i sheduled a week in the bay area as a means to derail the entire semester and perhaps get some much needed sleep. as of today I finall slept in past 10am (finally on california time) and now face the challenge of the red-eye and a quiz tomorrw at 8am california time. flying here nobody had a watch and looking at our cell phones was the only way to keep track of the time. still, hungover, in and out of sleep, and somewhere between lake michigan and the rocky mountains, when you see 2:52 on your phone you can't help but ask, "what does that even mean? when are we?"
it's given me a lot of time to not think about this project, which is very important.
"i begin to hear the old sounds- the ones i had thought worn out by intellectualization- i begin to hear the old sounds as though they are not worn out. Obviously they are not worn out. they are just as audbile as the new sounds. thinking had worn them out. and if one stops thinking about them, suddenly they are fresh and new."
"nothing more than nothing can be said."
-from "lecture on nothing" by john cage
Sunday, March 1, 2009
Tuesday, February 17, 2009
The Thesis
At some point in my musical development I realized that I didn't need to spend 4hrs a day with my classical instrument (viola) to make meaningful sonic art. At some point all the PAT kids realized this, though maybe not so explicitly. This thesis examines notions about music education through a discussion of noise. The final product will be an HD documentary of as yet undetermined length.
Noise, depending on who you talk to, means a number of different things:
irrelevant data
pixelation
interference
irritation
among others. Through interviews of friends and colleagues Ronen and I will be examining the nature of noise with a concentration on noise's relationship with music. These interviews will often be accompanied by demonstrations of a particular brand of noise (tapes, harsh, mystic, academic, acoustic, pollution, data, etc). These will be set to a combination of on-site images and b-roll created because 1. they look cool and 2. because they have an inherent noisy aspect (machines, leaves, etc.)
I am also examining the usefulness of noise in the teaching of music. That is to say, what can be gained through the use of noise in music education? What if, at the same time we introduced kids to Brahms and Beethoven, we introduced them to Merzbow and Fennesz? There are a number of aspects of noise music that make a compelling case for such an idea:
1. accessibility. In music ed they call "barrier to entry." Simply put, a radio and a guitar pedal costs way less than a cello.
2. improvisation. Improvising is one of the most challenging aspects of music performance. The major barrier is skill at the instrument. Often players, especially young players, have an idea of what to do but lack the technical ability to do it. With noise, using things like pedals, play-dough + keyboards, and pencils that squeek, the physical conditioning and muscle memory necessary to improvise is much easier to obtain. The consequence of this is that much less time is spent learning how to play an instrument and more time spent learning how the instrument fits in an ensemble. Because the techniques are easily obtained, the focus shifts to listening instead of playing, a much more useful skill in daily life.
3. experimentation. So much of contemporary musical education squashes the natural tendency to experiment. This is tied into confidence issues, you know how good a violin can sound and as a student you know how far away from that sound you are. With noise, if it sounds shitty you're doing it correctly. If it sounds good you're also doing it correctly.
4. form. John Cage said that electronics would eventually allow for the inclusion of all audible sounds into the realm of compositional elements. He went on to say that our only connection to past musics would be in form. From the short distance of 50 years from that statement, I'd say he was basically correct. Because you're not worried about things like intonation or timing in the same, externally defined, way as with classical music it allows you to more fully experiment and understand the organization of your ideas.
sub themes:
1. pollution. When environmental sound becomes a detriment to existence. The effects of human development on natural environments.
2. engagement. When does noise become music? When does light become visual art? When does your engagement with various phenomena become active as an artistic process? What is the opposite of music? How do inhabit
3. minorities. Noise musicians as a minority in the social sense. Noise as minority genre, on the periphery. Minorities within noise: persons of color, women.
4. effects. What does noise do? Trance states, hearing loss, the use of ipods.
5. new media. How can we use new media to enhance the student experience? What if classes had blogs and activities could be published? Can we instill a sense of responsibility/ completion/ legitimacy through the use of new media. The blog as the new refrigerator. So much of school happens at a pace that prohibits reflection, can we use the accessibility of new media (in addition to the community involvement inherent to this medium) to help students reflect on their work? Digital archives.
Through this I hope to develop a more balanced and thorough idea of the nature and practice of noise in all of its forms, as well as techniques relevant to making noise, if not exactly accessible, at least more relevant to a larger audience.
Noise, depending on who you talk to, means a number of different things:
irrelevant data
pixelation
interference
irritation
among others. Through interviews of friends and colleagues Ronen and I will be examining the nature of noise with a concentration on noise's relationship with music. These interviews will often be accompanied by demonstrations of a particular brand of noise (tapes, harsh, mystic, academic, acoustic, pollution, data, etc). These will be set to a combination of on-site images and b-roll created because 1. they look cool and 2. because they have an inherent noisy aspect (machines, leaves, etc.)
