Tuesday, March 28, 2006

Week 4... David Harris

Forum Workshop : Music of North American experimental composers.




Jack Vees - Surf Music II
for Bowed electric bass and electronics
Cuneiform Records LC-02677
Read interview


Ingram Marshall - Fog Tropes II
String Quartet and Tape
performed by Kronos String Quartet
Nonesuch 79613-2

David Lang – Sweet Air
Performed by Senteri Selvaggi
From Child
Cantaloupe Music CA21013



Michael Gordon – Trance IV
Performed by Icebreaker
From Trance
Cantaloupe Music CA21018



David Harris :B.Mus(Adel)
Lecturer in composition at the Elder School of Music, University of Adelaide.




Audio Arts: Recording an acoustic guitar

Even before you start miking up the guitar it is very important you take these things in consideration
< The guitar you going to use would give you the result you are looking for.
< You have new strings on your guitar (Using new strings often helps to bring back some of the 'edge and detail' in the sound)
< Remove any thing, which can hit the guitar and would produce unwanted sound like belt, wallet, shirt buttons or any necklace
< Give the artist a hassel free environment

Once all things are achieved now its time to mike up the instrument. There are various microphone techniques you could apply in order to get the desirable result. We looked at three different techniques.

< Placing a microphone close to the resonant chamber i.e. at the hole would give more warmth and fullness to the sound.
< Placing a microphone near the neck would give the percussive effect brightening the bassy sound
< Placing a microphone right above the shoulder level would give the image as what the player is listening covering the room ambience.
You can use the combination of these techniques and get the sound you have in mind.
As a general rule of thumb remember moving the microphone further towards the neck will brighten the bassy sound, while moving closer to the sound hole will bring more warmth and fullness to the sound. Moving the mic further away from the guitar will increase the proportion of room ambience overall,

Creative programming


References:

Harris,David 2006. Performance and playback of Original works.

Grice, David. 2006. Practical on Session Managment in Pro Tools. University of Adelaide, 21 March.

Haines, Christian. 2006. Practical on Max/Msp Introduction. University of Adelaide, 23 March.

Tuesday, March 21, 2006

Week 3... Gordon Monro

Gordon Monro is an electronic music composer with particular interest in algorithmic and generative art. He is a member of the faculty of the School of Mathematics and Statistics, University of Sydney, and a visiting lecturer in computer music at the Sydney Conservatorium Of Music.

http://www.gordonmonro.com/
G.Monro@maths.usyd.edu.au
http://www-personal.usyd.edu.au/~gmonro/

First time I meet Gordon was in early january'06 at a spontaneous music festival in Sydney. I have been wating for him since then because he told me he is coming to Adelaide for Project3 and this presentation.Finally the day has come and he is here..

Evochord is an installation in which a genetic algorithm tries to evolve a harmonious chord. The visual output consists of coloured shapes, one for each note of the chord; red indicates low, green intermediate and blue high pitches.At any time, what is seen and heard is the single most consonant chord of a population of 100 chords inside the computer.

What are You Really Thinking ?.. Is a sonification of brainwave data. There are 26 channels of brainwave data from 26 electrodes placed on the subject's(a living being) scalp, and an additional 10 channels of data recording heartbeat, respiration, eye muscle movement, etc.The sounds generated from the scalp electrode data were modified by the data from the other channels.


Red Grains :An abstract video, with sound created by granular synthesis. His intention was to make an artwork which would give an experience of a waterfall or other natural phenomenon, without imitating an actual natural system.The visuals came from a construction built from two laser pointers, some mirrors and a Lego Robotics kit. The movement of the Lego motors was influenced by two light dependent resistors (LDRs) mounted on the edge of the mirrors, so there was a feedback system.
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Festival Of Spontaneous music
If you like improvised music, Contact them..
It's run by Clayton Thomas, Jim Denley and Dale Gorfinkel
contact: clayton(at)thenownow.net with any questions
Forward any questions about the NOW now festival to clare(at)thenownow.net


Post your cds to the following address:
the NOW now
64 Myrtle St
Chippendale 2008
Newtown NSW
Australia 2042
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Tyndall Concert 2 : 16 March'06 -- "Shivna Kaun"
Spontaneous Music Perfromance

Vinny Bhagat : Laptop , field recordings
Chris Martin : Electric Piano
Kym Gluyas : Video Camera, field recordings.

