Posted by Sammy DeVere on April 11, 2011
In Working Progress
Jonty Harrison/Get More
In working progress
Xenakis’
1958 piece Concret PH, where ‘Xenakis recorded the sound of burning charcoal using close miccing and then layering and transposing the recording to make evolving densities and ranges of snaps, crackles and pops’ ( J.Harley, 2011).
Get More
My Task
Inspired from the artists above I decided to create a Scape of water.
Here is my first draft of my water scape:-
Report
In progress
References
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Posted by Sammy DeVere on March 11, 2011
WORKING PROGRESS….
Influences
I have been a large fan of Edgar Allan Poe’s work for years and from previously doing a sound poetry piece I wanted to take this technique further and make it into one of my main projects for this course. The main influences for this task is Paul DeMarinis and Tevor Wishart. These two composers of electronic music have either used voice, transformation, text poetry, recorded speech or used natural sounds in their creations, so they are both appropriate for me to study and adapt from.
Paul DeMerinis
more info coming soon
Trevor Wishart
info coming soon
The Haunted Palace by Edgar Allan Poe
Here is the poem I am going to use for my text speech piece:-
The Haunted Palace by Edgar Allan Poe (1839)
In the greenest of our valleys
By good angels tenanted,
Once a fair and stately palace-
Radiant palace-reared its head.
In the monarch Thought’s dominion-
It stood there!
Never seraph spread a pinion
Over fabric half so fair!
Banners yellow, glorious, golden,
On its roof did float and flow,
(This-all this-was in the olden
Time long ago,)
And every gentle air that dallied,
In that sweet day,
Along the ramparts plumed and pallid,
A winged odor went away.
Wanderers in that happy valley,
Through two luminous windows, saw
Spirits moving musically,
To a lute’s well-tuned law,
Round about a throne where, sitting
(Porphyrogene!)
In state his glory well-befitting,
The ruler of the realm was seen.
And all with pearl and ruby glowing
Was the fair palace door,
Through which came flowing, flowing, flowing,
And sparkling evermore,
A troop of Echoes, whose sweet duty
Was but to sing,
In voices of surpassing beauty,
The wit and wisdom of their king.
But evil things, in robes of sorrow,
Assailed the monarch’s high estate.
(Ah, let us mourn!-for never morrow
Shall dawn upon him desolate!)
And round about his home the glory
That blushed and bloomed,
Is but a dim-remembered story
Of the old time entombed.
And travellers, now, within that valley,
Through the red-litten windows see
Vast forms, that move fantastically
To a discordant melody,
While, like a ghastly rapid river,
Through the pale door
A hideous throng rush out forever
And laugh-but smile no more.
Here is my first draft of the task, For this piece I cut up, time stretched, reversed, multiplied, added echo, reverb, distortion and more.
Report
Report coming soon
References
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Posted by Sammy DeVere on March 11, 2011
Influences for Task Four
Jonty Harrison
Harrison is a popular acousmatic composer, lecturer and professor of composition and electroacoustic music. A famous example of his work would be ‘Klang’(1982). This nine minute piece was created from using casserole dishes. Here is a more in depth explanation taken from Jonty Harrison’s program notes on his web sight:-
‘Material of two kinds was recorded – attack/resonance sounds made by tapping the lids on or in the bowls, and continuous rolling sounds made by running the lids around the insides of the bowls. Different pitches resulted from the various combinations of lids and bowls, and different qualities of resonance emerged according to the attack position. The microphones were placed very close to the bowls to maximise the movement within the stereophonic image. Other related material, accumulated over the previous three or four years, was also used. This included both “concrete” sounds, such as cow-bells, metal rods and aluminium bars, and electronically generated sounds, both analogue and digital (Harrison, 2011).
Annette Vande Gorne
Vande Gorne is another popular composer of electroacoustic music and spatialisation, music concrete and studied along side Pierre Schaeffer in France. Here is more information about her in detail, taken from an english translation of her biography:-
‘She is passionate about two other fields of research: the various relationships to word, sound, and meaning provided by electroacoustic technology, and the composition of space seen as the fifth musical parameter and its relationship to the other four parameters and the archetypes being used. Her work falls essentially in the acousmatic category, including the Tao suite and Ce qu’a vu le vent d’Est, which renews electroacoustic music’s ties with the past, with a few incursions in other art forms, including theatre, dance, sculpture, etc’ (A. Gorne, 2011).