I am also examining the usefulness of noise in the teaching of music. That is to say, what can be gained through the use of noise in music education? What if, at the same time we introduced kids to Brahms and Beethoven, we introduced them to Merzbow and Fennesz? There are a number of aspects of noise music that make a compelling case for such an idea:
1. accessibility. In music ed they call "barrier to entry." Simply put, a radio and a guitar pedal costs way less than a cello.
2. improvisation. Improvising is one of the most challenging aspects of music performance. The major barrier is skill at the instrument. Often players, especially young players, have an idea of what to do but lack the technical ability to do it. With noise, using things like pedals, play-dough + keyboards, and pencils that squeek, the physical conditioning and muscle memory necessary to improvise is much easier to obtain. The consequence of this is that much less time is spent learning how to play an instrument and more time spent learning how the instrument fits in an ensemble. Because the techniques are easily obtained, the focus shifts to listening instead of playing, a much more useful skill in daily life.
3. experimentation. So much of contemporary musical education squashes the natural tendency to experiment. This is tied into confidence issues, you know how good a violin can sound and as a student you know how far away from that sound you are. With noise, if it sounds shitty you're doing it correctly. If it sounds good you're also doing it correctly.
4. form. John Cage said that electronics would eventually allow for the inclusion of all audible sounds into the realm of compositional elements. He went on to say that our only connection to past musics would be in form. From the short distance of 50 years from that statement, I'd say he was basically correct. Because you're not worried about things like intonation or timing in the same, externally defined, way as with classical music it allows you to more fully experiment and understand the organization of your ideas.
sub themes:
1. pollution. When environmental sound becomes a detriment to existence. The effects of human development on natural environments.
2. engagement. When does noise become music? When does light become visual art? When does your engagement with various phenomena become active as an artistic process? What is the opposite of music? How do inhabit
3. minorities. Noise musicians as a minority in the social sense. Noise as minority genre, on the periphery. Minorities within noise: persons of color, women.
4. effects. What does noise do? Trance states, hearing loss, the use of ipods.
5. new media. How can we use new media to enhance the student experience? What if classes had blogs and activities could be published? Can we instill a sense of responsibility/ completion/ legitimacy through the use of new media. The blog as the new refrigerator. So much of school happens at a pace that prohibits reflection, can we use the accessibility of new media (in addition to the community involvement inherent to this medium) to help students reflect on their work? Digital archives.
Through this I hope to develop a more balanced and thorough idea of the nature and practice of noise in all of its forms, as well as techniques relevant to making noise, if not exactly accessible, at least more relevant to a larger audience.
Saturday, February 14, 2009
secure areas
filmed in alex wiltschko's lab. he gave us a number of excellent moments and with only minimal prodding. he brought in a colleague, greg, and the two have a great chemistry on screen. this is very refreshing in a movie where every single person is SO AWKWARD. we're using alex and ben as the voices of reason and it's pretty funny to watch because you can tell they lived together. they're good foils for the same argument, ben being very cerebral and precise and alex being more esoteric. we also got alex to "play" his sensors.
got a bunch of b-roll at the pleasure dome. also decent interviews with brian and john(?). the latter said some great stuff about the role of the performer, that as an entertainer you have to make the audience care. it relates to some stuff ben said, except this time its a musician saying it. brian gave us some great music too. god willing, he'll get us a bunch of footage from the shows in that basement.
still didn't cross thom elliot off the list though.
special thanks
clonlara school
got a bunch of b-roll at the pleasure dome. also decent interviews with brian and john(?). the latter said some great stuff about the role of the performer, that as an entertainer you have to make the audience care. it relates to some stuff ben said, except this time its a musician saying it. brian gave us some great music too. god willing, he'll get us a bunch of footage from the shows in that basement.
still didn't cross thom elliot off the list though.
special thanks
clonlara school
Thursday, February 12, 2009
Airport PRaty
Working within institutions to achieve ends unrelated to said institutions. Music school, ISS, and now Detroit Metro Airport. More later.
Two programming classes, an ear training class, this thesis, and 30hrs a week at the store. It's amazing I'm still upright.
Special Thanks
Terry Lynn Aldrich
Anna Schaap
Two programming classes, an ear training class, this thesis, and 30hrs a week at the store. It's amazing I'm still upright.
