Improvisation Workshop and Forum 31-08-06
Improvisation Workshop 31-08-06:
Here's a way to bang two rocks together.....
What happens when two keyboard players are jamming in a room and the light blows?
The music gets darker….Seriously though, this was our most productive week yet. Some pre patching was done before hand to speed up the preparation process. The session went through several developmental stages as we began making music before 2:00pm without the full quota of musicians. This led to an interesting hip-hop trio jam that could be developed in the future. As 2:00 hit and people started to arrive, the sonic wall became increasingly complex. The first couple of attempts at collective improv’ yielded some promising results.
As people got more absorbed in their own sound however, we tended to stop listening to the collective sound of the group. This caused the second half of the session to degenerate a little, as no one seemed to be settling on a specific sound or keyboard patch, and time was wasted while searches for different sonic timbres became the order of the moment. Unfortunately there was a particularly annoying five-minute period of this (when the Mac generating drums became corrupted as well), which just happened to be the same five minutes that Steven sat in to check our progress. It appears he left the room less than impressed, but what can I say – some people just have really bad timing….
When we had it together (3.7MB Mp3)Forum 31-08-06:
Tyrell Blackburn – video game music from the mystic past:
I was very impressed with the overall quality of orchestration and production on Tyrell’s tracks, and could easily imagine them as a workable background feature of the in-game images provided. The only thing I can think to offer from a critical perspective is that they may have sounded a little (if I may quote the annoying Lars Ulrich in ‘Some Kind of Monster’): ‘stock’. This is probably a pointless criticism to make – how do you write tonal music with conventional orchestration now-days without sounding similar to at least one genre. It is probably a reflection of the game designers pre-imposed specifications for accompanying music anyway.
Poppi Doser – various sound and video project snippets:
If I had half the creative inspiration of Poppi, I would probably have written three or four albums by now. I had never really thought of combining found sound and found visual media from a compositional approach like music concrete. It certainly seems like a clever way to increase the entertainment value of either venture – although one can detract from the intensity of the other if used unwisely. That being said, one can certainly enhance the experience of the other if they are merged thoughtfully. This is definitely the case with Poppi’s work, which is as diverse as it is thought provoking. The underlying theme shared by some pieces, focusing mainly on women in society today, was mostly presented in an interesting and understated fashion that I feel demonstrates a well-developed sense of artistic expression.
Josh Schultz – Music Concrete:
Everyone’s music concrete piece seems to sound much better than mine and Josh’s was no exception. It was a tasteful blend of purposefully metallic soundwaves, which overlapped and reinforced themselves beautifully. I wonder if the metallic approach was due to an interest in the audio program 'Spear', which was used for parts of the piece and has a habit of metallicising (is that even a word?) the original signal. If so, it seems a clever approach to allow what many would regard as a fault in Spears’ audio quality, to dictate the core sonic timbre of a composition.
Albert Webster – Jazz Trio Recording:
This was an impressive recording with huge dynamic range. The sax was full and sang clearly, the bass was suitably smooth and well rounded and the guitar was alive with just the right amount of reverb for colouration. I was disappointed that Albert stopped it a minute and a half before it finished (I’m sure we could have survived that). Only gripe; guitar solo could have been twice as long.....
References:
Stephen Whittington. “Improvisation Workshop”. (Workshop presented at EMU Space and Studio five, 5th floor Schulz building, University of Adelaide). 31-08-2006
Tyrell Blackburn. “Game Music”. (Student Presentation at EMU Space 5th floor Schulz building, University of Adelaide). 31-08-2006
Poppi Doser. “AV projects”. (Student Presentation at EMU Space 5th floor Schulz building, University of Adelaide). 31-08-2006
Josh Schultz. “Music Concrete”. (Student Presentation at EMU Space 5th floor Schulz building, University of Adelaide). 31-08-2006
Albert Webster. “Jazz Trio Recording”. (Student Presentation at EMU Space 5th floor Schulz building, University of Adelaide). 31-08-2006
Audio Arts 22-08-06
Audio Arts 22-08-06:
To gain from subtraction:
I don’t know about anyone else, but I found this task incredibly difficult. The article seemed to have plenty of useful information, but I must currently lack the knowledge and/or talent to put this into practice with the subtractor synth. I think the problem is visualising exactly what is happening with the synth parameters in relation to waveform manipulation. It is a complex process and should take a little while to get my head around. Hopefully a more promising result shall be forthcoming…..
