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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 guitar



Forum 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

posted by David J Dowling @ 4:54 PM