SOUNDSCAPE

I just began "The SoundScape :: Our Sonic Environment and the Tuning of the the World" by R. Murray Schafer. This is a really interesting book with very compelling observations on how one might hear the world. The underlying notion to me seems to imply listening as something more active, less passive. So I thought it would be a nice idea to put the glossary terms here in order that they might be considered.

ACOUSTIC DESIGN :: A new interdiscipline requiring the talents of scientists, social scientists and artists (particularly musicians), acoustic design attempts to discover principles by which the aesthetic quality if the acoustic environment or SOUNDSCAPE may be improved. In order to do this it is necessary to conceive of the soundscape as a huge musical composition, ceaselessly evolving about us, and to ask how its orchestration and forms may be improved to bring about a richness and diversity of effects which, nevertheless, should never be destructive of human health or welfare. The principles of acoustic design may thus include the elimination or restriction of certain sounds (noise abatement), the testing of new sounds before they are released indiscriminately into the environment, but also the preservation of sounds to create attractive and stimulating acoustic environments for the future. Acoustic design may also include the composition of model environments, and in this respect it is contiguous with contemporary musical composition, Compare: ACOUSTIC ECOLOGY

ACOUSTIC ECOLOGY :: Ecology is the study of the relationship between living organisms and their environment, Acoustic ecology is thus the study of the effects of the acoustic environment or SOUNDSCAPE on the physical responses or behavioral characteristics of creatures living within it. Its particular aim is to draw attention to imbalances which may have unhealthy or inimical effects. Compare :: ACOUSTIC DESIGN

ACOUSTIC SPACE :: The profile of a sound over the landscape. The acoustic space of any sound is that area over which it may be heard before it drops below the ambient sound level.

AURAL SPACE :: The space on any graph which results from a plotting of the various dimensions of sound against one another. For convenience in reading usually only two dimensions are plotted at once. Thus time may be plotted against frequency, frequency against amplitude or amplitude against time. Aural space is this merely a notational convention and should not be confused with ACOUSTIC SPACE, which is an expression of the profile of a sound over the landscape.

CLAIRAUDIENCE :: Literally, clear hearing. The way I use the term there is nothing mystical about it; it simply refers to exceptional hearing ability, particularly with regard to environmental sound. Hearing ability may be trained to the clairaudient state by means of EAR CLEANING exercises.

EAR CLEANING :: A systematic program for training the ears to listen more discriminatingly to sounds. particularly those of the environment. A set of such exercises is given in my book Ear Cleaning

EARWITNESS:: One who testifies or can testify to what he or she has heard.

HI-FI :: Abbreviation for high fidelity, that is, a favorable signal-to-noise ratio. The most general use of the term is in electroacoustics. Applied to soundscape studies a hi-fi environment is one in which sounds may be heard clearly without crowding or masking. Compare : LO-FI.

KEYNOTE SOUND :: In music, keynote identifies the key or tonality of a particular composition. It provides the fundamental tone around which the composition may modulate but from which other tonalities take on a special relationship. In soundscape studies, keynote sounds are those which are heard by a particular society continuously or frequently enough to form a background against which other sounds are perceiver. Examples might be the sound of the sea for a maritime community or the sound of the internal combustion engine in the modern city. Often keynote sounds are not consciously perceived, but they act as conditioning agents in the perception of other sound signals. They have accordingly been likened to the ground in figure-ground grouping of visual perception. Compare : SOUND SIGNAL.

LO FI :: Abbreviation for low fidelity, that is, an unfavorable signal-to-noise ratio. Applied to soundscape studies a lo-fi environment is one in which signals are overcrowded, resulting in masking or lack of clarity. Compare : HI-FI.

MOOZAK (MOOZE, etc.) :: Term applying to all kinds of schizophonic musical drool, especially in public spaces. Not to be confused with the brand product Muzak.

MORPHOLOGY :: The study of forms and structures. Originally employed in biology, it was later (by 1869) employed in philology to refer to patterns of inflection and word formation. Applied to soundscape studies it refers to changes in groups of sounds with similar forms or functions when arbitrarily arranged in temporal or spatial formations. Examples of acoustic morphology might be a study of the historical evolution of foghorns, or a geographical comparison of methods of telegraphy (alphorn, jungle drums, etc.).

NOISE :: Etymologically the word can be traced back to the Old French (noyse) and to the eleventh-century Provencal (noysa, nosa, nausa), but its origin is uncertain. It has a variety of meanings and shadings of meaning, the most important of which are the following:

1.Unwanted sound. The Oxford English Dictionary contains references to noise as unwanted sound dating back as far as 1225.
2.Unmusical sound. The nineteenth-century physicist Herman Helmholtz employed the expression noise to describe sound composed of nonperiodic vibrations (the rustling of leaves), by comparison with musical sounds which consist of periodic vibrations. Noise is still used in this sense in expressions such as white noise and Gaussian noise.
3. Any loud sound. In general usage today, noise often refers to particularly loud sounds. In this sense a noise abatement by-law prohibits certain loud sounds or establishes their permissible limits in decibels.
4. Disturbance in any signaling system. In electronics and engineering, noise refers to any disturbances which do not represent part of the signal, such as static on a telephone or snow on a television screen.