End Of Fringe concert: 19 MArch'06 : Shivna Kaun Live at Lizard lounge- Hinley St, Adelaide.
Kym Gluyas : Electronics, field recordings
Vinny Bhagat : Laptop , field recordings
Chris Martin : Electric Piano
Luke Toop : Video Camera,Projections & MIDI Glove
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Audio Arts: Gain Structure

When recording any instrument we are trying to achieve cleanest possible sound with minimal noise. To do that it is very important to learn the dynamic range of the instrument you are recording. Dynamic range could be understood as the highest possible undistorted signal to the quietest discernible signal, which is expressed in decibels. Recording above the dynamic range would result in distortion and there can be nothing worse than a digital distortion in your music and likewise recording below means that you are not capturing the signal to its highest limits. While applying any gain to your source, aim for a level below where its starts to peak, where a little safety margin or headroom still remains to accommodate any unexpected signal peaks. We are aiming for a signal before it gets red on the level meter. Any unwanted distortion in your music would only contribute in undesirable results.
Of course microphone placement, distance from the source and patterns of your microphone contribute largely to the end signal you are getting.


Creative programming: Introduction to Max/Msp
Concepts of Max - objects; externals; inlets; outlets; bang; numbers; strings; messages; comments; arguments; patchcords; inspector..Max Tutorials and Topics 1 - 6.
bjective - To introduce students to naturally tempered music, the rich
resultant rhythms and ambience

Forum : Listening To experience a music structured on different principals and to hear unusual sound sources.Introduction tonaturally tempered music, the rich resultant rhythms and ambience
Glenn Branca - Symphony No.3 (Gloria)(1982)
Music for the first 127 intervals of the harmonic series
6 Bowed Electric Guitars & 6 Keyboards and drum set
(guitarists include Sonic Youth's Thurston Moore and Lee Renaldo)
Label - Neutral

Robert Ashley - In Sara, Mencken, Christ and Beethoven there were men and women
(1972)
Text: John Barton Wolgamot
Cramps Records CRSLP 6103

References:

Monro,Gordon 2006..Presentation by Gordon Monro..University Of Adelaide..16 March

Grice, David. 2006. Practical on Gain Structures. University of Adelaide, 28 February.

Haines, Christian. 2006. Practical on Max/Msp.. University of Adelaide, 16 March.

Harris,David.2006.Listening forum.University Of Adelaide,16 March'06

http://www.gordonmonro.com/
Date seen : 1 June'06
http://www.geocities.com/tyndallassembly/ta/concerts/march06.htm
Date seen : 1june'06
http://thenownow.net/festival/default.asp
Date seen : 1 June'06

Tuesday, March 14, 2006

Week 2...

Pat Metheny Trio : Wednesday 8 March'06 :
Pat Metheny : Guitar ,Voice
Christian McBride (bass)
Antonio Sanchez (drums).
A concert of my life.This was second best concert I have ever seen in my life, after Billy Cobham and Jean-Luc Ponty in Delhi which i saw about 3-4 yeras back..
Kym bought me the ticket as a christmas present.Isn't he amazing..Thanks kym..






Warren Burt : Australian Composer and performer of electronic and acoustic music. His current research in composition includes random processes, artificial intelligence, improvisation, and interactive systems.
"My work is idea driven, not style driven. I compose out of a sense of curiosity and awareness ... to explore sounds and concepts and their effect"

I loved what he did with text.He was playing with words that slowly start to overlap each other, forming into a 'piece of art'.I tried this same idea in photoshop.I started with text saying 'Im a musician' all over the canvas, gave it a background and then applied few filters to it.This is what I came up with..(please see left image)
At first I thought the words are being displayed as what he is speaking on microphone,but they were pre fed in the compuer.It would be interesting if computer gets words from microphone rather than typing it from the keyboard..Its possible..I have to look into that..



