Art school is an information overload. Don't get me wrong, I love it. I've tried to come with an empty cup, but drinking what goes in each class has had me in brain meltdown a couple of nights this week, and man, I'm sure it's only going to get harder. The first day of classes was great, left me feeling on top of the world, but by the end of the week, I'm not sure where to really start putting it all together.
I came in today (Friday) even though I didn't have any classes. Prior to that, I spent the morning cleaning and rearranging my studio so I could come home to work in a nicer space (which has proven a success - yay). I went into school to borrow a Zoom field recorder for a project for Audio Tech 1a. The crux of the project it to compose/arrange a piece from field recordings. The idea of just going out and aimlessly gathering sounds really doesn't appeal to me. So I'm trying to plan something, and then go out and find the precise sounds I need to make it. I'm also trying to take on board and apply the myriad concepts that I've already been exposed to this week. Particularly this idea of objective discourse, which was a big part of the Spatial Practice subject on Wednesday, and I'm still struggling to get my head around the concepts from that day. The notion of composing from field recordings isn't new to me. I've done this before. I've gone out (using an old mini-disc recorder - remember those) and recorded cicadas at night for a poetry/spoken word CD I made. Years back, I wandered the city, recording the city cliches, none of which ever really made the transformation into musical expression. I embarked on making a nonsensical sound poem a while back where I randomly approached people in the CBD and recorded them reciting lists of words. The idea there was to reassemble it into it's original poetic form and collage it with other sounds. I guess at the time the equipment I was using was just way too primitive for something that required that much editing in post. I'm unsure if I still have the recordings anywhere, but the piece was abandoned in the end. I think the last time I did any kind of field recording was with a friend for sound design for a play, a while back now, we drove to the airport, and quite illegally, found our way into some parts of the airfield/flight path to record the sounds of planes landing and taking off. The sounds were used pretty literally in the play, but the recordings turned out pretty cool. It would have been fun to make something more from them.
I think the direction of this first batch of field recordings will probably involve people. I like the idea of asking questions, and piecing together the answers.
Another thing that has made an instant impression on me this week was also in Audio Tech. This concept of recording in 24bit. Something I guess I knew, but hadn't ever thought to put it into practice. I've recorded at 48K, but hadn't changed the bit depth before. I feel like such an amateur. So I went into the Bunker this afternoon, after grabbing the field recorder, to do a bit of work. I want to get used to using the uni spaces for work. I bumped into Michael, the sound tutor from Spatial Practice, and we had a little chat, he really helped unblock me. Basically he reassured me that I wouldn't lose myself, that "what I do" isn't in any danger by trying other things with confidence. I guess I have nothing to lose. I just like to put everything in place mentally in terms I can understand, and when I don't understand, the walls go up. Anyway, the work I went in to play with was the February Ritual Loops. A project that I started in collaboration with animator friend Sophia Hanover. We're also doing it in March. The idea is we each make a 10 second loop based piece everyday, and put them together. After February was completed, I wanted to edit the parts and arrange a mix of the month into one connected piece. Something simple, not a crazy remix, just something that progresses from one piece through to the next with cross fades and stuff. Something I really noticed after listening to all those parts for a few hours (these are all parts recorded in 16 bit, and many of them crunched down to 8 bit) is how freaking awesome 24 bit sounds. I've recorded the March Loops at 24bit 48k. They sound a billion times better.
I guess the easiest class so far has been Art History and Theory. Probably because I've spent ages collecting and reading books. I do go to a lot of galleries and shows and talk art wank with all my art wanker friends. I do love history. I like knowing things. The stories behind it all. I like to know the connections between artists, and the contexts of the work. I've picked Varese's Poeme Electronique for my Formal Analysis WIKI. It was that or the Doctor Who theme. My friend Evan Carr, who has a PBS radio show called The Art Of Bleep, lent me a pile of early 20th century electronic music to sink my teeth into, including several albums by Delia Derbyshire, who is was the BBC Radiophonics genius behind the Doctor Who sounds. I do love this era of music, the late 1930's - early/mid 60's. I love the enthusiastic combination of electronic instruments or sound techniques coupled with traditional instrumentation. That's something I've always tried to do. Find a cool and unusual instrument/sound source, and let that lead the band.