The most satisfactory definition of noise for general usage is still "unwanted sound." This makes noise a subjective term. One man's music may be another man's noise. Bit it holds ope the possibility that in a given society there will be more agreement than disagreement as to which sounds constitute unwanted interruptions. It should be noted that each language preserves unique nuances of meaning for words representing noise. Thus in French one speaks of the bruit of the waves. Compare to SACRED NOISE.

SACRED NOISE :: Any prodigious sound (noise) which is exempt from social prosecution. Originally Sacred Noise referred to natural phenomena such as thunder, volcanic eruptions, storms etc., as these were believed to represent divine combats or divine displeasure with man. By analogy the expression may be extended to social noises which, at least during certain periods, have escaped the attention of noise abatement legislators, e.g., church bells, industrial noise, amplified pop music, et.c

SCHIZOPHONIA :: (Greek: schizo = split and phone = voice, sound): I first employed this term in The New Soundscape to refer to the split between an original sound and its electroacoustic reproduction. Original sounds are tied to the mechanisms that produce them. Electroacoustically reproduced sounds are copies and they may be restated at other times or places. I employ this "nervous" word in order to dramatize the aberrational effect of this twentieth-century development.

SONIFEROUS GARDEN :: A garden, and by analogy any place, of acoustic delights. This may be a natural soundscape, or one submitted to the principles of ACOUSTIC DESIGN. The soniferous garden may also include as one of its principle attractions a Temple of Silence for meditation.

SONOGRAPHY :: The art of soundscape notation. It may include customary methods of notation such as the sonogram or sound level recording, but beyond these it will also seek to register the geographic distribution of SOUND EVENTS. Various techniques of aerial sonography are employed, for instance, the isobel contour map.

SONOLOGICAL COMPETENCE :: The implicit knowledge which permits the comprehension of sound formations. The term has been borrowed from Otto Laske. Sonological competence unites impression with cognitions. It is possible that just as sonological competence varies from individual to individual, it may also vary from culture to culture, or at least may be developed differently in different cultures. Sonological competence may be assisted by EAR CLEANING exercises. See O. Laske, "Musical Acoustics (Sonology): A Questionable Science Reconsidered," Numus-West, Seattle, No. 6, 1974; "Toward a Theory of Musical Cognition," Interface, Amsterdam, Vol. 4, No.2, Winter, 1975, interalia

SOUND EVENT :: Dictionary definition of event: "something that occurs in a certain place during a particular interval of time." This suggests that the event is not abstractable from the time-and-space continuum which give it its definition. The sound event, like the SOUND OBJECT, is defined by the human ear as the smallest self-contained particle of a SOUNDSCAPE. It differs from the sound object in that the latter is an abstract acoustical object for study, while the sound event is a symbolic, semantic or structual object for study, and is therefore a nonabstractable point of reference, related to a whole of greater magnitude than itself.

SOUNDMARK :: The term is derived from landmark to refer to a community sound which is unique and possesses qualities which make it specially regarded or noticed by the people in that community.

SOUND OBJECT :: Pierre Schaffer, the inventor of this term (l'objet sonore), describes it as an acoustical "object for human perception and not a mathematical or electro-acoustical object for synthesis." The sound object is then defined by the human ear as the smallest self-contained particle of a SOUNDSCAPE, and is analyzable by the characteristics of its envelope. Though the sound object may be referential (i.e., a bell, a drum, etc.), it is to be considered primarily as a phenomenological sound formation, independently of its referential qualities as a sound event. Compare : SOUND EVENT.

SOUNDSCAPE :: The sonic environment. Technically, any portion of the sonic environment regarded as a field for study. The term may refer to actual environments, or to abstract constructions such as musical compositions and tape montages, particularly when considered as an environment.

SOUND SIGNAL :: Any sound to which the attention is particularly directed. In soundscape studies sound signals are contrasted by KEYNOTE SOUNDS, in much the same way as figure and ground are contrasted in visual perception.