Audio Arts: Session management

Planning has been a vital tool in successful completion of any work. Likewise there are some important steps you have to take before you undergo a recording session. Don’t forget your basic responsibility is to take out the best of the creative talents of the musicians you are going to record without wasting their time and money. Before you even call the musicians in the studio you should be aware of the elements like genre of music, number of tracks to be recorded, instruments to be used in each track, order of tracks, any reference sound they have in mind like they might want to sound specifically like some one and any other information you think would be useful. Give them a friendly-clean atmosphere with a smooth functioning of your equipment. Remember any delay and wait you are going to give would result in a drop of the result you are trying to achieve. Once everything has been setup always follow your standard order of numbering of tracks on the patch bay and on the protools session window. Label each track with as much information you can provide Use the comment window to specify microphone used and any other specifications needed.

Creative computing: Introduction to Max/Msp

Setup : Overview : Menus : Objects : Externals

Weekly Gig Guide :

Shivna kaun : Monday 6 March'06 -- Adelaide Fringe'06 -- Fresh Bait 2nd Concert @ Fowler's Live..
Seeing Orbo : Friday, 10 March'06 -- Fringe Club, Higher Grounds @ 9Pm

References:

Grice, David. 2006. Practical on Session Managment in Pro Tools. University of Adelaide, 28 February.

Haines, Christian. 2006. Practical on Max/Msp Introduction. University of Adelaide, 2 March.