This is my pitch-shifted cheesy MIDI bas…I mean piano! (835KB)Reference:
Christian Haines. "Audio Arts - Piano synthesis". Lecture presented at "Audio Lab - 4th floor, Schulz building, University of Adelaide, 22-08-06.
Creative Computing 24-08-06
Creative Computing 24-08-06:
Plogue Bidule:
A few hours with this audio mulch clone turned up some interesting results. The software does seem to be a little buggy though. It crashed twice for unexplained reasons, and has a weird habit of selectively routing certain audio channels to the left – leaving me with no control over panning (I did have this problem with Pro-tools as well, and managed to narrow it down to the stereo D-verb plug in as the root of the problem). These are minor gripes that will surely be corrected with further tuition however.
I have created a three-minute jam of my first exploits into the world of Plogue. It consists of a drum and guitar loop being dismembered by a sadistic granulator device and some Phat synth displacement via stereo delay, flanger and reverb, plus a few others tricks thrown in for good measure.
Seven days…..(5.2 MB)References:
Christian Haines. ‘Plogue Bidule’. Lecture presented at the Audio Lab, 4th floor, Schulz building, University of Adelaide. 24/08/06.
Improv Workshop & Forum 24-08-06
Improvisation Workshop 24-08-06:
Wouldn’t you know it, a fire drill is called on the first day that we are all prepared and ready to go on time. Typical. This only lasted for ten minutes however, so much progress was made when we resumed.
Dragos managed to fire up one of the modern synthesiser keyboards in studio five, giving us some nice synth pad chords and melodic bass lines to work with. Jake started off well, announcing that he had installed ‘Live’ on his Macbook with a small collection of drum loops for our human / electronic rhythm section. I think he may need to focus on keeping the rhythm audible though. In some of the more abstract moments of lo-fi modulation the rest of us got a little lost. Matts’ foray into Thereminology was less than spectacular, so that one may be put on the back burner for now.
All in all, it was a productive and promising session. Some interesting ideas arose from the moments of chaos, such as trading licks between the vocals, guitar and keyboards. Next week should see a tighter mix of drum loops and supercollider patches from Adrian. I’d like to hear the MIDI sax that Albert brought along, but we will need to do a little more research into studio five routing for that to happen.
Until next week (insert preferred music genre here) on!
Forum 23-08-06:
Tim Gabbusch – Tape Piece:
Old school glory.....
Tim played what should be considered an historic piece of EMU student composing. I refer of course, to the fact that analogue tape editing has been removed from the course list at EMU due to spiralling maintenance costs. It didn’t seem to lack fidelity as a result of the medium, and was an interesting collage of warped tape samples. I believe slowing down samples with tape technology retains higher audio quality than digital sampling, due to the continuous incoming signal, and this was definitely evident here.
Jacob Morris – New Surroundings:
Hail Satan. Perhaps Odin should have learnt this greeting upon reaching the gates of hell. He may have been received with open arms…….or maybe not. There was some
Fantastically scary vocal manipulation used to imitate the eternal fire. It seemed a bit seamless to be a three-movement journey, but the sonic quality was high and the arrangement was interesting throughout.
I feel burnt out after a long day at the beach too.....
William Revill – Neurotic turbulence:
I found Williams comments regarding his dissatisfaction with this piece puzzling. It sounded like a sonically rich and thoughtful take on the music concrete concept to me.