WORLD SOUNDSCAPE PROJECT :: A project headquartered at the Sonic Research Studioof the Communications Department, Simon Fraser University, British Columbia, Canada, devoted to the comparative study of the world SOUNDSCAPE. The Project came into existence in 1971, and since that time a number of national and international research studies have been conducted, dealing with aural perception, sound symbolism, noise pollution, etc.,. all of which have attempted to unite the arts and sciences of sound studies in preparation for the development of interdiscipline of ACOUSTIC DESIGN.

a little get away

It is not often that Christine and I get the chance to go away and relax together. More and more, life seems to be filled with deadlines, questions and requirements. But... we got a chance to sneak away for a weekend at sea recently and it was amazing. While I would have preferred to have sailed the boat as opposed to motor out to Santa Cruz island, the wind is as the wind is. Once there, we simply relaxed, went kayaking, and ate lots of food. While kayaking we discovered all of the secret hiding places of the mussels, the star fish and of the seals. The seals spent a great deal o time following us around, I would assume they were interested in food not companionship. Still, fun was had by all.

Birtwistle

I was just reading the wikipedia entry for Harrison Birtwistle, who I actually met in 2003. I came across this interesting notion in the second paragraph (if it is true great, if not all the same it is an interesting notion) and I quote (that which seems to be a paraphrase)

His favourite image for explaining how his pieces work is to compare them to taking a walk through a town—especially the sort of small town more common in continental Europe than Great Britain. Such a walk might start in the town square. Having explored its main features, we would set off down one of the side streets. As the walk continues, we might glimpse the town square down different streets, sometime a long way off, other times quite close. We may never return to the square in the rest of the walk or we may visit a new part of it that was not explored initially. Birtwistle suggests that this experience is akin to what he does in the music. His image conveys the way that a core musical idea is altered, varied and distorted as the piece of music progresses. The core music forms a reference point to which everything else is directed, even when we are walking in a completely different direction. Sometimes we will be less aware that it is the same musical material we are hearing; sometimes we may have been listening for a while before realising that we have heard this music before (just as one might have been looking up the street before realising that it is the town square that can be glimpsed through the traffic). He is not, therefore, suggesting that we imagine this walk through the town as a literal explanation of what is happening in the music; he does not 'recreate' the effect in the music (as Charles Ives does in some of his orchestral pieces).

What I like is this notion that the listener holds on to the initial material in some fashion and then experiences the rest of the piece in relation to it. This works very well if the initial material is very striking, maybe not as well if that material is not. What I wonder about is the ability of the listener to carry that memory of that material forward. Is this always possible? This model works intuitively well for music that has a strong motive or theme which is then developed through out the piece and re juxtaposed as the piece progresses. Yet this model does not account for other musics (say that of a minimalist texture that evolves through the unfolding of a process). But, this definition is not setting out to explain all musics, rather it is set out to explain one persons music. Still I feel the need to follow out tangents of logic.

This mental model of a composition does do a great job of removing the strict linearity of time through the notion of moving away but still often in contact with the initial material, ie. looking back on the square having gone elsewhere. Clearly the listener is moving through time, but the time is understood to be within a limited zone, the length of the composition.

One thing I really love about this whole description is that it reminds me a description of sound the Marcus Novak once gave. He was trying to get us to understand morphology and he described the sound of a loud crowd that was nearly the entirety of a cities population gathered in one place emanating thorough the city streets as he rushed to get there. As the sound emanated portions of the spectrum were attenuated and pronounced depending on the material that it came in contact with. When it finally reached him, the sound was the result of it's journey and of it's source. Fused together, a new and rich sound emerged. This notion of the sound being changed by it's journey in conjunction with Birtwistles notion of looking back on the city center from various vantage points is quite poetic.

virtuosity

I was speaking with my teacher Clarence Barlow last week and he was telling me about how he used to work with punch cards to produce music. This is nothing remarkable in itself, many early electronic composers can attest to these barbaric beginnings of electronic music. What stuck out to me in our conversation was how he described the sound of a room full of people punching cards. He described the sound of this setting and how marvelous it is simply as a sound environment. I got to thinking about this sound, something I will never encounter in my life. It occurred to me that here you had a room of virtuosic card punchers who will never be assembled and practiced in this fashion again, as there is no need for this approach anymore. One could assemble a room full of people to simulate this, but they would lack the virtuosity that results from years of practice. So, another sound of the past goes undocumented and disappears quietly into the recesses of non existence.

more sailing and concerts

As if 25 mph was not enough last weekend, there was a gale warning out this past weekend and I went out for a sail. Now, I should note that I was with Doug, who took the 104 class with me and we had a good idea of what we were doing, so it wasn't suicide, yet 45mph winds made for quite an amazing and powerful ride.

me at the helm, Santa Barbara and lovely weather in the background.

Doug at the helm.

This was a bit of a get away after a very busy week (it also was practice for this upcoming weekend). The concerts last week were fabulous. On Thursday night 7 took place and it came off quite well. My piece did not work, but I was not heart broken as I felt the length the concert was where I wanted and I had presented it once before last year (an older version, but still, the same basic piece).

Laura Emmery playing James Orshers one note piano piece that I arranged.

Then on Friday, Lungen happened. This was a pretty amazing night. I was quite happy with the sound and received a lot of positive feedback on the project. Most of all it was fun to work with professionals who are just as dedicated as I am to making a really fabulous production. It was a really a great experience. There will be a DVD sometime in December or January.


