Organ subversion.

Probably the best advice James could have given me was "subvert the form". I don't even know what I was doing. I think lately I struggle with form more than anything. I'm moving more and more towards an openness, a freedom that makes committing to any particular trajectory really problematic, or at least, really depressing.

Jettisoning the first idea and moving into this new one was a good choice. I wanted to avoid making as droney piece, but after trying a bunch of things, I guess it's going to be just that. The growing in steps of 4 was really just a a rough idea of putting things together. The form now is much more organic. I don't know if it's very me, but I like it.

Some of the advice James had given over the course of last weeks class really took a relevant hold on me. Words in particular that I've focused on are "subversion", "abstraction", "undulate". 

I began by simply recording the guitar part, and then I played in each manual of organ music, in an improvised type sense, and then adjusted the midi afterwards. The result is much less linear and more organic, shifting perspective often.

While it still has a way to come (I'm still working out a middle chunk), I feel like I'll have a great piece to perform. The addition of some handmade instruments will add some colour to the drones, my lazyglock, and waterphone are definitely going to be used in there, but also probably some cymbals and my musical amplified BMX i've just made might make it in.

looking forward to more feedback today.

Organs, scores, and arguments.

I gotta admit I'm blocked on this organ piece. I'm really struggling to find something I like. I don't like notes anymore. I'm getting really bored of music. I'm going to spend all day tomorrow developing my existing ideas into something, but I don't have much, and I don't know how or where it's going to go at this point.
The organ music we listened to in class was cool. The Ligeti piece in particular, although we can't get access to the pipes to do the weird stuff he was doing there. I did really like the way he uses the organ as one big mass of sound, rather than separating the voices and playing various melodies/counterpoint etc. I have composed a lot of disparate ideas so far, and I'm thinking of just taking one of them and approaching it the Ligeti way. The thing I liked the most about the Ligeti pieces was the way he blends the colours together, the way he sculpts the volume and timbre to create a gorgeous sound painting. I'd realy like to try to do something like this. So far my piece uses 3 different polyrhythms, and segues from being a kind of ambient piece/ballad into a progressive, Zappaesque jam. I think I can do without the prog bit, it's starting to bore me.
Like the Cargle piece, my organ piece has additional sounds. I've been up to the engine room with Ariel, and I recorded the sound of the motors running. It's pretty much just noise, but it's a particularly interesting noise, with a direct relationship to the sound hear at idle in the auditorium. I want to slowly fade the engine sound up through the sound system before the organ plays, and I've set up some processing, rhythmically panning and filtering the noise, eventually cutting it up into a "musical" texture to accompany the piece as it progresses.
I'll also be using drums, baritone guitar, and vocals.

I've started working on my score for Ash. I hope I wasn't misunderstood in class. I think that an image can be music. I think that non traditional scores are awesome. I merely wanted to express that it bugs me when people make a visual/graphic score out of context, that doesn't communicate anything. I think that a graphic score, or a painting, or whatever can communicate music. I think that composing with loose musical instructions that depend on the performers interpretation is totally the way to go. I was merely commenting that there's a lot of shit scores and I hate them when they don't come with instructions. I think the debate got a little out of hand. Part of the problem is that many graphic scores have been composed for specific performers/ensembles, and workshopped with the composer, so the performers understand the parameters. Someone picking up a score like that after the fact would need to do their research on the context of the piece before just diving into it and playing whatever. It bugs me when someone just throws some ink on a page and says that's my piece, when they've no idea who's going to play it, and therefore no idea of what they're doing. I think maybe I haven't existed in the composer/score area for so long, I don't really know what I like or hate about it anymore. I pretty much chose this course over others, like VCA composition, because I didn't want to study music composition in a score writing way. I don't know if I'm really interested in doing it. I prefer to play the music myself, or to communicate it through a score if I need other players, but I don't think of my work being written down for someone else to play without my involvement. That sort of thing doesn't really interest me at the moment. Maybe this project will develop that interest.

