Unlike last week, where the ‘mojo’ was perfect for improvisation, this week the group had a little more difficulty making a decent sound. Nevertheless, the members (who attended) should be congratulated in that we indeed managed to achieve a good sound at several points in the jam session. It may not have fallen together easily, but we were still able to come up with something, so well done crew. One song in particular was awesome; in this my drum loops did not change too much, but I just tweaked them gradually to sound cleaner and more complex as the song went on, to the point where I really did not want them to stop. Ever.

As I have done every week, I wanted to bring something new to the session. However having not had time to make any other loops for the session, I instead decided to get a copy of the freely available, under 65 Mb demo of Live 6 to change things up a bit. My verdict? Wow. Live is an easy to use program, with endless possibilities and is becoming more and more refined in being able to do what you want it to. I truly would recommend playing with Live to any aspiring musician.

By the time I had fired up Live 6 for the first time, my group had already begun rocking out. As I really threw myself in the deep-end with this software, I probably ruined the chance of creating a decent drum sound for 15 minutes at most, but by the time everyone was starting to settle and listen to each other I was able to work my way around the nuances of the new Live well enough to create a decent beat. I know that once I have Live 6 worked out as closely as I have Live 3, that I am going to be a multibillion dollar rockstar skilled loop artist.

This session we spent together will probably be the last before the end of year concert, where the EMU guys and gals all let there hair down for one more chance to dance the night away. Actually I was being sarcastic, but who knows, I remember being at my school formal thinking ‘why are they all dancing!? NOBODY told me there was dancing?’ Assuming I do not have to dance, I am actually rather looking forward to this concert. So long as the members of our group who never turn up do the same for the concert, I am convinced that we can put on some decent music.

So loyal readers of weimerhead: the untold tales of the ninja robot samurai from outer space, this post sadly brings the year to a close. I myself will henceforth be busily finishing assignments, so drink a beer for me and I will see you all at TOOL - BIG DAY OUT 2007.

Last Thursday my group had much more success in the improvisation session. We all seemed to fit together much more, and for a change the hour we spent jamming was actually a lot of fun. We set up a little bit differently than we usually do, with everyone in a circle. This allowed everyone to make eye contact anyone else and on the whole communication was increased greatly compared to other weeks. Another factor aiding the level of communication, was the fact that Ben walked around and was able to dictate to the group upcoming ideas that we could consider. An example of this was, in one particular song Ben wanted to slowly decrease the tempo. Obviously if I did this ‘mid-jam,’ without everyone knowing my intentions, it would have quite disastrous effects, but Ben was able to say to me- ‘gradually slow it down, everyone knows it coming.’ Dragos and Albert were absent, and our bass playing started to play more rhythmically than melodically, which left melodic construction in the capable hands of Dave and Matt. I was busy concentrating on the rhythmic side of things, but from what I heard Matt and Dave seemed to share the weight pretty well.

In the rhythm section Ben and I were at last able to share the sound of the drums a little more freely. For a change this week I starting with very cut back drum loops, usually with only hi-hats to play around with for a while. This allowed Ben much more freedom with his own improvised beat over the top. This format would continue for a few minutes and depending on what Ben was doing, usually I would start to put in a snare on the same beat as Ben. By this time Ben would be starting to fatigue a bit, so I might then take over the drums for a while. While Ben and I were doing all this, I noticed that our bass line was very in tune with what we were doing and seemed able to lock in and even adapt with the changes in the drum section. In the rhythm section at least, it was one of the first times I have really felt like I am able to feed ideas of the other group members and that they are able to do the same for me.

In Music Technology’s final hour Luke Harrold came in to the EMU to give the students an idea of the goings on of NIME 06. He presented a video of a performance by Adachi Tomomi in which he gives a demo of a couple of his creations- the carrot flute and an infered music shirt. It was pretty obscure really, but I must admit that Mr. Tomomi put on an exciting show. The way he begun each performance was to casually sing old style Japanese chants, and then abruptly bring in the futuristic sounds and movements of his instrument. This made him look quite comfortable with the equipment, making the performances feel almost like a glimpse into the future.

Lastly I will add that I am quite sick at the moment, and you may not see too much of me in this last week of the term. Feeling very out of it, but I am doing my best to get everything done one step at a time. Update completed!

Reference:

Harrold, Luke. “NIME 06.” Lecture presented in EMU space, 5th Floor, Schulz Building, University of Adelaide, 19 / 10 / 06.