So to bring the week to a close, is Techniques and Process. The class I'm actually writing this blog for. It's a pretty heavy class to end the school week on. I'd love to be able to to do it on Monday. Fresh and ready to rock. The concepts raised this week were many. The general 'getting things started' approach. It's funny, the way certain people contribute more readily in class. I knew I'd be a talkative one. We started with a bunch of words on the board. And I guess it's too early to really absorb them all. Some of the tunes James played were killer. In particular I loved Mars, and Donkey's Tail, and Mamoru Fujieda. Mars was like listening to Boredoms cover Public Image LTD. I frakken love that music. I love the idea that people who have no formal training on an instrument have the passion to make music. After all the years I spent at Monash and Box Hill, practicing my instrumental technique, and learning jazz theory and harmony, and busting my arse to play well, all I ever really wanted to do was play my own weird music anyway, and those courses were so wrong for me. When I hear music like this, I remember one time when I was trying to describe my music to a third party, my friend Matt said he always thought of what I did as punk, or at least, a bit punk. I'd never thought about it that way at all, but I love bands that really ball their fists up in people's faces, bands who use their music to offend. I mean, I love people who can play too. But there's something about that raw, unashamed naivety, coupled with that erratic energy, and expression of angst. I'm such a born again teenager. I just want to rock out to OOIOO or BIG A little a, and dance with hot hipster chicks like it's a cheap Joy Divison film clip ripoff, and drink cheap beer.
I loved The Donkey's Tail for the same reason. It's like the films I love, and the same can be said about all the forms of art I relate most strongly with, are the ones that most resonate with my childishness. I don't know why my art is such a long, arduous, intellectual affair. My favourite films are films like Labyrinth, City Of Lost Children, Pan's Labyrinth, Brazil, I love science fiction and surrealism, anything that feels like it shouldn't really be. I'm a big fan of the "Low Brow", or I guess you could call it "pop surrealism" type art, and collect a magazine called Hi-Fructose. Donkey's Tail reminded me of my friend in Montreal, Victoria Stanton, and her little weird songs, and her weird band The Capital Of Plastic Daffodils. I got to stay with Victoria for a while, and she had a huge impact on my work, she was so encouraging. She's a performance poet/artist, and as a singer she's pretty quirky. She's got a cool sound. I heard her sing/perform the first time in Melbourne, years ago at Bar Open, it was a gorgeous piece about being underwater. Victoria is a big fan of Residents, and I got into them through her. Donkey's Tail reminded me of them too, that theatrical type of nonsense, completely against the conventions of most popular musical forms.
I was surprised to hear Keith Jarrett. I pretty much put up a wall as soon as I saw his name. I know I shouldn't be so closed minded, but I usually don't like his music. I think he's a boring improviser/soloist. The head was apparently in an odd number of bars. I didn't notice. I really did like the melody though, and the sax player's tone was awesome. So the reason I hate Keith Jarrett is (well partly because his music doesn't really speak to me) because of a story about one of my older mentors, who went to the US and arranged to have a piano lesson from him. Paid him up front and jumped through all the appropriate hoops, and on the day when he arrived for his lesson, the story is that Keith opened the door, asked who he was and what did he want, "I'm Steve, I've come from Australia for a piano lesson" insert reference to correspondence etc... Jarrett's response was "You want a piano lesson, here's your lesson: Get your own style, stop ripping off me". And that's why I can't like Keith Jarrett.