The entire crew onstage post Lungen. That is Bianca and myself, center-stage.

Now time to get ready for the CREATE concert this Thursday night. I will premiere and new piece, as will Yutaka Makino, Curtis Roads and Horacio Vaggione and there will be a live performance by Kafffe Matthews. This will be an amazing night.

sailing Santa Cruz Island

at the helm, holding down 6.5 knots! What fun


Calafia, our 42 foot Catalina at anchor in Prisoners Cove.

I completed the ASA Coastal Crusing 104 Bareboat chartering class this past weekend by sailing to Santa Cruz Island. It was aa great sail with winds gusting 25-30 knots on the way back! What a ride, the boat flying along at 7 knots and bouncing about. We (our instructor captain Rob, myself, Doug and Wena) went by several amazing places learning that Tales of a Sea Captains Wife is based on sailing in this area. Can't wait to get the guide to crusing in this area and read up a bit more.

Take in the AM while anchored.

coming out of painted cave, there are a family of SeaLions that live in there and they sound amazing! I would never drive a sailboat in there, it was great to have captain Rob along to make it happen.

7 a concert

One week from today, Thursday November 6 2008 is the first UCSB composers concert of the year. The start time is 8:06.

7 :: a concert

Geiringer Hall
a UCSB student composers concert
10:6:08
8:06 PM

Free to an open public

brought to you by people who care about what you hear

Inacu Dumitrescu

A nice quote from an interview with Inacu Dumitrescu

But sound logic is intrinsic. The laws of construction come from the interior, from the initial sound material. Therefore I must admit the irrational in music... Hence the mystery, the interest...

waveforms

I have decided to devote all of my time to the art of composing (notes captain obvious). None the less, here I am, 3 weeks into writing every day and I am thrilled to note that I still spend a good 10-12 hours a day organizing sounds. This is quite fabulous and I am starting to create things that are in touch with my imagination.

Take a Listen

Lungen

Among my other projects, I am currently focused on the creation of the electronic sound component of Lungen. Created and organized by Bianca Brigidi & Alejandro Casazi, this project was awarded the Visual, Performing and Media Arts Award by the Interdisciplinary Humanities Center, University of California, Santa Barbara. The main objective is to connect audience and presentation based on the premise that one simple event ha[[ens with every human being. This element is the breathing. The performance will occur

November 7th, @ seven PM, the year 2008
in the
Multicultural Center @ UC Santa Barbara

The structure of this performance is a combination of the pacing and and movement of the dancer, whose movement will be traced on a large piece of paper by the artist Alejandro Casazi, following and accentuating the time of each breath and the entire performance. The sound component is designed to generate the larger temporal structure and the moment to moment of the performance will be the result of the breathing of the dancer (as she dances each individual breath).

Here is a link to a more complete description.

Wade Davis

I was watching this truly remarkable video of Wade Davis the other day when I was reminded of ideals and ideas that had been of far greater importance in my life. This video is a great means of opening the ethnological question and and even better reminder of the power and importance of story telling.

2008 summer recap

Several major ideas were clarified in my mind this past summer. Perched on the verge of another academic season and gazing across the years I am struck by the profundity and simplicity of my realizations.

First and foremost I realized that any and all compositions that I have created in the past are monophonic. It occurred to me while listening to a piece I was working on and directly after a conversation with Natasha Barrett. I tend to think monophonicaly (single mindedness some might argue). In Canada (at Orford) I spent one night listening to every piece that I had ever written and oddly enough, I began to recognize that they were all solo violin pieces. By this I mean that the sound world, gestural language and the density of activity is the result of thinking as a violinist. This is my box as it were/is and knowing that (almost a month later) I am coming to the realization that there may be other ways of writing and hearing, but day in and day out, I stand in front of the proverbial mirror and there is one.

I have found an understanding of my artistic training. I spent a great deal of time contemplating how one could translate the way in which I understand photography into sound. Soon I found that I could no longer focus on this idea and I let it pass, some time later it occurred to me that reverb, sound recording and the such is way of approaching sound in the way that I approach light/photography. Photography has never been about the image, but rather how the subject matter reveals the light conditions, this is of course the magic o the moment. I began to notice that this is also what I find so interesting in recording sounds, they reveal a moment (in atmospheric pressure, in sound reflectivity in density of dispersion etc).

At the end of last summer I felt that I was entering the year with a great deal of work accomplished and ready to show off all that I had learned. Contrasting that with now I recognize (and hope that it is true) that I find myself with a greater mental state and less "work" accomplished. Indeed, I need to complete pieces and realize these ideas and notions in the realm of works, but I feel that this is simply inevitable, now that I see what it is that I am and what it is that I know.

