, outside of this binary in some form of success.