I missed the name of the Singaporean pop singer, but I loved this track Lunar New Year (oh, I hope that's right), particularly the middle section. I loved the way the tempo sped up (whether intentional or not, it felt really good), and as we discussed in class, I love tempo changes. One of my favourite stories about tempo comes from back when I tried studying at Monash in the late 90's. The head of school or similar had to go pick up a guest performer from the airport. The guest performer was from Java, I think (I possibly think that because of the great Gamelan program they had) but either way, it serves the story. While driving the Javanese artist back to Monash, the staff member put on some Mozart. "what's this?" the guest asked. "Oh this is Mozart, he's the most famous and greatest composer of all music and Blahblahwoofwoof etc..." The guest listened and after a while he was asked what he thought of the music. He replied that he thought it was a bit boring. When asked to elaborate, he commented that the tempo never changed. That story always stood out, because music that uses tempo as a device for movement is rare, and when it happens it's really surprising and great. Tunes like POW by Beastie Boys, or Bubblhouse by Medeski Martin And Wood are probably the first 2 that come to mind in popular music, or more recently Battles, who use speed up/slow down moments in a few songs. Since in Glasfrosch we do everything to click tracks, there isn't much room for tempo changes. I need to figure out a way to program Ableton Live to handle it. Back to the Luna New Year, there was a cool Tarrantino film vibe to the song. I would never have appreciated this kind of music if it wasn't for his films. Well, I say that, Tarrantino, and Secret Chiefs 3. SC3 would be the perfect soundtrack collaborators for Tarrantino. They're both the masters of genre mash up. Of doing some other period's shtick better than it ever was, and they both draw from similar influences, particularly the 60s/70s cult/exploitation/shlock soundtracks, and Spaghetti Westerns. SC3 have done a few songs with the singer from Dengue Fever, who is Cambodian, and I was reminded of this from the Singaporean singer. It also brought to mind the recent (kind of recent) Damon Albarn/Jamie Hewlett Chinese Opera of Monkey. I guess as a western boy, it's probably an obvious connection to make and maybe Chinese, Cambodian, and Singaporean people wouldn't see the similarities I do. I am passionate about other cultural musics, but I'm trying just to enjoy it, not to be an expert on it. That would be a different degree.
With that in mind, the piece that we heard on Thursday that affected me the most, was the one that stood out as the least like anything I do. Mamoru Fujieda's Patterns of Plants. I loved the use of out of tune notes, I couldn't even tell what the instrument was, because the in tune notes sounded like a harp or koto, but the out of tune notes sounded like they were on a zither or guqin. I was really impressed that such beautiful music could be made from such a, lets say "artificial" technique. Usually that sort of process music all sounds the same to me. Like serial music and mathematically generated pieces, computer generated scores and such, it isn't usually this concise and emotional. It had a real sentimental feeling that made me want to sit and play it over and over again while I thought about the sadness of old happier times. The short form also impressed me. I wish I could say everything I wanted to in as little time as that. An expression I like is "Don't use 10 words when 5 will do" (something I'm afraid probably wont be happening on this blog). I'd love to be able to say "I'm a man of few words", but it's just not true. We discussed in class the elegance of the piece's form. The simple 3 parts, each looped 4 times. What I felt in the piece was growth. The middle phrase/loop/section used the idea of the moment prior to, but also built up to the final section beautifully. It gives nothing away, but includes everything that's needed to get there. I loved the little bass movement in that piece. It was like traditional Japanese meets an Icelandic band. It sounded like something you would hear Aniima or Kaada do, only they'd do it with a whole string section, and keep everything in tune. Anyway, I'm totally finding this record and listening the pants off it.
Feels good to blog a whole weeks worth of classes in one sitting. As the year goes, I will write a lot more regulary on here, specifically about the Techniques and Process course and concepts. For now, to set the scene, I needed to included a bit from my other uni experiences, and may still in future, but I'm looking forward to delving into the concepts behind composition further, and developing my work further as a result.
If you read this far, you're awesome!
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