Also and not accidentally, I got to see the waterfalls in NYC. A simple and obvious move for someone who was in the city this summer and interested in the arts. But.... there are many of these sorts of events and sights that I have missed over the years, I am only to thrilled that I made it happen (of course the company of good friends also wanting to see such things helps!)

Fun thought patterns...
1
2

post season

home movies

Who knew? There is a home movie day With locations around the globe, Amsterdam, Sheboygan(the spell check thinks I mispelled Sheboygan!!), Tokyo, Berlin and more there is an opportunity for you to share your home movies! What an amazing event. I might just have to dig out "Nate the Great"

For those of you who are unfamiliar with Nate the Great, this was my childhood foray into film making. The plot line revolves around a larger than life cabbage patch kid (Nate) who creates untold destruction and chaos, prompting the US military to call in a single mig. Unfortunately the pilot is a retired Northwest captain who, crashes the mig. Luckily he crashes it into a bridge made out of Constructs, where Nate is currently reeking havoc. (This was co edited/written/produced/directed/and stared in by me, Mark Becker, Tim Jette and Jennifer Jette)

What else can I say? Movies, the stuff fantasies are made of.

Wow

This is quite the music video. The third verse is the one that really does it for me.


And now for Lunch, a football game or a tailgate....



On that theme, but at a slower pace, this is priceless. "You're gonna wanna make me have to eat one"

private lessons in sfo

It is absolutely remarkable to me, the lessons that I learn in private. (then post in this most public of situations, irony intact). We are here in San Francisco for a quiet get away. Unlike most people, we came here for the fog and the cool weather. The person who owns the house where we are staying enthusiastically reported yesterday that we were fortunate to have some of the best weather and sun in months. I felt bad as I did it (to late to catch myself) telling her that coming from Santa Barbara, we were hoping for a bit of fog and such. There is something very comforting when the weather actually changes or is not 78 and sunny. I suppose it is sort of like having a spouse that abuses you and feeling uneasy when that person is not there to "keep it real". Not a great analogy, but it occurs to me as a component of how the psyche can deal with such a situation.

So last night, the fog came rolling in and most of the evening Christine and I watched in amazement from out perch on the top of a hill as the city was enveloped. Most dramatic and fulfilling was the street lamp directly outside of our window. Being that this is a very steep hill and that we are slightly elevated (although we are living below the people who own the house, which is fabulously reminiscent of Beacon Hill) the street lamp is even with our window. So for the last hour or so I have been watching the fog swirl around the light and then dissipate. I sat down and made some notes about the piece that I am working on with the intention of capturing the fog on film before to long. Then just after I set the camera, line up the shot and make certain all is in place I notice that the street lamp has just gone out (in the moment that I focused on the camera). It is of course disappointing and humorous, especially as the other street lamps are still on and it is only this one that is not.

As I reflect on this event it occurs to me that there was a level of thought involved in this set up and also that there was an expectation that this state of being would continue. Of course, I was soon reminded by the automatic timer in the lamp that this is indeed not the case. The lesson I draw from this is the immediacy that one must apply to artistic work. This bit of footage that I hoped to capture had the potential to be entirely graceful and beautiful (I spent hours watching it after all). Having the awareness of my self, to recognize hours ago that this was worth shooting would have resulted in lots of time to work out a great shot. Now, I am left with a notion of something to keep an eye out for in the hopes that it will reoccur and that I can be ready at that time. Of course this is a very valid and useful situation as well. I often find myself reflecting on the connection between the observations that I make while spending time intimately engaged with nature and artwork that I make far removed from that situation.

None the less, I can't help but notice an opportunity missed that will certainly never present itself exactly as it already has, only in a similar fashion. I am reminded of the flow of energy that surges through me as I know I am riding a wave of creative gesture. Here I sit, bobbing in the proverbial ocean reflecting on the wave that has just gone by and recognizing that I could have had a great ride had I given over to the flow and caught that wave.

Oh and private lessons. Anyone who has studied music has most likely taken private lessons and of course this is grammatically correct and proper usage of private. None the less, can private lessons occur with other people? Or must one be alone incur the privacy that presents lessons? I am reminded of what a former teacher of mine (Larry Scripp) pointed out to me about music education (he has done a great deal of work in the field of music education) music education happens predominantly alone. You spend one hour a week with a private instructor, maybe some ensemble work and then, there you are, alone in a practice room with your instrument and you strive to make it sound. Ultimately, you teach yourself your instrument and the guidance that you receive from others relates more to a tradition of interpretation of musical notation. (I paraphrase)

upcoming NYC concerts

I will be in NYC next week for 2 concerts.

1. Sept 6, 7:30 @ Miller Recital Hall(Manhattan School of Music) :: Mark Broschinsky will perform Christopher's susone for trombone and electronics. NOTE: This is not at Columbia's Miller Hall, it is at Manhattan School of Music.

