notesdontmatter

Forum - Wk 4 – 'Collaborations' - 22-03-07

Well, the presentation side of the subject is over for the time being, so I guess I can just sit back and enjoy the show for a while. I think it went pretty well, despite the odd dissenter from the truth casting a counter argumentative rock in my pond.

There was a lot of material presented – especially from William (easy on the fine detail there son) – and it is always interesting to see how others approach this kind of thing. I agree with some of Stephen’s feedback regarding vagaries of context that certain material was presented in, so hopefully the next few weeks of presentations should be concise and to the point. I did try my best to present my ideas about my topic with a minimum of indecisive time wasting.

Everyone knows what I presented so check the student blog links on the left to find information regarding it’s substance or lack thereof…

Despite his deviating from the subject of the day somewhat, I found Vinny’s presentation inspirational. I had never heard of Trilok Gurtu, but the examples that Vinny played sounded incredibly rich in harmonic and especially rhythmic structure. The sheer volume of respected artists Trilok has worked with should be an indication of his considerable diversity and talent. I am always looking for new material that suits improvisational accompaniment, so I plan to explore the sonic world of Trilok Gurtu further in the future.


William’s look at the game audio industry reminded me of my mortifying call centre experience at my last place of employment. This was only due to the mention of cubicles and how people with creative positions of employment respond to their presence or absence. I’m sympathetic to the idea of working at a creative project in isolation. At least I have found that it’s the best scenario for me, as I’m not really a people person when I can avoid it. Besides that, the ridiculous amount of time that needs to be poured into a substantial audio project of any kind renders distractions extremely counterproductive, and people can be very distracting.

On to Sanad and the raging debate that ensued over the proposed question: “what constitutes world music?” This inspired some hot debating of negligible substance. Not to say that anyone was right or wrong, it’s just that throwing a question to a group of people and asking them what they think about it on the spot will never draw from them the most coherent answers they may be capable of producing. For a real debate to ensue, people need time in advance to really think about a question, gain some perspective, do a little or a lot of research and come to the table with a substantiated opinion. The kind of format sparked by Sanad’s approach to the forum is good for getting some initial ideas out there, but cannot really be used as a serious debating platform – at best it could be the first step towards such a debate taking place at the next meeting of the said group.


Reference:

Stephen Whittington. “Collaborations”. Workshop presented at EMU space, level 5, Schultz building, University of Adelaide. 22nd March, 2007.

posted by David J Dowling @ 1:06 PM