Sunday, March 12, 2006

Music & Narrative

“Is not music the mysterious language of a distant realm of spirits, whose lovely sounds recho in our soul and awaken a higher, because more intensive life? 1” –
Story telling originates with the human need of sharing personal experiences. Every culture in this world seems to have created stories as a way of making sense of that world. I wonder what else we would do if not tell stories? Humans like to form stories in their mind and very often connect it with their personal feelings. Can a bunch of organized sounds tell a story? How does it differ from the point of view of a narrator to the point of view of the audience? Story telling has used sounds to invoke the myth or may be to create a certain emotion. Further I regard human imagination as a story that gets formed within the mind. I strongly believe that it is story telling which makes us human. Right from the time of human birth and till now, we have constantly evolved as a narrative. Music and language How much is music a language? The image of music as a kind of extra ordinary language can be understood from the beliefs in the heart of many cultures and can be very clearly seen from the perspective of science. “Music and language are both temporal sequences. They take place in time and share the basic elements of pitch, accent, intensity and timbre”2. However music contains more layers of simultaneous meaning, which leaves the listener to interpret the message sent a crossed. A lot of cultures believe on the supposed supernatural powers of music to feel close to god. Is it the only language which god understands? Regardless of understanding if that was true, why would someone spend hours in their religious grounds or use the power of music to heal the sick or to assure fertility? The role that music plays in our society is quite remarkable. If you are an African there is no such thing as ‘art music’. Every religious ceremony is complimented with music to an extent that if drummers were not present the ceremony would not take place. If you were an Indian you would not have your first meal before you sing a small prayer in your private temple. All other cultures as well seem to worship music and regard it as the most important part of their life. We have deeply learned about spoken languages from modern linguistics and cognitive psychology can explain our experiences of music.
Philosophical discussions about music traditionally link the subject to issues about human emotion. The Arguments about music and emotions are quite attractive. Musicians quite often use narratives to make sense of their lives, to share their experiences and express their intentions. Someone who is moved by music does not simply replicate the emotions that the music expresses, rather the listener responds emotionally to the beauty or perfection of music. Narrative Theory “Fantasisation can be regarded as a privileged enterprise in any narrative. The importance of the element of fantasy has its history, so close to the nature of reality. The Vedas, the Puranas, the fairy tales and folk tales; all these are primarily perceptions of the imagination and only secondary to those of the rational mind3”. The highly subjective nature of the human imagination is a narrative story, which is formed inside the human brain and is completely responsible for the world we see today. “The universe proceeds from the subtle to the concrete and gets merged into the subtle again, which is the theory of narrative”4. Where there is entry there is always exit, there cannot be any narrative without exit. Scientists are generally aware of the influence of theory on observation. Seldom do they recognize, however, that many scientific theories are essentially narratives. The growth of a plant, the progress of a disease, the formation of a beach, the evolution of an organism – any set of events that can be arranged in a sequence and related can also be narrated. This is true even of a scientific experiment. Indeed, many laboratory reports, with their sections labeled “methods,” "results," and “conclusions,” bear resemblance to a typical narrative, that is, an organized sequence of events with a beginning, a middle, and an end. In comparison to the structure of a musical work, the composer ideally works with themes and motives, which gives a sense of an organized sequence of events. Whether or not scientists or musicians follow such a narrative structure in their work, they do not often recognize the extent to which they use narrative in their thinking and in communicating their ideas. Musicians have been for so long entranced by ‘structure’. The idea of building tension followed by a resolution can be understood as an important concept in composition, which to me is so close to the narrative theory. “Concepts such as cadences, meter and period have enough technical precision in them to justify their complete translation into musical terminology”6. The generative system of rules in composition and the aural experience provides an explanation of the wrong note phenomenon. Listeners can easily sense a violation of the rules, the grammar of the music in the same way they can spot a grammatical error in a sentence they had never heard or spoken before. “The Indian narrative shows a wonderful balance between stylisation and improvisation. The performer follows certain pre-established codes in the overall structure of his composition yet he also puts a stamp of his personality by improvising substantially in the motives and the contents of the overall structure”7. A lot of margin is there for personal freedom with regard to the content and individually invented style but the basic framework remains the same. Any raga played during a performance is a narration of a particular period of time which symbolises the nature and effect we see and the emotion that every moment carries. I see a close relationship in theory, if compared to the western thought, where the modes can be arranged in order of their relative brightness and darkness. If Lydian mode is seen as a brightest mode and compared to Rag Yaman, which uses the same set of notes, one can see a fundamental connection between the understandings of respective cultures. Rag Yaman is an evening raga that symbolises light and brightness - the emotion that time before sunset carries. Another way of looking at it could to compare the relative order of modes in relation to the amount of light present in the hemisphere. The performer is following a narrative approach through sonically displaying the characteristics of a particular time blended with his improvisation skills and present state of mind Conclusion Any art form is tied up with certain boundaries, not in relevance to its production but highly in regard of its use. Music should always be used with moral and ethical values; it should always be positive and expressive. Morals are about a certain kind of behavior and ethics is thinking about that behavior. Music being one of the most sophisticated language which humans have learnt its, transfer and use is of high importance. Music is the effort we make to our self how our brain works. Music of different cultures tells us about their beliefs and becomes a sonic portrait of how their brain works. I believe music being such a pure art form it only contributes towards your path of spiritualization. It fulfills all your desires through its inner sense and leaves your with a high level of consciousness and understanding of your self.
References
(1) Hoffmann, E.T.A .The Poet and The composer .1816
(2) William, Bright.1963. “ Language and Music; Areas of Cooperation” Ethnomusicology, VII No.1, p.26.Also see Henry, Walker Otto.Walker.1970.The Evolution Of Idiomatic &Psycho acoustical Resources as a basis for unity in Electronic Music. Tulane University, PhD Thesis, 1970.University Microfilms. Michigan.
(3) Paniker, Ayyappa K. Indian Narratology. IGNCA. Pp 200. Kalasamalochana series.New Delhi. 2003
(4) Paniker, Ayyappa K. Indian Narratology. IGNCA. Pp 200. Kalasamalochana series. New Delhi. 2003
http://ignca.nic.in/nl002708.htm
(6) Swain, joseph P. Musical Languages.W .W. Norton and Company.London 1997
(7) Paniker, Ayyappa K. Indian Narratology. IGNCA. Pp 200. Kalasamalochana series. New Delhi. 2003
http://ignca.nic.in/nl002708.htm
Newman, William S.Understanding Music. Harper and Row Publishers. New york.1961 Kak,
Subhash.New Theory Of Music’. University of the Philippines.Quezon City, Philippines. 2002 http://www.ece.lsu.edu/kak/manila.pdf 17 October’2006
Crites, Stephen .The Narrative Quality of Experience. Journal of the American Academy of Religion, Vol. 39, No. 3. (Sep., 1971), pp. 291-311. http://www.jstor.org.proxy.library.adlaide.edu.au/v iew/00027189/ap050019/05a00020/0 20 October, 2006
Maus, Everett Fred Narrative. Drama, and Emotion in Instrumental Music. The Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism, Vol. 55, No. 3. (Summer, 1997), pp. 293-303. http://www.jstor.org.proxy.library.adlaide.edu.au/v iew/00218529/ap020218/02a00060/0 25 October .2006
Whittington, Stephen. Lectures in Perspectives Of Music Technology. Narrative Theory. University Of Adeladie.2006