2. Sept 4, 8pm @ Bloomingdale School of Music NOT Roy Aria as earlier reported :: A live improv set on laptop (with various acoustic instruments) as a member of Grocery Store Sushi.
Bloomingdale School of Music is located at 323 West 108th Street · New York, NY 10025

Those are all dates that occur in two thousand and eight, the year of our lord.

Here are the flyers

Brahms

This has some fabulous assimilation undertones and is really a special American view of the idea of art and "the power of the arts".

orford

It has been an intense 2 weeks of work. Here is a sound portrait of Orford Canada.

making way

Twelve hours of work, 2 max patches,1 SuperCollider patch and I have an extended version of PaperWorks. I am happy with the progress, but there is a great deal more to be done and it will take some time. But in contrast to Arduous (see the player on the side bar) this piece will not suck because I didn't use good monitors. No, I have been at school working with the Event 20/20's. I don't use the really good ones until I get it into decent shape, then master tweaking. Here is a bounce of the latest.

Also, I burned all the Wladorf Statlir Cd's so not it can actually be sold! I will put up the info and a paypal address, so the masses can indulge.

In CA news, I hear that Keith Kirchoff will be moving to LA in Sept (his wife Erica got a gig with the LA opera) and Yutaka will be back for the year working as the CREATE shop keeper. Should be a great year. Especially if I learn to program C++ before the academic season begins.

continued sounding

Today resulted even more work on the PaperWorks as I call them in my mind. These pieces (or piece?) are all created from sounds of paper being handled, torn and crumpled. I made the recordings then segmented them and compiled my segmented and processed sounds with Irin. (Thank you for a great program Carlos). After that I mastered each of the four tracks in Logic. Each of these pieces took me about ten hours or so.
Pw1
Pw2

progress happens

In less than 2 weeks I will be in Montreal for the Orford Academy's Sound Art workshop. It is exciting to start getting ready for this. I have long been planning that I would make a new electronic piece this summer and write a viola piece. It seems they are both happening currently. I take this as a sign that I am finally relaxed from the school year and staying up until 3 am to make sound experiments is happening again! So it seems that progress is happening. On the downside my studio has turned into a very cluttered space, which makes it appear messy, which is probably not an overstatement, but it is so great to just dig in and MAKE. Here is a snipit (pun intended) of my new electronic piece based on paper sounds (so far atleast). It has long been a plan of mine to make a sound and video piece based on paper, maybe that will happen later. For now, simply some sounds.

And here is a good healthy dose of Midwestern Americana (brought to you by Mark Becker), I thought it best to record the speaker of my cell phone with a contact mic.

And to top that all off, the first album of Wladorf Statlir is done!!! The music is great, the artwork was a challenge, although in the end it worked out pretty well.

Speculative Fiction & Literary Genera's

I just watched this lecture by Neal Stephenson about the notion of literary and indeed cultural genera's. His definition of Geeking out around minute 28 is fabulous as it rings true. Ironically, this truthiness that he speaks of is present, for me, in his definition. But I must argue the notion that the populace's Veging Out is limited to television is conspiculously narrow sighted. In fact, as he points out around minute 30, that the tweaking of statistics to produce a best seller list that does not refelct what is actually selling the best, may be the same sort of morally reductive reasoning applied to speculation. Also, it strikes how the notion of folk wisdom is very similar to the expertise (or maybe is one example of..) geek expertise.


Also, I have to say that I really love this player interface, not very intrusive, besides the annoying logo. But the pop up code and email button is fabulous, no navigating away!

Gap Fire

Yes the sky was that color!

Who knew that living in Goleta would put one in line for the number one CA fire emergency. The Gap Fire seems to have eased up today. After having moved the irreplacable's to a friends place, who is in Santa Barbara which is not threatened, it has been a wait and watch. It is amazing to look out at the hills at night and see the smoke illuminated by what are very large and I am sure hot walls of flames. On the upside, it did point out, as many people knew, that the Independent is the only worthwhile newspaper in town, as they were actually disseminating information, while the voice of the overstuffed, the santa barbara news press (no link available!!) had nothing for people who were not willing to pay. Also, the local radio station KCSB, did a great job of getting the information out, via the radio and phone. Here is a great article on them in the Independent.

A firery line in the distance (about 4 miles away give or take) . This is the view from our neighborhood.


The same view before the sun sets and looking more to the north. All those specs that reflect the light of the flash are ash that has been and is floating in the air.


This is the same view, facing more to the south and with a snippet of the flames. This picture is zoomed into one of the 10-20 odd spots in the first picture.


Here is about half of the line that is scene in the first picture, but during the day.


The edge of the smoke cloud that hangs over Goleta. The sun gets darkened during the day so that it is akin to dusk.


The sun on the edge of the smoke cloud during sun set. While this picture is pretty close, it doesn't represent how amazing the color actually was.