From researching into these particular two artists I want to create a piece of transforming acousmatic composition using one everyday source and transforming it into something unknown by use the close miccing technique. I will research further Spatialisation and adapt this into my piece as well.
Task Four: Acousmatic Music Transformation
Here is my task:-
Report
1. what your objective was in creating the music for your task.
For this task my objective was to create a piece of acoustmatic music that transforms from a recognisable everyday sound into something which is devoid of previous associations.
2. what well known composer’s approach you decided to adopt and how you modified it to suit your piece. Or, if you feel your approach is original, then explain what makes it so. Please reference the films on DVD as shown in the ARU Harvard referencing style.
For this task I decided to adapt Jonty Harrisons approach of using close miccing to record his sounds and then taking that recording and transforming it from a recognisable sound to something thats not, as he does in his inspiring piece ‘Klang’ (1982). For my task I used a sauce-pan and recorded the lid being put onto it, and a metal spoon stirring inside the sauce-pan by close miccing. I then uploaded the recordings into Logic 9 and used Michael Norris’ plug-in to create the transformations you hear in my piece. I used Granulation, chorus, combined filters, spectral burring and a spectral harmoniser.
3. Note one particular audio technique you applied in this task which you had not applied before.
For this task I used many new audio techniques from Michael Norris’ plug-ins’ for Logic. Here I applied different granulation and spectral techniques which allowed me to transform my recorded sounds in the same way as Harrison did for his piece ‘Klang’.
4. Note one particular music technique you learned through doing this task.
I did not use any new musical techniques for this task, but recapped how to transform sound effectively and flowingly.
5. In your view, how is this task an example of practice as research?
My task is an example of practise as research in that I am creatively exploring transformation in acousmatic music. This is evident in my task as I have transformed from my original recorded sauce-pan to transforming it loose all of its previous associations.
6. Autoevaluation: what mark would you give yourself for this task and why.
For this task I would give myself a 2.1 as I have creatively explored acousmatic transformation and have created a piece of successful work.
Bibliography
J. Harrison (2011), Jonty Harrison, University of Birmingham. Web sight found at: http://artsweb.bham.ac.uk/harrison/prognotes.htm#klang. Last accessed on 10/03/2011.
UrbanNovember (2011), SoundAsArt:: Blurring of the Boundaries, University of Aberdeen. Web sight found at: http://www.urbannovember.org/conference/viewabstract.php?id=31&cf=2. Last accessed on 10/03/2011.
A. Gorne (2011), Annette Vande Gorne, The Electroacoustic Music Store, Webpage found at: http://www.electrocd.com/en/bio/vandegorne_an/. Last accessed on 24/03/2011.
Artist Direct (2011), Annette Vande Gorne Biography, Artist Direct. Webpage found at: http://www.artistdirect.com/nad/music/artist/bio/0,,915059,00.html. Last accessed on 24/03/2011.
M. Norris (2011), Software, Michael Norris Composer. Webpage found at: http://www.michaelnorris.info/software.html. Last accessed on 24/03/2011.
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Posted by Sammy DeVere on February 20, 2011
Inspirations for Task Three
Paul DeMarinis
DeMarinis has been an electronic composer since 1971. He is a composer of electronic music, video game designer and teacher. His most famous works of text sound poetry is from his album ‘Music as a Second Sound’, released in 1991. The pieces in particular that I observed were ‘Odd Evening’, ‘Cincinnati 1830-1850’, and ‘The Power Of Suggestion’ all uses voice sound. All from this album use pre-recorded speech, which is cut up and has ‘interactive electronics that outline the recorded voices with computer shadowing melodies, sustains and gentle humor and humanity’ ( MSL, 2011). The recorded voices used in these pieces sometimes sound very clear and other times sound hard to hear clearly.
Trevor Wishart
Wishart is also a elctronic composer and is famous for his ‘Vox Cycle’, 1980-1988, which uses recorded speech, natural sounds, sonic landscapes and was influenced by the imagery of the Shiva Myth (DMA, 2011). Wisharts ‘Vox5’ cycle, composed in 1986, is composed of only recorded voice which he has manipulated, time stretched, layered and transforms through different variations of the voices.