My piece for Ash is called Blue, and is a tone row based piece, building in 5ths from E-Bb. There is instruction for how to integrate the pitch material. I'm debating whether or not to include the pitch on the score, or not, but ultimately, the navigation of the form is totally interpretive. The scores are a series of watercolour paintings I've been making, abstract shapes that fade and morph together. There are instructions for how to use the colour, tone, hue, density etc as metaphor for register and dynamic and gesture. All these things are up to the performer to navigate through the shapes. I want my notes to be brief, but informative. I don't want to write an essay, and kill the improvised nature of the music, I want to give the necessary information to get Ash to perform the music I'm hearing in my ears. I think that any guitarist could play this music, regardless of fx, or electric/acoustic sounds. The sparseness of the score opens itself to options. I've been playing it myself to make sure the ideas work, and I get a lot out of it so far. I think I'll probably record it at some stage, perhaps with Ash, as a duo. I like the idea of it being a piece for any number of instruments (as long as those instruments are guitars, dammit).

I've been trying to find a copy of the Alvin Lucier Still Lives music. I loved that stuff. I really want to listen to it over and over again. It's just such a beautiful and simply idea, and it works on such an intuitive human level. Maybe it's the piano too, I love piano. I don't really know what to say about the piece other than I loved it. The simplicity is really what gets me. The meditative nature of it too. I've been writing a kind of Still Life piece recently. It's a sort of serenade at the same time. Mine is pretty different, obviously this has a unique idea at play, but the piece I'm working on does evoke a similar mood, just with different sounds. I've been trying to avoid the use of drums in it until absolutely the end of the piece. I think I'll use the Lucier music as a reference to how "still" my piece is..

Finally I wanted to comment on how much I responded to the article Explaining My Music by Tom Johnson. I really liked his style. "The truth isn't always beautiful, but beautiful things can't be untrue". I love his ideas. Not being autobiographical is hard. It was weird, because that morning Alice and I had been talking about atheism and logic, and the logical absolutes that form the universe, and how these absolutes form a beautiful system. To some people, logic and science take all the "magic" out of living, to some people, the spiritual is what gives beauty to life. But to that I think blah. The truth is much more interesting and beautiful. I think there's more magic in understanding the truth than there is in any form of "spirituality".

Ding Dang Dong.

I regret missing class this week. But I've been planning to make my bells performance KICK ASS for months, and I think I did it. So rather than blog about the themes of the class, I thought I'd write a brief annotation to the performance just to keep the blogs up to date.

I'm really glad I gave myself HEAPS of time to set up. Like a fool, I left a power supply at home, the power supply for the drummer, James', headphone mixer. Luckily Alice managed to drive home and back to get it while I set everything else up, and I don't think anyone noticed the mistake.

Overall, I was pretty nervous about the performance. I was really happy with it, but because of the power supply mishap, I didn't get a run through/sound check before everyone arrived, which made me nervous. I think we pulled it off beautifully. Some of the notes seemed to trigger wrong, and I think that was just a case of the midi cable being too long (10 feet is the recommended distance for midi, and this was 25 feet).

My piece is still untitled. I had begun the whole thing influenced by the Higgs Boson discovery, and wanted to write a sort of secular hymn. As the process continued, I was almost writing it about something else. One idea that got in the way was this idea of Spring time (the weather had been influencing me), and the story of Persephone. I tried to make the song about the temptation of Persephone from the pomegranate's perspective, but as I researched the story and wrote my lyrics, I found it increasingly difficult, kind of like write a song about rape from the rohypnol's perspective. I wanted the song to be joyous and full of energy, but with a longing that can't be placed. Then I  decided not to set anything in stone with lyrics, and instead worked with some glossolalic syllables. That's something I want to explore further. Using my voice, without words, but with specific sounds in place of the words. Like a made up language, like Sigur Ros or Dead Can Dance or similar. In future, I will make a whole record like that, and see what happens.

I feel like the piece is still about spring, and about the potency of science. I like the pomegranate as the imagery for the piece, and will probably expand on it further. Maybe lyrics will come, maybe not. who knows right now.

Sonically, the sounds in the piece are: the Federation Bells, sleigh bells, 3 dancers with 200 tiny bells each, sampled sleigh bells cut up and "glitched" and panned around the 4 channel surround system, reversed samples of the Federation bells drenched in reverb and also panned around the space. Voice, put through 4 different tempo delays, 1 for each speaker, drums, a filtered beatbox response to the kick drum pattern that plays a 3 on 2 poly rhythm it one pair of speakers and the same pattern reversed in the other pair. A synth bass drone that has been tuned to the just tuning of the bells and panned slowly around the space, and a dirty synth bass line that plays out of all 4 channels at once over the end rocking out section.