Michel Waisvisz

I was just thinking about the work of Michel Waisvisz and how remarkable it is that he was so dedicated to developing virtuosity on one electronic instrument. In the realm of electronic music there are so many people who spend time jumping around to different means of performance yet Michel saw the value in following one thing through until his end (June 18, 2008). As a composer, this is something that I respect and appreciate.

Tristram Cary, Max Matthews and Bill Fontana

I was reading up on Max Matthews life and came across this discussion of Tristram Cary. It was interesting to listen back to some of the electronic stuff and realize that this was probably some of the first "electronic music" that I heard and also something that I refer to mentally but have never listened to in a focused manner. (You can listen on his website). Oddly, I took the electronic music for granted in Dr Who, yet it is something that I listened to a great deal of. I suppose that reflects a change in my life habits, now I am much more conscientious of what I listen to and when I was younger, there was a greater need for a frame. Possibly there is a lesson here for me the composer...

In reading about Max Matthews it was great to find some information about his work with Radio Baton. I did not know about this, I will have to see if I can uncover some audio recordings. There is some great documentation about the Radio Baton on the CSound page. What I like best those are these photos of Max.
1967 (note the light pen)

1979

1984

1998 (this is the radio baton)


I can only hope that in 40 years there are a great collection of photos like this floating around on the internet of me.

Finally, I began today by looking at and listening to some of the work of Bill Fontana. I liked what I heard, in particular the Millennium Bridge project was very interesting. I had been thinking about what to do with the large space that is the main hall at the Tate and I like his solution. I think I would take a different approach, yet I find this approach quite poetic. I like the idea of wavefield synthesis that one can move into in order to experience it, then step back and hear the ambient sounds of the space combine with the quiet level sounds of the sound from the wfs material. As far as subject matter, I could imagine using the original machinery (or facsimiles thereof) as sound sources, just as Fontana uses the bridge. The other piece that I was strongly attracted to by Fontana was the Lyon streetcar sounds. I spent a long time thinking about this and listened to it several times. It reminded me of an idea that I had to use the T in Boston for a piece, but this work was very different. What I fixated on was how pleasing it was to have the suggestion of direction/narrative in going from one station to the next on the train. The narrative is arbitrary in a sense, yet it is simple and direct. This appealed to me and I thought for a long while how this instantly made the piece more accessible, without compromising the sounds. (I feel that often sounds are compromised in order to make the accessible and this simply left them intact and used visual material suggest a narrative). This also reminded me of my player piano piece, mysterioso, which I think works better when I show the Max Patch that I built for it, as a grouping of the pattern is visually obvious and this lends seems to make the piece more successful in my mind.

I have somehow fixated recently on the importance of visual and auditory data in "music." It occurs to me that some things are very simply understood visually and other auditorally. There is often a complaint that laptop performances do not have enough visual stimulation. It seems to me that artists (and many do) can very precisely communicate with visual material what sounds is ill equipped to illustrate. The counterpoint when this is done well is fabulous.

mysterioso

I organized a player piano concert at the end of this year. Luke Taylor was kind enough to post this video of my piece from that concert. It is also worth noting that Lukes piece made the player piano blow a fuse and he was the one who figured it out and fixed it. Good show LTT!


A better audio recording is here.

It seems that NME also reported on this lovely piece of music.

I will upload the updated version of this piece when I finish it.

authentic

Authentic experience. As Americans we are very excited by the idea of authenticity, possibly because capitalism yields so many cheaters that we are thrilled to find an authentic version. But cynicism aside, I turn to this idea because it seems to be as close as I can come to answer to the question that I have the worst answer for, "What kind of music do you write?" I generally will answer that it is good or that it is chamber music and solo music that combines with my interest in electronic music. But none of this gets at why or what kind of experience I try to create. In the best of situations, my music leads to an authentic experience.

I have been thinking about this because I just recalled that when in Seattle I went to the "original" Starbucks. I thought about what that location means now and what it must have been like before. Now it is a wooden room with piles of burlap bags arranged meticulously and rows and rows of merchandise and long lines of tourists (on my last visit 75% Asian) waiting to get an authentic Starbucks experience. Then I began to imagine what it might have been, first opening years ago, when the store would open early, long before the tourists arrived at Pike Place market, in order to fuel the workforce of merchants selling what they can to make their way. I started to think about Pike Place Market, towards the end and beginning of the day, when the crowds thinned out and the vendors packed up and were bantering among themselves about how they had done that day (either making enough or not). The conversation I would imagine was not so concerned with the image of authenticity that they were creating for the Pike Place Market place, but rather, had they made enough money and how they were making it through life. In times of poor sales complaints and in times of prosperity, celebration. This life of no health insurance, no retirement, no savings and plans simply to find a way to make it big is common to many people in many places. Many of these places are what are visited by tourists, who are hoping to find an authentic experience. The irony of course is that they will never have an authentic experience in such a situation, because they are not part of the fabric and are certainly not witness to the reality. They are simply a means of turning a quick buck so as to continue existing and when striking it big, celebration of a decadent and rejoicing nature. In a life sheltered from starvation and the real struggle to survive, not thrive! authentic experience that is sought in such places will never be discovered.

