notesdontmatter

Elder Conservatorium, Music Tech Weekly 18/05/2006

Forum (Listening workshop) 18/05/2006:

1. Mr Bungle, Love is a fist:


Mike Patton is a strange man. Music taking ‘moment form’ (many musical styles in the one piece) to its compositional limits is one of his specialities. Love is a fist is certainly a far cry from the laid back jazz pop of Faith No Mores’ cover of the Commodores ‘Easy’. Comparisons like this (and on the subject of Mike Patton there are many to be made) expose Patton’s complex and diverse approach to music making that we should all be aware of in our quest for originality.

Whether or not you like Mr Bungles’ music, you should at least devote a moment of your time to appreciate the high level of musicianship on display. There are enough time changes in this track to satisfy any prog’ rock or complexitus leanings the listener may have. The lyrical content is pretty harsh, reminiscent of ‘This Love’ by Pantera.




"I also do childrens birthday parties, he he he"....



Audio Example


Stockhausen, Hymnen (1966-67):










"Hello, Doctor? I think I may have a problem with my left cheekbone"......





Did I hear four hours being the vague timeframe this piece clocks in at? I’m all open to a piece composed using samples of short wave radio discoveries, but the 20 minutes we heard at forum today should keep me happy for a while. I felt this exuded a slightly disturbing feel with the various crowd noises morphing into analogue synth' type frequency modulation. The spoken word interlude seemed to get a bit risqué with the odd word or two in English cropping up. Overall lots of interesting sound ideas are expressed in the piece. I will take up David Harris’s advice one day and see what gems I can turn up myself with a shortwave radio.....

Audio Example



My Bloody Valentine, To Here Knows When:






"Hello, Doctor? I also have a left cheekbone problem of sorts. While I'm here could you have a quick look at this niggling chest pain?




This is apparently ‘beauty under siege’ according to one critic. On closer sonic inspection I’m not sure that beauty alone is necessarily the way to describe the music behind the discordant multi layered drone notes. The female singer, Belinda Butcher seems to be moaning out repetitions of a I-VI-VII-VI-I bluesy melodic sequence. The rest of the band keep things rhythmically very straight with 4/4 timing, eighth note strumming of a hand full of chords, some diatonic some not etc.
A bit plain to be quoted a ‘beautiful’ arrangement I believe, but I should seek out more of their music, as the comment wasn’t directed at this piece alone. It is definitely the swirling, droning overtones that serve to make this an interesting piece of music. I just don’t think it would stand up on its own without them......


Artist Talk, Robert Chalmers:

Robert is a lawyer and Music copyright law expert who works with Adelaide University.

The further we delved into this topic the higher my contempt for organised modern society meter rose. As a public servant who does have to refer to a government act from time to time as part of my day job, I found this a tedious subject. Must we continue down this road of making government administration more and more complex in the quest for some sort of ‘fairness utopia’? Containing music piracy is like trying to crack down on dole cheats. If you make the system highly difficult to access to protect it from such cheats, it becomes a problem for those honest people who really need it. Such ‘honest’ people can even end up being prosecuted as a result of breaching complex rules without knowing it. This problem will certainly come up in cases relating to music theft. The bottom line is that cheaters will cheat, and most of them will get away with it. I believe in the law and the purpose it serves, but I don’t believe it can be effectively and fairly enforced in many cases relating to intellectual property.



Audio Arts:

Miking vocals is on my ‘to do’ list for the next two weeks. In light of my own band experience, I also believe in a sensitive approach to handling the egos of other band members. I hope my experience as a detached sound engineer will not turn up too many issues relating to this, but time will tell.


Here is an example of me putting the dead room to bad use.....



Audio example


Reference:

David Harris. "Music Technology Workshop – Mr Bungle, Stockhausen, My Bloody Valentine". Lecture presented at the Electronic Music Unit, EMU space, 5th floor, Schulz Building, University of Adelaide, 18/05/2006.

Robert Chalmers. "Artist Talk – Music Copyright Law." Lecture presented at the Electronic Music Unit, EMU space, 5th floor, Schulz Building, University of Adelaide, 18/05/2006.

Christian Haines. "Audio Arts – Vocal Miking". Practical Class presented at the Electronic Music Unit, EMU space, 5th floor, Schulz Building, University of Adelaide, 18/05/2006.

posted by David J Dowling @ 3:28 PM