I do have plans to expand on the music. It began as one of my daily loop pieces from before semester started.



I'd like to eventually have lyrics and perhaps vocoder/guitar in the piece. Maybe replace some of the bells with rhodes or celeste, and sample/record the bells live in the space to add to the recording. Over the summer I think I'll try to work on some more "sections" by expanding on the musical phrases.

There's essentially 3 "sections" in the work so far. There's the intro part with the straight 8th notes, which also returns at the end, and overlaps in the middle a bit. The "verse" with the bass drone progression and the vocals. The elastic break down section that has no bass, and eventually becomes the bass line at the end of the song. All these sections have potential to grow further, so who knows where it will end.

Since it's kinda become about spring, i'd like to pursue it as the nocturnal mirror to Gyokuro. If that doesn't work, I'll save it for down the line when I make my glossolalia record.

I think I've rambled on long enough about this.

Semester 2. Get back to work!

The first half of semester 2 has been a big change from the first half of the year. Different teachers with different teaching styles. It has been a hard adjustment, but I feel so invigorated from the experience. Byron Scullin in Audio Tech is like the audio guru Chuck Palahniuk would write, part Bill Hicks, part Robert McKee, all ninja. It's a great class. Having Darrin take us for the bells, and for the first half of I&P (formerly known as T&P) was a really intense and different experience to James' teaching. Darrin's focus is definitely on concepts of neurology and perception, and quite separate from "musical" techniques. I liked exploring the sound/compositional process from outside the confines of music, because as this course goes on, I am starting to see music as a dead weight that holds my work back. That said, the compositional techniques we explore with James are really helpful, but I prefer talking about these things that impact more on the "what" and "why" of the process rather than just on the "how". This first week back with James was a densely packed mix of hows and whys, and a challenging task of listening indeed.

First up was this concept of "Material" vs "Materia". What really interested me about this brief discussion was that nobody brought up the parallel to generative music (which Bryon had spent a whole class on the week prior). The idea that the material is the formed music, the themes, the musical clay, so to speak, with which you are forming the piece with. The Materia, is I guess, that clay before it's dug up. It's the idea of the clay, and the possibilities it presents. I find when I create a work, I know I have to realise it with sounds, and notes, and rhythms, and certain other materials that pertain to the eventual outcome that is my personality, manifest through song. However, I spend ages working these concepts through in my mind before I even have a note, or a riff, or a field recording. I think at times I'm dealing with this "materia". I like to let this stew for ages sometimes, and then one day, the material evolves from it so quickly, and I have a brand new piece. I'm not sure if I've fully understood this concept yet, but that's what I got from it. The reason I mentioned generative music is that I see that as a direct way of working with the materia. By allowing the music to create itself with minimal direct input. Perhaps though, the tools in this case (the note generators, randomisers, delay chains) become the materials. I'm not sure which way this works and look forward to unpacking it further.

Phill Niblock's The Movement Of People Working, a film that juxtaposes imagery of manual labor with sounds of long layered drones. we watched it for a short time, comparatively, considering the work goes for 6 hours, but long enough to get the gist of the film. To begin with it feels uncomfortable. That the pace of the imagery is too fast for the drones that we hear. but over time, the music takes over, and the visual pacing becomes textural, and unimportant. The people in the film are from developing nations, and we never see their faces. This sparked an almost political idea, but I think it was a way of avoiding any emotional narrative being read into. The human face draws attention to it, and would distract from the movement of the work. This intense droning of sound was at first quite brash and harsh, and I was waiting for something to resolve. There were times when others in the class felt that it resolved. I never found that. Even when the drones became a major triad or a unison, the tension was always held in the drone through the juxtaposed imagery. After a while I felt my mind clear, and being so influenced by zen as I am, I found this parallel to meditation. The meditation through practice, through labor. The way a zen monk would tend the garden, using a mundane action to clear his mind. I don't think the point of the film was to comment in anyway on the political or philosophical situations of the workers. I feel like it was just a process of juxtaposing movement and long drones in a way that constantly makes the audience readjust their eyes and ears, constantly readjusting their perception. Unlike the Qatsi films that have a progression of ideas, and something closer to narrative, this film explores one relationship extensively, and was much more intense, a much more draining experience.

