notesdontmatter

09/03/2006
This post is for my thoughts regarding:
Music Technology Forum 09/03/2006 at
Elder School of Music, Adelaide SA.
Guest speaker: Warren Burt

Warren Burt:

Warren Burt is a music composer and experimental artist who specialises in experimentation and composing with various forms of technology, old and new. He has been exploring the endless applications of technology in music since his late teens and is active in the field to this day with no sign of slowing down. Check out www.tropicapricorn.com/warren_burt.htm for some detailed personal history.

One thing I found interesting about Warren Burt in relation to last weeks forum with Robin Minard is that they have both attended university early in life to study music and composition and have both taken the not so lucrative path to creating eccentric ‘non conventional’ art with music and sound. Both have also been involved with sound installation art as well (although Robin Minard seems to have taken to this concept more specifically) which suggests they may have both left their studies at university with a similar mindset.
I did appreciate the variety of compositional approaches that Warren spoke of using throughout his career so far. The ‘five pound synthesiser’ (www.emf.org/subscribers/burt/worklist.htm) was my personal favourite.

It’s interesting that Warren spoke of having a fascination with counterpoint as a compositional technique early in his career and has kept this traditional western composition practice in mind whilst working on the wiring and functionality of the various synthesisers he has worked on.
The only lecturer (John Polglase) who has mentioned counterpoint in these first few weeks of classes has stated that we will ‘hate’ it by the end of the year. I guess that he must receive mostly negative feedback from students when he is teaching the subject. Perhaps it takes a reasonable degree of eccentricity to become excited by such a concept (I did think Warren Burt seemed a little ‘out there’). But then again, I myself was a bona-fide maths nerd in my younger days at high school so maybe I’ll be counter pointing to my hearts content in the near future.

Another concept warren touched upon during his talk was microtonality. This is something I have wanted to explore for a long time but have not been made aware of software programs to help with the idea until now. I will definitely be looking into programs such as ‘Plogue Bidule’ and ‘V Sampler’ which Warren was showcasing at the forum as they seem to be geared toward offering extended functionality in this area. The Fibonacci harmonic series that Warren played as an example in Plogue Bidule sounded like a major scale that had been convoluted by a handful of notes and then slightly deformed. Very cool.

Practicals for week 3:

Is anyone else feeling a little lost with the programming jargon in the two PDF files we were asked to read? I did find myself having to switch between webopedia.com and the dictionary to develop some level of understanding. I guess we are here to learn though…………….

References:

Warren Burt. "Artist Talk – Composing with Technology." Lecture presented at the Electronic Music Unit, EMU space, University of Adelaide, 09 March 2006.

Christian Haines. "Creative Computing - Sound File Formats." Lecture presented at the Audio Lab, 4th floor, Schulz Building, University of Adelaide, 09 March 2006.

posted by David J Dowling @ 1:15 PM