eclipses

by jake morris & deanna djuric
image by ben probert

there were some issues with the gain levels going over 0 in the recording bidule (which unfortuanatly doesnt display this) and so this recording is a bit shabby. if you feel upto ignoring those issues, then click the picture and have a listen.

here's the music technology (sound design) minor project. this is the stereo bounce of a work made for 5.1 surround, but it gives you a bit of an idea into what i came up with, so enjoy!

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.

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.

click on the picture for sound

click on the picture for sound

So during this week’s improvisation session I began using Live to play with a drum sample. Yes, no plural here as I have only made one so far. One of the more promising sections of our free-for-all jam was when I used the Three-Band EQ to remove everything but the high-hat from the sample. This both allowed for and seemed to inspire the other improvisers to create appropriate music (remembering our group’s motto: to make music and none of this ambient stuff). However, when I tried using the EQ to solo other parts of the drum beat, such as the kick and snare, the EQ didn’t seem to work as well. This has led me toward the next step in my development of this project- that is to make individual sound files for the kick, snare, high-hat and whatever else. These files can be easily collated in a single ‘scene’ within Live, and that way can have there own effects added to them. Having specific effect added to each part particularly appeals to me due to one main compliant my group made of my sound during the jam- inconsistency of rhythm. It makes sense, I hold a key role in the rhythmic grounding of the project. This failed me during points of the jam when I would dump a new effect such as ‘BeatBox’ onto the drum loop and it would immediately ruin the rhythmic grounding, which the rest of the group relied upon. However, if I were able to drag such an effect onto just the high-hat for example, the total annihilation of this sample would not have such a disastrous effect, as would completely ruined the whole drum sample. Hence, the rest of the group would not have to stop while I quickly switch off/adjust the parameters of the plug-in. Other than this I am slowing learning which plug-in’s sound cool, provide something interesting to improvise with, have bugs and which individual parameters are best to map the XY pane that Live provides. As the weeks progress I intend to narrow in on the particular rhythmic grounding I will offer the rest of the group, who I think will have more apparent avenues for improvisation than me, through the use of melody and so on. Live itself is far from the ideal piece of software, but it is nonetheless really intuitive, easy to use and fun. This use of a vector-driven interface is more than just the ‘gimmick’ it seemed to be when I first looked at the application months ago. Rather, it provides a clever flow to the interface, in a way I find difficult to explain. However, take the use of the F11 shortcut, which allows the application to use the full width of your display or monitor and the way the program resizes in an instant, which I think must owe something the use of vector graphics. This way in which the whole interface flows around and is easily customisable through minimal clicks, is important for is onstage applications. Having had used the program now in a ‘jamming’ situation, I really commend Abelton on the way they have made this program simple and smooth. Never in this ‘tense’ situation did I feel at all lost or confused in the interface that in all honesty, I had only used about five times. And that, my friends, is Live.

Apart from the fact that during my presentation the word ‘um’ seemed to have manifested through my vocabulary beyond all sensibility, I think it went okay. Ben commented that at the end of every sentence the pitch of my voice went up a little, or something, and I certainly appreciate any such critisms because I understand how important presentations like this are in the metropolis of Academia. My great respect for all the music technology students and staff, along with my dream to create great music, made me quite a nervous little camper during my presentation of ‘new surroundings’. Anyway, from the feedback I have received, people did not pick up on this too much, but if you feel otherwise then please let me know via the comment button below.

The other presenters included William, Ben and Timothy Gabbusch. Like everything he is involved with, I could not help but laugh when it came to Ben’s speech. His presentation style was confident, light and humorous while his piece ‘Vocalikov’ was really very good. William’s piece was equally very cool, with a particularly rhythmic ‘glitchy’, ‘buzzy’ sound that caught my attention and is stuck in mind. Timothy’s piece contained a lot of awesome sounds and was quite good, but lacked a feeling of form and structure. I feel this probably owes to his use of analogue techniques in its composition.

Referances

Whittington, Stephen. "Music Technology Workshop." Lecture presented at the Electronic Music Unit, University of Adelaide, South Australia, 24/08/2006.