Raymond Queneau's Exercises In Style. OMG. I loved this. Such wit. It reminded me of something Monty Python would do. I got home and showed Alice right away, I'm looking for the whole book now. The writing style reminded me a bit of John Bath's short stories. How this relates to sound/music is obvious. I use some techniques all the time. I think because I begin everything so conceptually, and I boil everything down musically to it's bare essentials, and then i get stuck developing, and building it back up. So I employ some pretty standard compositional techniques that I learned in high school of all places. Things like reversing a melodic or rhythmic idea, inverting or transposing a phrase, doubling or halving, quite simple techniques that I guess I don't even think about anymore. This book has 99 examples of compositional methods and I think I want to try them all. I thought I'd start with a simple loop based idea, and take it through each step in order. Some of them seem ridiculous and unmusical, but I'm sure it'll work. Queneau is an interesting fellow. I'd really like to find and read some of his novels. I wiki'd him, and found he spent a short time with the surrealists (whom I adore) but fell out with Breton eventually (as they all did, since he was a jerk). The Oulipo movement is also an interesting bunch. I'm big into mathematics (although I suck at actual number problems, I just love the purity of it) and I really admire the way these writers and mathematicians teamed up to explore the beauty and potential of permutation and theory through expressive art. I'll need to spend some time in Collected Works, or the library, looking for some books this week, but it'll be worth it.
Critically, I guess the understanding of Exercises In Style that I gathered was this: that the materials don't have to dictate the form or the genre. These are things that can be applied to materials, and there are many forms to consider. I obviously haven't tried half of them (an exaggeration, I've probably only worked with about 3).

To explore the last paragraph further, we ca talk about Laura, and the idea of the cover version. A song, reworked by different artists, and applying different genre characteristics and formalities to an existing composition can lead to a completely different sounding piece, but where does one draw the line and say, well, that's not the same tune anymore. Jazz has set the precedent that nothing is sacred, and as long as the artist can show/justify any link to the original work then the version is "valid" (footnote, Darrin laughed at me for using this term "valid" and ever since, I feel stupid when I say it. The "validity" of the idea is irrelevant, it exists, therefore it doesn't need validity). I've questioned some artists interpretations. Marc Hannaford for example has released some records where he claims that the piece is a Thelonious Monk tune, but the resulting piece is so esoteric, you'd have a hard time hearing the original materials at play. I'm not saying that he hasn't worked with the material, and I'm sure he has developed the music from that, but to me it sounds so removed, I couldn't care less where the music came from. I guess the rest of the class' reaction to Derek Bailey was a similar response to my responses to Hannaford. I've known Bailey's work, and have been into his approach for nearly 15 years. I think his guitar playing is incredibly sophisticated. I hate hearing people say that "it sounds like someone who can't play the guitar". His rendition of Laura had the entire head, and he follows the harmony beautifully. The way he approaches these materials is unique and does take some getting used to. I can understand that the first time hearing it might be hard to follow, but most people hear a guitar being tuned, and then turn their ears off to what is actually being played (ooh, stopping there before I get too ranty). There are a few other tunes that I thought of while we were listening to the versions of Laura. Black Coffee is one. The first version of that I heard was by Tricky off the album Nearly God. I loved that track. Then I heard the original and it had all these chords and changes and I thought, what? That's so jazz and lame. My friend Adam hates the Tricky version because essentially it's just the lyrics sung over a one chord loop, that has nothing to do with the original changes. But I never hear anyone else bag that track. Maybe if Derek Bailey's version had have had a singer, and the lyrics were intact the response would have been different. Lyrics can play a big part in a cover. Personally, I love hearing people mess with a tune. I love to do it too. Nothing bugs me more than hearing someone cover a song exactly as it was originally made. A great album I own somewhere (hmmm, lets see if it's on the shelf... yep, phew) is Hal Wilner's tribute to Charles Mingus called Weird Nightmare. The title track is sung by Elvis Costello, and musically performed entirely on Harry Partch cloud chamber bowls. In fact, there is all the tunes covered on this record have deviated drastically from the original version, and use strange (mostly Partch built) instruments. This is a very different approach to say, Joni Mitchel's Mingus tribute, where she not only sticks to the harmony and melody of the works, but has transcribed and set lyrics to the improvised solos from the original recordings. Again, leaving a bad taste in my mouth, all of these approaches are valid, personal taste is going to decide whether one likes it or not, and maybe even over time and exposure a guitarist like Ash may grow to like Derek Bailey, or not, it doesn't matter. I think what's really interesting, beside the surface of "genre" or the eventuating sound of the version, is to comprehend the process that has created the version. Even if one hates Bailey's playing, he is pretty transparent about how he has approached the material. And his deconstruction of the jazz language creates a universe of possibilities to draw from and apply to any guitarists vocabulary.