I can sympathise with his adverse reaction to working under fluorescent lights, although I have found this environment to be productive at times – it makes you feel like you’re in the office, which can be conducive to hard work (depending on your ethics of course).
Ben Probert – Vocalacov:
This was an entertaining journey through some of the possibilities offered by processing and sequencing ones own voice. Despite Bens’ aggressive confidence in his own voice, I felt that some of the screaming samples could have been a little ‘angrier’. Apart from this minor subjective issue, the mix and samples used were both high in quality, and clever panning control added some humorous elements that worked well. The speed reduction of samples didn’t turn up any significant problems to my ears, but then I haven’t listened to these at length the way Ben must have.
Yes, this is what your vocal nodules look like.....
References:
Stephen Whittington. “Improvisation Workshop”. (Lecture presented at EMU Space 5th floor Schulz building, University of Adelaide). 24-08-2006
Tim Gabbusch. “Tape Piece”. (Student Presentation at EMU Space 5th floor Schulz building, University of Adelaide). 24-08-2006
Jacob Morris. “New Surroundings”. (Student Presentation at EMU Space 5th floor Schulz building, University of Adelaide). 24-08-2006
William Revill. “Neurotic Turbulence”. (Student Presentation at EMU Space 5th floor Schulz building, University of Adelaide). 24-08-2006
Ben Probert. “Vocalacov”. (Student Presentation at EMU Space 5th floor Schulz building, University of Adelaide). 24-08-2006
Creative Computing 17-08-06
Creative Computing 17-08-06:
Ableton Live – Arranging:
The arrangement window in this program is the first real source of frustration I have experienced with live. On the surface it seems to offer extensive functionality with high-level control over parameters. The problem comes with learning how to use these controls when one is used to stock standard wave and midi editors such as Cue Base and Pro Tools.
Now I understand that Live is aimed at live performance, but is that not reason enough to keep some familiarity with control devices. The limited and clunky way it handles scrolling, note entry (no scroll function for moving up and down the piano roll?), wave editing (why does the clip view show me the whole file when I’ve cut a specific section from it? It’s really annoying), I haven’t yet deduced whether or not it contains a step entry function either.
I am going to persevere with the program, and when I’m more familiar with its interface I may have to eat my own words on this very blog. So be it, maybe I just came in too early this morning……..
I call this one Warping the Rhythm! (2.6MB)References:
Christian Haines. ‘Ableton Live’. Lecture presented at the Audio Lab, 4th floor, Schulz building, University of Adelaide. 17/08/06.
Improv Workshop & Forum 17-08-06
Improvisation Workshop 17-08-06:After calling in the big guns (Christian) to sort our in/out problem from last weeks session – which threatened to ruin this weeks as well - we managed to get a small scale jam happening. Admittedly this was between myself and Jacobs’ laptop, the speakers on which sounded unsurprisingly low-fi. Ben decided to have an internal dummy spit when his effects pedal wouldn’t process the signal from his beat boxing microphone, which prematurely ended his musical contribution. It all may have seemed a little disorganised to newcomer Albert, who I suspect was left wondering what exactly our goal is with the project. Next week I shall make it my personal mission to make sure at least myself, Jacob, and Ben are outputting sufficient levels of audio for the fun to really begin. Studio five is really no different to the others as far as signal routing goes, but it seems that perhaps people mess with it more often, which can create issues).
Jacob has been loosely burdened with the task of setting a rhythm for us all to follow. He is likely to use a combination of Reason and Ableton Live to achieve this. The possibility of a couple of laptops being sync’d to follow Jake’s beat clock has been mentioned so we’ll see what becomes of the idea in weeks to come……..