From looking at works from Wishart and DeMarinis, their pieces are similar and different in comparison. Wishart creates the recorded voice and then changes it drastically so you cannot hear exactly what is being said and he also uses transformation between voice and other sounds like nature. DeMarinis on the other hand, uses recorded speech and keeps small phrases clear, so the listener can pick up on what he is trying to portray to his audience, along with making other parts of the recorded speech muffled and hard to hear to make the piece more interesting and experimental.
Task Three: Sound Poetry
Report
1. what your objective was in creating the music for your task.
My objective for this task was to create a sound poetry piece.
2. what well known composer’s approach you decided to adopt and how you modified it to suit your piece. Or, if you feel your approach is original, then explain what makes it so. Please reference the films on DVD as shown in the ARU Harvard referencing style.
I decided to adopt a combination of Wishart and DeMarians compositional approaches by making my recorded speech clear in parts and distorted in other parts. I achieved this by using a pre-recorded nursery rhyme which I found on a children’s nursery rhyme cd and cut it up into small sections, rearranging and reversing some of the small phrases, time stretching parts and looping other parts to get the distorted sounds, that I wanted to adopt. For the parts that you can hear clearly I just added a little reverb and overlapped a few small sections.
3. Note one particular audio technique you applied in this task which you had not applied before.
In this task I did not use any new audio techniques.
4. Note one particular music technique you learned through doing this task.
I did not learn any new musical techniques through doing this task.
5. In your view, how is this task an example of practice as research?
This task is a practise of research as I am creatively exploring sound poetry and adopting compositional techniques form composers of sound poetry. This is evident in my task as I have adopted these composers approaches and successfully creating a piece of sound poetry that is interesting to listen too.
6. Autoevaluation: what mark would you give yourself for this task and why
I would give myself a 2:1 for this piece as I believe I have met the criteria, creatively explored sound poetry and produced a good result.
Bibliography
Database of Virtual art, 2007, webpage:http://www.virtualart.at/database/artists/general/artist/demarinis.html Last accessed on 15/02/2011.
Digital-music-archive, 2011, webpage: http://www.digital-music-archives.com/webdb2/application/Application.php?&fwServerClass=ProductDetail&ProductCode=CDE0001T5 Last accessed on 15/02/2011.
Music as a Second Language, 2011, webpage: http://www.answers.com/topic/music-as-a-second-language Last accessed on 15/02/2011.
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Posted by Sammy DeVere on February 9, 2011
Cologne Studios
The first electronic music studio was created in Germany called ‘Cologne Studios’ in 1951. This was were Stockhausen created his music such as ‘Kontakte’ in 1959. Other artist who spawned from Cologne were Eimert, Meyer Eppller and Beyer. This studio was equipped with vocoders, oscillators and a ‘Mellochord’ that showed and played wave forms. These waveforms were generated as follows:-
Task Two: Create a Young Person’s Guide to Electronic Music
1. what your objective was in creating the music for your task.
My objective was to create a ‘Young Person’s Guide to Electronic Music’ which showed people what sounds where newly available to composers in that era of late 1950′s, early 1960′s.
2. what well known composer’s approach you decided to adopt and how you modified it to suit your piece. Or, if you feel your approach is original, then explain what makes it so. Please reference the films on DVD as shown in the ARU Harvard referencing style.
I took Benjamin Britten’s approach by adopting his work ‘Young Persons Guide to the Orchestra’ 1946. This piece of composition was used for educational purpose and entertainment. The piece starts with all the orchestra instruments playing together, then they break down into their individual sections to show what each instrument does. I have adapted this notion by creating sine, triangle, noise, and square waves which start playing together at the beginning of my piece, and then later break off into the individual waves to show what each one does. I changed the attack and delay of each wave to show what it was able to do in that period of time. I chose not to add narration to the piece, as this was a possibly Britten allowed when performed live and on score.
3. Note one particular audio technique you applied in this task which you had not applied before.
An Audio technique which I haven’t applied to a piece of work before was the use of a plug-in in Logic called YMCK Magical8Bit. This plug-in allowed me to create noise, triangle and square waves.
4. Note one particular music technique you learned through doing this task.
I learn’t how to adapt sine waves in Logic using the YMCK Magical8Bit plug in, which I had not known how to do so before hand in Logic.
