Construction and Deconstruction

This week we've been at the Diploma and Degree Forum. I must admit that I haven't really understood what was all about... Finding a formula for the most appealing song? Commenting many different people's ways of composing?
..Involuntarily, my "translation connections" went for a big nap!

By my side, I'm working always on samples...

and on the serial composition.
I want to record real instruments for it, because I'm definitely interested in learning as much as possible on recording techniques; than I find the "recording act" a necessary balance for such an intellectual exercise.

***Well, the real problem is that I haven't written any serial piece: it sounds ridiculously tonal to be called serial!
I spent quite a while looking for my series: building up conceptual transpositions, trying with calculations, parallelisms, even Cartesian Plan projections (...don't smoke too much!), but as soon as I was playing them, they were empty somehow. So, I resigned to my melodic nature and I believe it's all about "Bitonal-Serialism" (?)
The piece tells the story of BiTON 's inner dialog during a rought promenade......................many many thanks to Felicity (Cello) and Bryan (Vib)!! ***

On line Forums

Some links eventually helpful for musicians "in career":
- soundclick.com
- earthsound
- payapal
- audagest
- cdbaby.net
(I'll put links later, otherwise I smash my internet quota for the one hundred million time againGrrrrrr(.
**
Referring to the subject of expansion in digital communication, I would like to talk about an indie webradio based in Toulouse: Radio Ombilikal (part of it is in French but there's some English too). These guys are doing a gorgeous thing in my opinion: broadcasting video-live dj performance or any "any cultural event" generated in private houses or parties often very distant from each other (members are from UK, France, Spain, Siberia etc.).
In fact the main problem they're facing to survive is that French intellectual right authority apparently reward them for all hours of life music but make them pay for all playback hours (and incrisingly with number of web visitors); they're looking for 24h/24 life gigs so, if you're in D&B, Jungle, Breakbeat...go to have a look!
**
Now I guess is really time to put my mind together. I feel the need to write down my ideas in order stop them sprawling and concentrate on creation.
- Audio main: flashlight kaleidoscope in smooth soundscape
- Audio class: GoodmorningAdelaide: birds on guitar study
- Midi main: music for film (?)
- Midi class: ... squared rhythm horror..!
- Serialism: for piano (or synth)-vibraphone-harp (or cello) and 12 concrete sounds
- Forum presentation: Sound's Phases
- History presentation: Mary Lou Williams
- Life Performance: sound diffusion; I would like to use also some of those interesting objects in Studio 5 (like Theremin or Oscilloscope...) or the room interaction technique, we talked about last forum, done manually, but with harmonica instead of voice or switching instruments with someone, any volunteer?
...mmmh still pretty fuzzy but enthusiast about all this and anyway I'm at "lights and stage" so let me know when your project is done...we'll make a beautiful shape for it!

EMU reportage

This short film rise from an attempt of showing the environment at the Electronic Music Unit of Adelaide University.
The subject for the interviews is really broad but it was fun to ask! the outcome of the video is just a bit naif but still interesting at my eyes...
The music was composted by Vinny in collaboration with me. The matter are live recordings, samples and patches generated in SC.

iLL DiOTiC FaYRa SPACe

I admit that some sort of intolerance impulse pervaded me when in response to "So what?" the answer was "A Title", but in fact... "You can't explain anything" , he says.
Randomness might be the only one inner sense of this space.
. .
^ but I still believe it would have been more fun throwing in air pieces of papers !

Gender in Music Technology: the lack of female interest

Well, I guess I’m still a little lost with the class planning... probably fate wanted me to be there.
**
The incontrovertible evidence supported a funny and vivid discussion, ending up to a maybe banal but non the less effective: “and eventually who cares?”
Ben, Dug, Emy and Jacob analysed the issue extensively throughout statistics, web supporting corporations (almost revolting in my view), anthropologist and musicologist articles.
Comments were waving from one stereotype to another, characterising both shades of feminists revenge and machistic snobbism.
Some points of contrast came out: “how come that the paradigm of the woman taking care of the household feats a pretty organized attitude, but some statistics demonstrate that apparently females prefers soft-mastering stile to hard-complete-control?”.
I wonder if assumptions like "women are physiologically leaded to humanities" can be considered valid in anyhow and I'd also point out strongly the role of historically uneven access to education and present employment condition.
Anyway all these arguments were occurring while the projection of “Hunter” by Bjork dumbstruck the crowd (thanks Jacob!).
**
The career of another female artist comes to my mind: Laurie Anderson.
One of the central themes in her work is exploring the effects of technology on human interrelationships and communication with a definitely physical approach to computer music.
Here"O Supermen", 1982, the performance that made widely known.

For musical handcrafts freaks, Anderson several electro acoustic devices Anderson invented (I quote “Wikipedia” for their description):
The Tape-bow violin
Created in 1977. It uses recorded magnetic tape in place of the traditional hair in the bow, and a magnetic tape head in the bridge. She can be seen using a later generation of this device in her film, Home of the Brave, during the "Late Show" segment in which she manipulates a sentence recorded by William S. Burroughs.
The Talking stick
The talking stick is a six-foot long, batonlike MIDI controller. It was used in the Moby Dick tour in 1999-2000. She described it in program notes:
“The Talking Stick is a new instrument that I designed in collaboration with a team from Interval Research and Bob Bielecki. It is a wireless instrument that can access and replicate any sound. It works on the principle of granular synthesis. This is the technique of breaking sound into tiny segments, called grains, and then playing them back in different ways. The computer rearranges the sound fragments into continuous strings or random clusters which are played back in overlapping sequences to create new textures. The grains are very short, a few hundredths of a second. Granular synthesis can sound smooth or choppy depending on the size of the grain and the rate at which they’re played. The grains are like film frames. If you slow them down enough you begin to hear them separately”.