A lesson in the ancient art of Kamikaze guitarForum 17-08-06:
Henry Reed: ‘Lucky’
This was an entertaining collage of sound texture with a definite musicality underlying the ‘randomness’ of the expressions. The fact that the composition was motivated by Henrys’ relationship with his WW2 veteran grandfather, and his interest in his life, was thoughtfully stated with various sound samples from the WW2 era, pre and post. My grandfather, Austin Dowling, was also an Air Force pilot during the second world war (who was lucky enough not to be shot down), and before he died in 2003 I can remember many instances where I would listen in awe to his tales of unquestioning bravery. I think I can understand why Henry may have found this such a rich source for inspiration when I remember my own Grandad and what an interesting and brilliant person he was.
Matt Mazzone: 'untitled'
A title was not given for any of the three pieces that Matt presented today. The first, which was written for a video game ‘running scene’ was easy to imagine as excitement driving background music for an interactive media experience.
I was sitting next to Matt this morning when he composed his session in Ableton Live. He couldn’t have been working on it for more than half an hour, but the result was a catchy and well structured drum and bass track. I’d spent about three hours on mine by comparison and it was average to say the most.
His third instalment, while pleasing enough to listen to, tended to sound a little safe to me, like it was deliberately aiming for Fresh FM airplay. There were some interesting things happening at certain breakpoints such as turbo-charged modulation and Atari-like electronic bleeps, but I just found it a little too clean maybe?
Daniel Murtagh: If when you say heaven you mean gates of hell
Well if I found the sound of Matts’ last piece a little on the clean side that sure changed with Daniels’ recording of his band ‘Enemy Of?’. This was a brutal slab of drop-a metal, full of chugging guitars, screaming vocals, complex drumming, offset rhythms, pinch harmonics etc.
Whilst I enjoyed the track from start to finish I had one or two issues with the style. I much prefer low-register vocal lines if they are being sung in a death metal style. I don’t know why so many hardcore bands (especially Australian) chose to go predominantly with the ‘I’m having my legs amputated by a chainsaw wielding madman in the recording studio as I sing to you’ approach to violent singing. Maybe it sounds less contrived than the ‘the only person who can grunt lower and nastier than me is Satan himself approach’, but I find it grates on my ears very quickly – and I’ve listened to lots of hardcore music.
Also, I know I rave on about this all the time but indulge me wont you? Why do so many metal bands chose not to play guitar solos now days? I really think they are omitting one of the most interesting and colourful musical statements of the genre. I freely admit to being a shred head tosser of utmost vanity when it’s my turn for a lead break and I’m not suggesting everyone should be like that, but when I listen to leadless metal it feels as if the songs always build up to a moment that is never truly realised. It could be just me and I’m walking around in some delusional state as to what I should be getting out of heavy music, but I can’t help what I like……
References:
Stephen Whittington. “Improvisation Workshop”. (Lecture presented at EMU Space 5th floor Schulz building, University of Adelaide). 17-08-2006
Henry Reed. “Lucky”. (Student Presentation at EMU Space 5th floor Schulz building, University of Adelaide). 17-08-2006
Matt Mazzone. “untitled”. (Student Presentation at EMU Space 5th floor Schulz building, University of Adelaide). 17-08-2006
Daniel Murtagh. “If when you say heaven you mean gates of hell”. (Student Presentation at EMU Space 5th floor Schulz building, University of Adelaide). 17-08-2006
Creative Computing 10-08-06
Creative Computing:
Ableton Live:
The Vinyl effect makes for a crackling good time!
I never really wanted to be a DJ but now I’m not so sure….
This is definitely a fun program. I have some minor gripes with the features. The standard modes of operation that seem to apply across the board for the most part with audio sequencing software don’t always seem to apply with Live.
For one I would like to see a standard scrollbar in the arrangement window. I realise scrolling can be achieved with ease by dragging the little position window/rectangle/thingy at the top of the screen but, this is forcing the user to alter an approach (scroll bar at the bottom and one at the right hand side) that applies to countless pieces of software – not limited to audio sequencers.