5. In your view, how is this task an example of practice as research?
This task is a practise of research as I am creatively exploring waveforms and what waveforms were able to do, along with learning about Brittens ‘Youth Person’s Guide to the Orchestra’. This is evident in my task as I have explored the structure of Brittens piece and adapted this to my own using electronic waveforms instead of orchestral instrumentation.
6. Autoevaluation: what mark would you give yourself for this task and why.
I would give myself a 60% for this task as I believe I have met the criteria of the task, adapted a composers piece of work and got successful results.
Bibliography
B. Britten, 2000, ‘Youths Persons Guide to the Orchestra’ Webpage found at:
http://library.thinkquest.org/C005400/musi/brittenypg.html Last accessed on 09/02/2011.
Electronic Muisc, 2002, Webpage found at: http://arts.jrank.org/pages/20515/Electronic-Music.html Last accessed on 15/02/2011.
T. Ziegler, 2000, ‘OHM The Early Gurus of Electronic Music’. Webpage found at: http://www.furious.com/perfect/ohm/wdr.html Last accessed on 15/02/2011.
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Posted by Sammy DeVere on January 25, 2011
Task One: To use Close Miccing to Explore Hidden Sounds
1. what your objective was in creating the music for your task.
My objective was to create a short piece of music concrete, using the close miccing technique to record multiple sources.
2. what well known composer’s approach you decided to adopt and how you modified it to suit your piece. Or, if you feel your approach is original, then explain what makes it so. Please reference the films on DVD as shown in the ARU Harvard referencing style.
I decided to adapt Xenakis’ 1958 piece Concret PH, where ‘Xenakis recorded the sound of burning charcoal using close miccing and then layering and transposing the recording to make evolving densities and ranges of snaps, crackles and pops’ ( J.Harley, 2011). I created my piece by close mic recording the washing machine, oven, extractor fan and microwave. I used Xenakis techniques and adapted them by adding reverse, time stretching, cross fading and panning to my piece because I thought these gave a nice effect overall.
3. Note one particular audio technique you applied in this task which you had not applied before.
I have not used transposing before in Logic and so this was a new audio technique I applied and I think it worked effectively because I was able to get a range of densities in the piece.
4. Note one particular music technique you learned through doing this task.
I learn’t how to transpose sounds in Logic which I had not done before.
5. In your view, how is this task an example of practice as research?
This task is a practise as research in that I am creatively exploring close miccing and investigating hidden sounds. This is evident in my task as I explored and created sounds by close miccing and I found hidden sounds such as the hidden sound that is made when the toaster is on and the sound thats hidden in the extractor fan above the oven
6. Autoevaluation: what mark would you give yourself for this task and why.
For this task I would give myself a 60% because I have met the criteria of the task, adapted a famous artist and used a new audio technique in which I have not used before. I believe I could adapt this make creating more layers in the piece and maybe focusing on one source of sound and not multiple.
Bibliography
J.Harley, 2011, Review, Webpage found at:- http://www.answers.com/topic/concret-ph-for-2-track-tape-at-least-4-loudspeakers. Last accessed on 29/01/11.
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Posted by Sammy DeVere on January 25, 2011
This is our Assessment Details, taken from the ‘Electroacoustic Composition’ module guide:-
A portfolio must be handed in on Wednesday 11 May 2011 comprising two contrasting compositions together with all short tasks completed and reported. The contrasting compositions must be accompanied with a short critical report similar to the ones made for the tasks and detailed below.
• Tasks are expected to be quite short, at minimum 1:00 mins., at max 3 mins. They count for 20% in total.
• Pieces plus their reports count for 40% each.
The pieces must be accompanied with a short critical report each stating clearly:- (in no more than 500 words for each report)
1. what your objective was in creating the music for your task.
2. what well known composer’s approach you decided to adopt and how you modified it to suit your piece. Or, if you feel your approach is original, then explain what makes it so. Please reference the films on DVD as shown in the ARU Harvard referencing style.
3. Note one particular audio technique you applied in this task which you had not applied before.
4. Note one particular music technique you learned through doing this task.
5. In your view, how is this task an example of practice as research?
6. Autoevaluation: what mark would you give yourself for this task and why.
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