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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:
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.
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.



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

posted by David J Dowling @ 5:03 PM