That being said, the ‘warp’ feature in the session interface is truly awesome. It seems that my mind has been read somewhat regarding an interface for sample manipulation. The fact that it can all be done in real time is just the icing on the cake. Christian was right about the tutorials, they are very easy to understand and get you working almost straight away. The first track provided is less than inspiring however.
Anyway here is the first legitimate effort from DJ Davo (I’ve been pretending I’m a DJ for a long time based on my first two initials – it’s not technically lying!) see what you think…..
PS: if anyone has an issue with the arrangement window ‘greying out’ and audio output ceasing on playback, check that the ‘back to arrangement’ button (next to overdub in the middle where the stop/play/record buttons are at the top of the screen) is not glowing bright red (engaged), this should fix the problem.
Funk it up Mama!
References:
Christian Haines. ‘Ableton Live’. Lecture presented at the Audio Lab, 4th floor, Schulz building, University of Adelaide. 10/08/06.
Improv and Forum 10-08-06
Improvisation workshop 10-08-06:
It was a scattered and only sporadically productive event this week. Given that studio five was not particularly accommodating to our needs – sound goes in, sound goes out, was an unreasonable request of the patchbay it would seem – it was difficult to get a feel for what the group would sound like as a whole when we were half out of action. That being said, there were some promising developments in the demonically distorted human beatbox department with MC Probert carving it up on the mic, and some tasteful musicianship in the acoustic piano department at selected intervals.
Dragos and Matt were unable to get sufficient audio output with the turntables or the analogue synthesizers which was frustrating to say the least. After hearing Dragos’ and Adrians tracks at the forum presentation I’m looking forward to hearing what they come up with on the fly. A microscopic level of audio that Matt managed to channel from the decks to my guitar amp proved to be a cruel tease, as it was all we were able to draw from them for the session. Our resident Super Collider guru Adrian confessed his Mac is currently in computer hospital so that kept him out of action in the jamming department as well.
Hopefully all these setbacks will teach us a valuable lesson regarding the folly of relying on university equipment, and next week I’ll have the beginnings of a world famous electronic sextet to report on……
An example of the creative processForum – Student Presentations:
Adrian Reid: track formerly known as ‘Forces’
Adrian presented a piece of Super Collider produced ambience for our listening pleasure. A dark piece of work, it lulls the listener into a false sense of melancholic trance, before metallic staccato percussion reaches out to stab ones eardrums and make sure you’re paying attention. I found this to be an engrossing experience filled with rich sonic texture, and felt that care and attention to subtle detail were paramount in its composition.
Dragos Nastasie: ‘Induced’
Dragos introduced himself as someone who is not a fan of atonality or serialism. Is anyone out there really able to call themselves a ‘fan’ of these genres in the most honest and gratuitous sense of the word? Eg; jumping up and down screaming for Schoenberg to play a twelve tone encore to one of the most testing sonic experiences yet created? I don’t know if the term can be used in quite the same way when admiration is focused on the persons will to think outside the square in their pursuit of discovery, rather than the collective sonic results of all their experimental work.
I myself am certainly no ‘fan’ of serial or atonal music, but I am grateful for my exposure to its teachings. I think mediocrity, complacency and just plain lack of originality sometimes require extreme measures to combat and overcome. Schoenberg and his twelve tone composition method is just an example of a frustrated composer who reached a point where he would try anything in the pursuit of something different. If any of us are planning to compose music and would like to be remembered for doing so, I think we should take at least a small leaf out of Schoenberg’s book. After all, we still know his name…..