Special Thanks
Terry Lynn Aldrich
Anna Schaap
Tuesday, February 10, 2009
interviewing with katie carrie tomorrow. the airport is a go for thursday morning. interviewing kelly thursday afternoon in the practice rooms. friday night i'm interviewing alex wiltschko. saturday is paul (maybe) and the show in paul's kitchen (maybe).
it all depends on camera availability. boo.
entering the main marathon. know what i'm doing, have a ton of footage but need a ton more. march is dedicated to the education half. completely by coincidence matthew at clonlara is making an arduino music box. we have footage of two music boxes already so it ties into the sub-theme of engagement. when does your engagement with noise turn into an engagement with music? when does this happen for visual art? what's the threshold for thinking of something as "art"? at what point do you see a music box and consider it a toy? an instrument? a computer?
accidents like that give me hope for this project.
special thanks
scott wintner
scott roberts
kristen ventura
it all depends on camera availability. boo.
entering the main marathon. know what i'm doing, have a ton of footage but need a ton more. march is dedicated to the education half. completely by coincidence matthew at clonlara is making an arduino music box. we have footage of two music boxes already so it ties into the sub-theme of engagement. when does your engagement with noise turn into an engagement with music? when does this happen for visual art? what's the threshold for thinking of something as "art"? at what point do you see a music box and consider it a toy? an instrument? a computer?
accidents like that give me hope for this project.
special thanks
scott wintner
scott roberts
kristen ventura
Saturday, February 7, 2009
unanticipated difficulty: knowing what noise people look like. as in, recognizing you're standing next to john olson at a show.
the problem is dual.
1. interactions with noise people take place at noise events. typically these are poorly lit and filled with smoke. also you've probably had a few so you may not quite remember what they look like.
2. when people are playing noise they have a habit of looking down because that's where the pedals are, and that's how you can more easily ignore your audience. its also not unusual for a rather large amount of hair to obscure what little facial details might be visible through the wall of people/ smoke/ beers that normally separates the audience member from the performer. sometimes they wear masks too. please, don't pretend to not know what i'm talking about.
anonymity.
i had a really great meeting with kate today. walked out of the sterns building like i had conquered everything. then i realized i forgot my coffee in her office and immediately found my humility.
got the mic pre on the camera working (finally). video updates may not happen for a while because of time constraints and because my computer has a habit of not playing the quicktime files now.
visiting clonlara on monday. have to re-film kelly playing the henry cowell piece because its a good idea that needs better execution. also need to film her in the music school talking about modes of practice.
special thanks
peri weisberg
the problem is dual.
1. interactions with noise people take place at noise events. typically these are poorly lit and filled with smoke. also you've probably had a few so you may not quite remember what they look like.
2. when people are playing noise they have a habit of looking down because that's where the pedals are, and that's how you can more easily ignore your audience. its also not unusual for a rather large amount of hair to obscure what little facial details might be visible through the wall of people/ smoke/ beers that normally separates the audience member from the performer. sometimes they wear masks too. please, don't pretend to not know what i'm talking about.
anonymity.
i had a really great meeting with kate today. walked out of the sterns building like i had conquered everything. then i realized i forgot my coffee in her office and immediately found my humility.
got the mic pre on the camera working (finally). video updates may not happen for a while because of time constraints and because my computer has a habit of not playing the quicktime files now.
visiting clonlara on monday. have to re-film kelly playing the henry cowell piece because its a good idea that needs better execution. also need to film her in the music school talking about modes of practice.
special thanks
peri weisberg
Monday, February 2, 2009
ah got sick too
i did so much today.
put together the drawdio. it's really cool. works best as a tattoo pencil.
interviewed ben. i like this interview because he comes to a solid conclusion about the lack of mainstream acceptance of noise and the explanation is pretty easy to follow. i hate this interview because i fucked UP the audio, thought i had it running through an external mic, but no. instead i picked up the damn fan on the hard drive. there's three separate ways to not have this error, and i just messed it up. you can still hear what he's saying, and the framing and color are good. somehow the video is still, um, noisy. wtf. it was so bright in my apartment.
film is difficult because it combines nearly every other form of art, and while having an unlimited array of ways to present an idea is nice, it also leaves room to fuck up every single one.
i need to post highlights more consistently. its part of the process.
special thanks,
arbor vitae
put together the drawdio. it's really cool. works best as a tattoo pencil.
interviewed ben. i like this interview because he comes to a solid conclusion about the lack of mainstream acceptance of noise and the explanation is pretty easy to follow. i hate this interview because i fucked UP the audio, thought i had it running through an external mic, but no. instead i picked up the damn fan on the hard drive. there's three separate ways to not have this error, and i just messed it up. you can still hear what he's saying, and the framing and color are good. somehow the video is still, um, noisy. wtf. it was so bright in my apartment.
film is difficult because it combines nearly every other form of art, and while having an unlimited array of ways to present an idea is nice, it also leaves room to fuck up every single one.
i need to post highlights more consistently. its part of the process.
special thanks,
arbor vitae
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