notesdontmatter

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 Audio

John 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 audio

My 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

posted by David J Dowling @ 4:02 PM