Disorganised is the way I would describe last weeks’ improvisation session. This thread was perhaps seeded in the late email I received (on the Thursday morning) that established this forum slot would indeed be used to play with your group. As a result I did not have my laptop with me, and could not perform the way I normally do. However, the email is not all that can be blamed; their are certain members of my group who are still deciding which method they want to use to create sound for the effort- even a week after the performance?!?! This disorganisation led to an atrocious sound and on my part a headache.

With the loss of my beat-box laptop, I decided to instead play the electronic drum kit, using the little drum skills that I have salvaged from drum lessons I took late last millennium. For some time at least I tried to keep my playing simple, just so that everyone might stay in some sort of time. However the amplification of the kit was not placed near me, and I my playing was dwarfed over the G5 which basically surfed different samples of drums and who knows what else, while everyone attempted to play. When I say surfed, I do not denote any sort of Ableton Live-esk real time seamless integration of samples, I mean someone opening sound files when they like while people attempt to create music. Here I make an example of the sound-source responsible for giving me a head-ache, but might I add this was not the only contributor apparently ‘in their own little world.’ Sometimes I feel like the few in the group who do in fact try to collaberate with others, and ‘do their homework’ so to speak, have pretty much given up. And who would blame them? Who would want to play in a three-piece band with a few soloing anomalies, when everyone could just solo?

If this week will be the same session of playing with your group (with no email as yet to confirm nor deny), I hope that things could be improved via the following:
- less sound
- stable, repetitive rhythm section
- synthesizer’s (if played during that particular week / jam) placed on a quieter and more ambient (less tonal) setting
- levels checked, then maintained
- no mish-mash of people jamming and others working out which synth / electro kit patch, drum sample etc. to use
- everyone commence the ’jam’ at the around the same time
- decided scale / mode
- one main melodic cetre / voice at a time

AudioArts - Spectral Water: week 10.

audio arts - week 9 - tone wheel

week NINe - creative computing

Click on the image below to hear Will & Luke using the Open Sound Control to manipulate a Plogue patch running on my computer, which I'm controlling with the JV-30 keyboard. The music I'm playing is 'Right In Two' by Tool. Luke is manipulating the harmonics with the menu shown, while similarly Will is using the flanger shown. We call it 'Will & Luke slamming my bar' - a gay time was had by all.

On Thursday DJ TR!P spoke in to the forum class about his understanding and application of improvisation. What I found interesting about his presentation was that his situation is a little ‘closer to home’ for me, compared to Dr. Chandrakant Sardeshmukh’s presentation for example. His public speaking ability was not that great, but that did not get in the way of him ultimately being able to get his message across, and I feel that those who payed careful attention to what he had to say were rewarded. He spoke extensively about collaboration, and gave me a few ideas to try when it came to performing with him.

Being an Adelaide based musician, I was really interested to get an understanding of TR!P’s career and how everything is working out for him and music around my city. I still have not decided whether I would be content with a career such as his, but he certainly has given me plenty to think about. There is an appeal in working in bars and clubs, having a job like that, but at the same time, I cannot see there being too much money in it. Perhaps work like this would be good to do while your still young, in your 20’s or around that mark. However if you ever wanted to start a family or business or buy a car or anything like that, well I think you might have to reconsider your line of work. Plenty of thinking to be done.

Accompanying TR!P was a CD turntable, something I have heard about but never scene in the flesh before. If I ever were to consider using a turntable (it is very possible) I would defiantly go for one of these- simply before you can burn a CD with your own material on, rather than having to recycle old music as with a turntable. The rest TR!P’s arsenal: a sampler, a fader/mixing desk, a game boy and of coarse a laptop running Windows. He, like so many of his kin, used Fruity Loops from his laptop.

The actual performance went really well from what I could tell. The audience seemed very pleased with what we produced- this is the main thing I guess. The only thing that I am a little concerned with, is that people might not have been able to distinguish between what was coming from my laptop and TR!Ps’. Apart from that it was a reasonably deep performance and a nice environment for everyone to jam in. As always, Dave’s guitar lines were tasteful while still being over-the-top awesome- his ability to improvise on his solo instrument was surely freer than mine or probably anyone else. I certainly envy his skill with improvisation. Nevertheless the rest of the group had their moments, and it pulled together well.

One other thing that I though about in the performance was the how TR!P and I had to agree on a tempo before each song. We verbally told each other the tempo then manually set it from our computer. However, if he were using a Mac, and if Live and Fruity Loops supported OSC (OpenSoundControl) we perhaps would not have to discuss the tempo, but rather just have them synced. Also we could have then changed the tempo if we so desired and still been on exactly the same page. All this in the future I guess.

Bibliography

Hopprich, Tyson. “Improvisation." Workshop presented at EMU Space, 5th Floor, Schultz Building, University of Adelaide. 5/10/06.