Thinking on these different techniques explored in Queneau's work, and across the various cover arrangements we've looked at, brings us to the end of class, with the piece by Francis Plagne. A quaint 60's sounding instrumental tune. I'm glad we listened to it so many times. As I said earlier, I've desensitised to these techniques because I take them for granted, and can't really just hear them anymore. I could hear that things were going on. My mind went straight the Queneau reading, and I started trying to figure out what specific techniques were being employed, but I think in such an analysis, I missed the finer points. My ears need focus, need tuning. This was a great exercise though (the listening and the class in general), because I realised that some of things that I've been so blocked on in my own work, is form. I have so much to explore, and I get stuck on such tiny problems and haven't found any new ways to progress. Some of these things I've overlooked are so simple. It's already helped me with my current project.

To close, I'd like to spew out a few words about the projects for this semester in I&P. Firstly the Federation Bells piece. I had a real struggle finding my voice for this instrument. I felt creatively constipated. I'm really happy with where the piece ended up though. My original inspiration was the Higgs Boson discovery. Not that I wanted to make some intellectual, science piece. I'm actually not into that "pure data" composition style, it all ends up sounding the same. Although I thought about it, and looked things up on the CERN website to see if I could find something to play with. In the end, it was more important to respond to the discovery emotionally. I should add that it really freed me from my agnosticism. I delved into understanding particle physics (thanks to Brian Cox, I can grasp it pretty well now), and I feel like I can exist in the universe connected to it all, without any need for a soul or higher spiritual construct. The fact that the numbers in Higgs' standard model add up so elegantly, and that we used that mathematical proof as the template to find the particle, coming full circle to prove the purity and beauty of numbers, and prove the model of the universe as accurate is an amazing achievement for humankind. I've been writing lyrics for my bell piece, that are sort of a secular hymn, a celebration of this freedom from faith and dogma, that shows that the universe, without a creator, without a soul, is still a beautiful and significant thing. I think the bells, on a sonic level, really express that joy, and due to the tuning based around the natural harmonic series, they fit to the universe better than the western equal tempered tuning could express. The dance and drone elements I've added represent the vastness of space and also the connected nature of everything. The movement is energy and joy, the sleigh bells sewn to the costumes are a rhythmic texture, somewhat representative of the particles of nature, perhaps the smaller, quantum particles, with the Federation Bells being more atomic level particles, or the Higgs field itself. Everything is moving around the space. It's a quiet and simple metaphor for the universe, but that's ultimately what I do, create analogies for things that are massive and boil them down to simple, translatable experiences.

For the Organ, I have few ideas. I still want to make the piece with vocals and drums and electronics. I am not sure what it will be about yet, but I have a starting point for note in mind, and a method of performance, that will help guide the way the piece gets constructed. I'm pretty excited that we get to do this.

For our "compose for a classmate" project, I got Ash. I love Ash's guitar playing, and he's a great guy, full of potential. So young and eager to make music. I want to put him through something similar to what I went through as a young player, straight out of high school, discovering new music for the first time. Since we both play guitar, I think it'll be an easy task to communicate. It's the creative side of things I want to challenge. Ash is a way better guitarist than I am. Technically, i have no technique and he has heaps. Musically however, I have more experience and hopefully can give him something to apply his great chops to, whilst challenging his concepts and approach to the instrument. My favourite guitarists are Derek Bailey and Robert Fripp. I know Ash likes to play with delay and ambient sounds, and so do I. My plan is to create something of an evolving ambient guitar piece that explores the guitar as a sound device, and rather than focusing on standard guitar playing techniques and understandings of guitar music, forcing a deconstruction of technique to perform. Musically, the piece will probably develop in a serial nature, and become atonal. But i want the gestures to be sparse and interpretive, and the form to be open and improvisational to a certain degree. I want to use this as an opportunity to create a working template for further ambient guitar compositions that can overlap and be played simultaneously with any number of guitarists. Something I've wanted to do for a long time, creating works that can become intuitive surround sound pieces, by positioning the performers around the space, and giving them different scores that call for listening and interaction as a part of following the directions on the page. Perhaps each piece becomes a stand alone work for soloist, but is also an overlapping part of an ongoing group work. Oh the times and places you'll go...

