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.

Phat Beats

So we turned in our beats today. I really enjoyed the process of making my beats. I thought it was fun to go through songs and sound clips, trying to identify and isolate single percussive hits of sound that could be used to make something rhythmic. It was also fun to distort these sounds then to a state that was unrecognizeable to those who were unaware of its original sound.

Here are my notes for the beats I created. I will update later with the beats and my composition as linked files:

Beat 1 - Acoustic Guitar, lowered pitch, added whammy and inverted sound
Beat 2 - second half of guncock, made the noise wet and deep
Beat 3 - a human kiss, shortened the noise, raised the pitch, reversed the sound
beat 4 - a tennis racket, shortened to only the first hit, then slowed down
beat 5 - clipped the first half second of a plane talking off
beat 6 - took a slow digital beat, sped it up and lowered the pitch - from "too long" by daft punk
beat 7 - heavily produced electric guitar, isolated the reverb and reversed it to make a growing noise, instead of falling
beat 8 - took a heavily produced drum hit and isolated it without the reverb, raised the pitch until it sounded only like the produced sound - from "holiday inn" by chingy
beat 9 - took a clapping sound from a song, and increased the reverb and the pitch until it was unintelligible as being organic
beat 10 - took a sustained note from "y control" by the yeah,yeah,yeahs and made it into a beat by making it escalate, and then copying and reversing the secondhalf.