The moment I entered the EMU space last Thursday I was helplessly enchanted by the wonderful sound of Dr. Chandrakant Sardeshmukh’s Sitar (like a guitar except you sit to play it). This man’s wonderful instrument really was a testament to the fact that there are just so many different types of sound out there. At one stage near when I first walked in I think the doctor looked at me and smiled; I must have been sitting there grinning like a schoolgirl. Just such a truly beautiful sound.

His playing ability was obviously very advanced, I would probably gained a lot more from the workshop if I were able to understand more of what he said. Much was mentioned about Indian music and form, and unfortunately I really did not understand much of what he said! However, it is quite refreshing to hear people from other countries speak English, especially to hear words that you are familiar with, used in contexts that you are not.

Toward the end of the workshop it once again came time for the guest to rock it out with one of the improvisation groups. During this concert I was particularly impressed with the performance Vinny. He played a sort of whiney ambience sound from his laptop and then went ahead and played the tabla. Prehaps his own Indian heritage assisted him understand the playing style of the doctor, or perhaps his own skill with improvisation allowed him to preform quite comfortably and effectively. Most likely both of these things. The remainder of the group contained Tyrell, Luke, Seb, Daniel and Poppy. Tyrell was quite good, he was able to listen to the others and know when to enter with his old-school synthesizer. The fact that he used a tone that sounded like it would suit an Atari video game, he did well to fit in with the natural sounds of the Sitar and Tabla. Luke and Seb were again able to choose when to play and when no to. However, I think if given the chance to perform with the group again they might have added a lot more of their dirty tones and not act as such a slave to the Tabla and Sitar. Daniel played some weird noise maker thing and among all the sound I am not too sure what sounds he made and which he did not, but he certainly did not seem to detract from the overall aesthetic. Finally Poppy used her voice to produce both long droning howls and short, percussive shrieks. I thought that at one stage she might of broken into one of her infamous ‘spoken word’ recitals and start preaching anti-Immigration propaganda, but alas, she choose to stick safe with ‘non-English.’

Bibliography
Sardeshmukh, Chandrakant. “Improvisation Technique.” Workshop presented in EMU Space, 5th floor Schulz building, University of Adelaide. 14/09/2006

the Soundscape of Pitcairn Avenue

BUS (Distant)
1. 200 metres
2. 30 dB
3. Distant, but somewhat distinct
4. Lo-fi, technological
5. Isolated
6. No Reverb

CAR
1. 40 metres-pass-15 metres
2. 62dB
3. Indistict, except when hitting a ditch (crescendos, decrescendos)
4. Lo-fi, technological
5. Periodic repetition
6. Short reverb

DOOR SHUTTING
1. 20 metres
2. 68dB
3. Heard distinctly
4. Hi-fi, human
5. Short, percussive
6. Long natural reverb

BIRDS
1. 15-50 metres
2. 35-55dB
3. Distict
4. Hi-fi natural
5. Peridic repetition
6. No reverb

Ambient Murmer
1. 250+ metres
2. 25dB
3. Indistict
4. Hi-fi, natural
5. Unending
6. No reverb

This Thursday’s forum contained an extremely intriguing presentation from saxophonist Derek Pascoe. He talked primarily about his experience with improvisation, taking on a purely personal perspective. Rather than taking the common ‘this is about what I do and why everything do is great’ angle, he simply deconstructed his improvisational technique and how he developed it from the ground up. I really enjoyed the way he was able to meld completely abstract concepts like spirituality with practical ideas to consider in an improvisational situation. He talked in detail about techniques he has practised in daily to become prolific in improvisation. His own worship to improvisation, through such practises, has given him a personal and unique view into the art. Every concept mentioned he was able explain how he came to arrive at that idea. This made the forum very interesting, particularly as did not simply seem to constantly quote ideas from other musicians, but rather discuss his solitary approach to thinking about improvisation technique.

As a part of the presentation Derek Pascoe perform with one of the improvisation project’s groups. There were four songs performed, which by and large progressively improved as the afternoon progressed. The first song involved audience participation, however everyone was too nervous and really the whole thing was not worth mentioning. However, during the next three songs there were certain moments that were really quite fascinating. In the third song, the performers were instructed to follow and mimic each other’s noise. This unfolded with quite interesting results, with at one time the bass, guitar and saxophone sounding quite trance-like. The last performance involved the performers having conversations. To get the ball rolling here Derek Pascoe played ‘smoke on the water’ and whatever that song you hear on the trumpet at the race track. John responded, but unlike Derek Pascoe who extended and lengthened each note, he embellished the line in a guitar shred. In that respect I think that John was what Derek Pascoe titled “the villain” towards the saxophone part. All considered, it was a very interesting couple of hours, and it certain changed, in some way, how I listen to music since.

Bibliography


Pascoe, Derek. “Improvisation Technique." Workshop presented in EMU Space, 5th floor Schulz building, University of Adelaide, 07/09/2006.

click on the picture for sound

here instead of using a MIDI keyboard for MIDI input I have used the note generator (or two, simulating the left and right hand i hope). It sounds like the ocean, does it not?

This week’s improvisation session sounded possibly worse than last week. The additional of two tone-exploring synthesizers had much to do with this I feel. Every week in the improvisation session I seem to pick up some way to improve my drum loops, usually in response to critisms made by my colleagues. Again this week Dave was the catalyst here, suggesting that listening to the same two-bar loop for the hour can get a little tedious (no surprises here). I have decided then, that maybe it would be a good idea to create longer samples, so that they take longer to loop over, and are not as grating. Also Dave suggested maybe adding ‘fills’ to the performance, reminding me of an idea I formed weeks ago- to set the drum loops to group A (within Live) and a continuously playing (but muted) fill to group B. Hence, whenever I feel the time is appropriate, I pan across to group B and play a fill. Thankfully, the issues I had last week have been overcome, that is, no longer are people complaining that the drums cut-out completely and leaving them exposed as the tentative improvisers they mostly are. I achieved this by implementing the idea I specified last week.

This week’s presentations included Tyrell, Poppi, Albert and Josh. I particularly enjoyed Poppi’s presentation. Her movies were very intriguing and well suited to the music, as was her solemn ‘spoken word.’ All of these films were cut short for the sake of saving time, but now I would really like to see more. This might sound a little strange, but the movies were very typical of a uni student, if that makes any sense. Probably not. Tyrell talked a bit about the music he has been making for video games. I was pretty interested to hear something of composed by Tyrell, but unfortunately he mainly played us music he created for a video game for children so the emotional depth was severely shunned, in place of… well… childhood cheesiness. Despite the fact Josh seemed about as excited about his musique concrete piece, as I am about going to work 21 minutes, I thought the piece was really very good. Interesting too that when I went up and talk about my piece I spouted about some elaborate story of a mythological hero and the best that Josh could say is that ‘he tried to use sounds that sound metallic’, yet that the final result is reasonably similar. But hey, if it were the final sound that counted, words like Scheonburg and Boulez might not sound like more than fancy small cars or import wines (and I am going to hell).

im worked to hard to count the music (final)
the final sound track for the sd1.mov with plogue FM synthesis and other variations.
the video is avaliable in a previous post.