Wednesday, March 08, 2006

Week 1 Robin Minard

First week back to uni , I was told there is a guest lecturer coming to talk about his work..I could feel the way he started, the calmness in his voice.He is Robin Minard, sound Installation artist born in 1953 in Montreal,Canada.
All the things he talked about in that hour were really impressive.I really liked the composition he played for Vibraphone and tape delay.First thing which really stricked me is the idea of complimenting the space , in this case with an installation.The idea is not to have the music heard by itself but the music becomes part of the environment as a living organism.It does not demand any attention rather becomes another life.Like the growth bend towards light or leaves grow towards sunlight,in one of his work the speakers were placed in a way which looked as if they were searching for light.A lot of his work evokes impression of natural growth and organic life.Another thing he talked about was the way his work could become organic is when it reacts with temperature,humidy and light.He also talked about the architectural way of looking at things i.e how the perception of place changes in day light and in the night.
Silent Music is a sound installation designed for public environments or art gallery spaces in which the public is free to move about.. The loudspeakers and its attached wires form plant-like structures, placed within the space to suggest either their seeking of light or their preference for lighted areas.

Audio Arts: This was David Grice introduction class.David is our new Audio Arts lecturer.He started with telling us about his background as a sound engenier and then he started asking us about our taste of music and what instrument do we play.Its nice to have him as he has got some thing more than just "bookwledge".By this time we decided to enter studio 1 where he was checking up if we could set up a protools session or not.It was disappointing becuase after all this time I was learning to setup a prootool stereo session in audio arts but thats allright, it was David who was new to EMU and wanted to start from scratch.

Creative Computing: Introduction to Max/Msp

Top down / bottom up; passenger versus driver; problem solving; level of granular control.

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"Shivna kaun" Performs at Adelaide Fringe'06 -- Fresh Bait 27 February'06







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Sunday : 5 March'06 : Gigs with Seeing Orbo
2pm : Port Adelaide-- Adelaide Fringe'06
11pm
: Fringe Club --Higher rounds, Rundle St ..

Max Lorenzin : Voice, guitars
Declan Lorenzin : Voice,flutes,reeds
Vinny Bhagat : Percussions


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References:

Minard,Robin. 2006. Presentation by Robin Minard. University of Adelaide, 2 March.
http://www.archipel.org/album.html 19 may'06

http://www.cbsd.com/inventory.aspx?id=16369

http://www.mediainmotion.de/1999/minard.html#anchor578254%0D

Grice, David. 2006. Practical on Session Managment in Pro Tools. University of Adelaide, 28 February.

Haines, Christian. 2006. Practical on Max/Msp Introduction. University of Adelaide, 2 March.

http://www.openomy.com/download/a1116200/fowlers%20live%2027feb.m4a

Tuesday, March 07, 2006

spontaneous music perfromance

Shivna kaun perfroms on 19 March'06 --Lizard Lounge Hindley street Adelaide

Time: 8 PM - 9 Pm

Entry: $5 all ages

test

well this is a test..
more info..comin soon