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
Wednesday, January 28, 2009
full josh
josh got all sassy for his interview.
cassettes. new frontiers of time in music. controls over how art ages analogous to controls over how art is used? compose with chemicals, everyday the tape sounds different. oblique strategy: the tape is now the music.
when he wasn't verbally assaulting my poor questions he did a decent jam.
cassettes. new frontiers of time in music. controls over how art ages analogous to controls over how art is used? compose with chemicals, everyday the tape sounds different. oblique strategy: the tape is now the music.
when he wasn't verbally assaulting my poor questions he did a decent jam.
Monday, January 26, 2009
josh
interviewed josh, will post more tomorrow.
emailed kate fitzpatrick about education. emailed steve rush about meeting in human.
emailed kate fitzpatrick about education. emailed steve rush about meeting in human.
Sunday, January 25, 2009
big day
started shooting today, finally. interviewed kelly moran in the martha cook lounge. i'm a little disappointed in the quality of the video, some setting i used gave it a lot of, um, noise. the light wasn't too difficult, maybe a touch low. i tapped the button labeled "shutter speed +" once and everything seemed fine, but it's so hard to discern the noise level on such a small lcd. i am surprised at the quality of the audio because it was a very noisy room, right by a main door, two low-flying planes, traffic noise... none of it really picked up, which is both lucky and good i suppose. i wonder how many times i can use the word "noise" on this blog. the interview itself went pretty well, it's a good thing i'm starting with people with whom i'm already comfortable.
this is a relevant moment, the question is: why the widespread hesitation to embrace modern music?
something about the compression or upload fucked with the aspect ratio. learn to get quicktime to deal with 16/9.
for whatever reason the camera was not recording during her philip glass rendition. oops. also, there's some kind of sync issues where it's right at the beginning but by the end of a given clip he audio and video aren't quite together. i can't think of why this might happen but we're talking about a frame or two over the course of 20+ minutes of footage.
checklist for next shoot:
arrive early.
triple check the noisyness level.
make jokes, get people more comfortable early.
special thanks.
annie eriksson
the martha cook house
lindsay farris
this is a relevant moment, the question is: why the widespread hesitation to embrace modern music?
something about the compression or upload fucked with the aspect ratio. learn to get quicktime to deal with 16/9.
for whatever reason the camera was not recording during her philip glass rendition. oops. also, there's some kind of sync issues where it's right at the beginning but by the end of a given clip he audio and video aren't quite together. i can't think of why this might happen but we're talking about a frame or two over the course of 20+ minutes of footage.
checklist for next shoot:
arrive early.
triple check the noisyness level.
make jokes, get people more comfortable early.
special thanks.
annie eriksson
the martha cook house
lindsay farris
Wednesday, January 21, 2009
fucked up and made better
missed one of the 5 pat490 classes we have today. this was the one where we heard everybody's proposals too. emailed it to mary.
got registered for the hd class on saturday. plan to begin filming sunday.
made a mix cd for ben at his request. i will post the final version later. his involvement is fun because he hates noise. i think it's part of being a literary mind, he needs some kind of coherence or narrative. flow. something. anyway, he requested a mix so he could be very specific about his distaste and i think i made a pretty good one. it covers a number of different aspects of what we broadly call noise: academic, minimal, harsh, bands, laptops, contemplative, pretty, circuit bending, classic. i really like it.
made a label in my gmail called noisedoc so all relevant communications can be easily accessed.
emailed: kelly, morgan, jash.
to do: call dave's office about grants (during regular business hrs).
find somebody willing to film me putting the drawdio together.
get in touch with ian and isaac.
got registered for the hd class on saturday. plan to begin filming sunday.
made a mix cd for ben at his request. i will post the final version later. his involvement is fun because he hates noise. i think it's part of being a literary mind, he needs some kind of coherence or narrative. flow. something. anyway, he requested a mix so he could be very specific about his distaste and i think i made a pretty good one. it covers a number of different aspects of what we broadly call noise: academic, minimal, harsh, bands, laptops, contemplative, pretty, circuit bending, classic. i really like it.
made a label in my gmail called noisedoc so all relevant communications can be easily accessed.
emailed: kelly, morgan, jash.
to do: call dave's office about grants (during regular business hrs).
find somebody willing to film me putting the drawdio together.
get in touch with ian and isaac.
Tuesday, January 20, 2009
began the thesis proposal, will finish and hand in tomorrow. watched this video: http://www.ubu.com/film/her_noise.html. i remember ronen going on a year or two ago about the lack of women in noise. he doesn't just want to go to a show, he wants to fall in love. watching vicky open for paper rad at mocad, wondering why she was dressed in workout clothes, realizing she does acrobatics to make noise.
physical engagement with instruments. this is a common complaint of noise, that noise musicians are not physically engaged with their instruments in the same meaningful way as their classical or contemporary counterparts. it's also one of its greatest assets, the ability to play knobs and buttons, immediacy, accessibility. violently throwing yourself around a basement full of friends while your microphone screams moneymurder and you're too into it to remember it happened.
going to pick up the hd form right now. sign up for the certification tomorrow. drawdio came on saturday, film it being put together.
new things to remember:
talk to kelly about how she got to study with steve.
talk to jash and morgan and bennett about cassette tapes. talk to morgan about ritualistic practices, i.e. his pat 452 final.
physical engagement with instruments. this is a common complaint of noise, that noise musicians are not physically engaged with their instruments in the same meaningful way as their classical or contemporary counterparts. it's also one of its greatest assets, the ability to play knobs and buttons, immediacy, accessibility. violently throwing yourself around a basement full of friends while your microphone screams moneymurder and you're too into it to remember it happened.
going to pick up the hd form right now. sign up for the certification tomorrow. drawdio came on saturday, film it being put together.
new things to remember:
talk to kelly about how she got to study with steve.
talk to jash and morgan and bennett about cassette tapes. talk to morgan about ritualistic practices, i.e. his pat 452 final.
Monday, January 12, 2009
created a digital space to keep myself organized throughout this process.
emailed kate fitzpatrick, asking if she has the time or energy to talk to me, either on camera or not. i'm using that as a basis for my approach to the classroom activities: how to get people focused, how to talk to young children.
to do:
list of interviewees
call anthony, hang out at clon lara
thesis proposal form
apply for graduation
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