Anyway there’s my opinionated bile for the week. ‘Induced’ was a very enjoyable track. Dragos has clearly spent a lot of time working with reason, and the effort is paying off. The rhythm was captivating (I noted several nodding heads in the audience) and the pulse remained clear and steady throughout. This was blended brilliantly with an interesting and haunting melody intertwining itself across various levels of synthesis, for a powerfully motivating musical journey. I felt some visuals may have helped with understanding the connection to the subject matter in the program note but it didn’t detract from the music. Great stuff…
Vinny Bhagat: ‘Rag Yaman’ http://shivnakaun.blogspot.com
Great piece of improv’ on the ivories Vinny …… want … to …. Say …. More … word …. count … set …. by …. bureaucracy … suppressing … creative …. expression …
Listen to this example insteadReferences:
Stephen Whittington. “Improvisation Project”. (Lecture presented at EMU Space 5th floor Schulz building, University of Adelaide). 10-08-2006
Adrian Reid. “Forces”. (Student Presentation at EMU Space 5th floor Schulz building, University of Adelaide). 10-08-2006
Dragos Nastasie. “Induced”. (Student Presentation at EMU Space 5th floor Schulz building, University of Adelaide). 10-08-2006
Vinny Bhagat. “Rag Yaman”. (Student Presentation at EMU Space 5th floor Schulz building, University of Adelaide). 10-08-2006
Audio Arts: Paper recording session 04-08-06
Improvisation Workshop 03-08-06:
Improvisation = “making something up on the spot within certain guidelines relevant to a finite concept”. I couldn’t have put that better myself – hang on that
was me, although my interpretation didn’t receive as much attention as others at this week’s workshop. Maybe it was so complete and infallible an explanation of the term that David and Stephen thought they would lose the momentum of the discussion by acknowledging it as such. I’m sure I’d like to think so anyway…..
As a group we spent most of our time determining loosely what the instrumentation would be when we start improvising together. I felt this would be the best way to start so that each of us can become comfortable in our role within the group. I haven’t heard of many instances where someone is thrown into an unfamiliar musical situation without warning, given an instrument they’ve never played, told to ‘improvise’ and subsequently come up with something great or even tolerable. This kind of approach may often yield results that are ‘different’ and ‘unexpected’, but the aim of the project was not specified to be discovering new sounds, it is stated as being about exploring ‘musical creativity’. Best we try to keep it musical in the traditional sense of the word on at least some level, for the benefit of everyone who has to listen then.
I’ll bring the guitar in next week and see what we can come up with. Should be fun.
Artist presentation forum 03-08-06:
Luke Digance – Concrete Harmony:
Luke was the first of our esteemed guests this week. His work ‘Concrete Harmony’ was an interesting exercise in forcing western harmonic concepts on the found sound compositional process. The end result was a sonically pleasing piece of Music Concrete that I would definitely regard as music. Often Music Concrete is reduced to an exercise in sound exploration without a musical or even listenable result to show for it. The percussive rhythmic figures introduced toward the end interacted with the melodic sounds for some interesting blending of straight and syncopated beats.
Good stuff…..
Link to AudioJohn Delany – Performance Symmetry:John Delany was next off the rank. There certainly are noticeable differences in the timbre of the vocal lines in this piece as they move through the octave ranges. I wonder wether this would be as evident if all the notes were sung rather than being digitally pitch shifted. I don’t know if any Tibetan monks out there would have a wide enough range in their voices to demonstrate! I’m not sure how someone in Australia knows what an ‘enraged chipmunk’ sounds like, to use the comparison on the program note regarding the high pitches, but maybe John is more….well – travelled than I am aware of. Despite the use of distortion as a colouring effect, and the crescendo of the piece sounding quite busy and nervous, it seemed to retain a soothing quality that I could have listened to for quite some time.
Link to audioMy name is up next week, so be afraid……I am.
Reference:
Stephen Whittington. “Improvisation Project”. (Lecture presented at EMU Space 5th floor Schulz building, University of Adelaide). 03-08-2006
Luke Digance. “Concrete Harmony”. (Student Presentation at EMU Space 5th floor Schulz building, University of Adelaide). 03-08-2006
John Delany. “Performance Symmetry”. (Student Presentation at EMU Space 5th floor Schulz building, University of Adelaide). 03-08-2006
Here's a way to bang two rocks together.....