Reflections/experience. Completing Semester 1.

What a ride it has been. I made the analogy the other week that being at art school is like being Doctor Who's companion. You know you want to go and experience something new, but it's like a whirlwind trip of all time and space, and leaves you baffled in the end.

I think I've really come out the other end with some new skills. I feel like I've been thorough. Some things really challenged me, but I feel like I've risen to the challenges set. The Volume piece was hard work, but I think I made that one happen. the sound Object piece was great fun, and I felt like I got to put a lot of skills from Audio Tech into that piece. I was pretty happy with my mix. As for the development of my techniques, this class has really helped me integrate new things into the work I've been making. It's made me much more aware of the flaws in my compositional process, and given me new things to try I'd never thought of. It's been an influence on me finishing some old, almost but not quite completed pieces, giving me the final kick they needed, completing the picture, or just supplying me with the tools to see what what missing. In particular, I'm going to finally finish the Absinthe music recording.

I have made plans to spend the majority of the break (besides working on the federation bells piece, which I will do as well) returning to my track a day process. This time with few restrictions. I'll probably set different parameters each morning. I have some ideas for cover songs, sound improvisations, experiments with new equipment, and I want to make some new field recordings and see what happens. I wont be setting duration or instrumentation restrictions on the pieces this time around, but I will try to start something new each day, rather than working over something. this way I can try a whole bunch of different things and just see where they end up. This will also mean I will still have time to work on the bells, other band related stuff, and my "analogies/black comedy" remixes.

The "analogies" remix (a remix version of the track at the top of this blog) is more or less complete. I've mixed it, and sent it off to Lerms in Cancun to make the animated video clip for it. Lerms is a genius. We've collaborated a few times already. When he had a monthly art jam project going on, I did two short animation sound tracks for him. One was an instrumental edit of my song Green, the other was an original track. I'm glad to be working with someone like him. His style is amazing. Between him and Nathan J (who did the Glasfrosch jellyfish art) I have found the two best visual artists for my sounds.







For my Bells piece (and probably for my piece for the town hall organ) I'm planning to use the members of my band to help perform the work. I plan to controll the bells via midi pads, and triggers attached to the drums, and then to use microphones to process the bells in real time. I also want to examine the tonal colour of the bells and play around with modulating the frequencies via some kind of FM synthesis. I'll probably make a song, with words, since what I do is essentially Pop. I'm trying to envision my work as beyond pop music, but with the spirit of pop as an art. I'm not sure where the line is anymore. I used to think I was making experimental music into pop, but I think that definition is too shallow now. I certainly want to get away from the rock band scene. I'd love to play very few regular band shows and just focus on making really complex pieces for one off performances (or close to one off/rare). The Bells will be the first one of those.

My work as Glasfrosch has been tied down to the Melbourne progressive scene for a time, and I want to take it back. I don't like the expectations of that audience. They like guitars and distortion and riffs. I want to play more with static and stillness. Still mix in the guitars and stuff, but I think for too long now I've been trying to please a scene rather than my self. I had a plan. It started with my lullaby project, to strip everything back and develop the sounds from nothing, and slowly add more pop/rock elements over time until I had developed a unique band sound. I think that's happened, and now it's time to start puling things out and trying to find new things with in that to rebuild onto.

The aubades/nocturnes project wont suffer from that, I think by the time that's all finished I'll have dug deep enough alongside them to be able to combine the two perspectives. The recording of Aubades will begin soon, and I'll be mixing it at school in protools my self. The live versions of those tracks have their function, and the recordings will have their own, but in the long term, i guess what I'm trying to say here is, I want to explore some new live functions for the future of my music to exist with. Something that isn't in every corner of Melbourne already.