Turning back to my own work, I think of the concert that I organized on the occasion of my graduation from NEC. This evening was a concert combined with a dinner party. This certainly did not bring the participants any closer to the authenticity of struggling for daily bread, but rather, it brought then closer to what Socrates calls the absolute form of Beauty (I am just finishing The Last Days of Socrates). This was the right event for the people involved at that time, depending on the time and the people, the event changes. But, it is my hope that I am able to create meaningful moments in peoples lives, something that they will carry with them for a long time as a reminder of what an amazing and varied universe this is. It strikes me that the question of authenticity is not a matter of place or context, but rather of an ability to see. Seeing the world around oneself as honestly and practically as possible. After all, it is simply is and everything else is an invention of our imagination.

61 minutes

I woke up early this morning.

I began listening to music and glanced at the clock, the time was 6:06.

I listened to many different things and reflected on the year a bit.

Then I felt that I had listened to enough.

I turned off the music and glanced at the clock, the time was 7:07.

I feel imemnsly pleased with this occurance.




(note: I just ran the spell check and it seems that the only thing that I spelled correctly was "I" and the numerical listing of the times. Apprently when you are in a foreign country such as the Neatherlands, google recognizes that and adjusts.)

Such simple and elegant pleasures.

first

The sound for this was created in SuperCollider and the visual was created in Quartz Composer. The granulated voice is from a recording of Allutiq phrases and the film is from the Monterey Aquarium. For me, these materials seemed to fit together as they both strive to move forward, yet are meditative and rooted in being present in the now.

Bear

I remember seeing a moose on campus at the University of Alaska, in fact I took a picture of it and posted it here. Now there is a bear on campus here in in SB and the reaction is a little different. This is an email I received and above is the poster that was affixed to the stucco of my hut.

Behalf Of UCSB Announcement
Sent: Tuesday, June 03, 2008 3:48 PM
To: ucsb Announcement
Subject: Bear Spotted on Campus!


****PLEASE GIVE WIDEST DISTRIBUTION****

June 3, 2008

To: The Campus Community

Fr: Vice Chancellor Donna Carpenter

Re: Bear Spotted on Campus

As reported on KEYT News and in the Santa Barbara News Press, a bear has been spotted several times on campus the past four days. The bear is a California small, black bear weighing approximately 200 pounds. It has been spotted near the Santa Barbara Airport fence line along Mesa Road and near Harder Stadium.

UCSB Police officers and State Fish and Game agents are searching for the bear. If spotted, please do not approach the bear but call UCSB Police at 911.

Thank you.

Actually, it might be a good idea to keep children supervised even when there is no bear present.

Puzzeling

The world is a place of infinite puzzle pieces. The artist simply connects them and invents links, with resolution and grace. Possibility exists.

Hildegard vonPhilidelphia

Blurry, but I love the color and this is what I was staring at during a concert played by David Holzman.



Ok, Hildegard von Bingen in Phili is not really a compelling pun, but I was in Philadelphia for the International Hildegard von Bingen Societies 25th Anniversary Conference where I presented a paper. The first paper that I have presented at a conference at that! The paper was titled Art is in the Ear of the Beholder and I will post the current version below. There are revisions that I would like to make, especially on how I deal with the Critical Band, which is not false, but doesn't account for the entire truth. The paper was well received and it was great to debate it with my former teacher and mentor, Bob Cogan. My presentation of the paper also went well, it felt good to me and I confirmed with others that indeed I did a good job. It was great to connect with old (and new) friends from NEC. There was a wonderful evening spent at a tavern after the conference. While there I got to catch up with the composer Sivan Elder, who will start her studies in California next year, it appears that I am not the only one leaving NEC/BOS for the west coast. I saw the Bell and some of the sites, I really enjoyed the city (contrary to all that I have heard about it.)
!!!POZZI!!!

Bob Cogan, Michael Gardner (composer, theorist) & some woman who is very spirited

Also, while I was there I found out that I will be attending the Orford Academy Summer Workshop on Sound Art. I am really excited as this will afford me a chance to see Montreal, which I have heard really good things about and I will get to work with Natasha Barrett.

Finally, I got it in the mail today! My official Red Sox Nation Membership Card. Now I am a card carrying member. It also came with a sticker and I can listen to any MLB game, so that is nice too.

As if all of that wasn't enough, Christine graduates this weekend and then we are going on a celebratory trip to Europe. I can't believe that she will be board certified in a week. All I can say is that she is an amazing woman.


Art is In the EAR of the Beholder