Cildrens view
Posted by: alexanderpander on: August 23, 2009
Last night while talking with friends of Elisa the topic of childrens TV came up. Apparently there was a TV show in which they got children to try and describe things. Was hilarious apparently.
I thought this might be a good idea for audio work or samples, having children describing serious stuff.
Childrens view
Posted by: alexanderpander on: August 23, 2009
Last night while talking with friends of Elisa the topic of childrens TV came up. Apparently there was a TV show in which they got children to try and describe things. Was hilarious apparently.
I thought this might be a good idea for audio work or samples, having children describing serious stuff.
Voice Augmentation
Posted by: alexanderpander on: August 20, 2009
Crater Lake – april 14 improvisation from Fredo Viola on Vimeo.
I have been thinking of putting together a Pd patch to augment my voice (which is terrible from years of non-use silently sitting in front of a computer). This always tends to be a solo act whenever I have seen it. I would love to see a electronic group that had a singer like this working with more experimental backing.
Ambient samples and composition
Posted by: alexanderpander on: August 13, 2009
I just came back from New York with lost of ambient recordings and I’m looking for a format in which to use them within a composition. I just cam across a piece which is a lake recording with piano over the top.
I was thinking that I might then use the ‘piano waves’ setup I made in Reason when I was in Czech, which really has an emotive flow to it and makes it easy to accentuate moments. Piano is easy and sounds pretty, particular against nature sounds.
Mostly of my recordings are from Urban landscapes however or of jet planes. Thomas Brinkmann and Scanner did a track called Adria in which they had a recording from inside a fighter jet on an attack run. The track, minimal tech, builds up ominously (sadly no strike on the sample so no climate).
Finally there is the obvious approach which would be to slice up the samples and integrate shorted sections. The Boards of Canada did some nice stuff in this direction on there Geogaddi album, in which they sample old documentary and play some of the samples backward
Sol LeWitt
Posted by: alexanderpander on: August 10, 2009
Erika took me to the Dia:Beacon yesterday and I discovered the work of Sol LeWitt! He has a series of line drawings on the walls there exploring various patters produced by moving thought all the permutations of certain lines or shapes. I feel these are similar, in a way, to how I approach experimental electronic music.
I’d like to make a series of audio works that explore audio space in the same way.
200 Electric Guitars
Posted by: alexanderpander on: August 9, 2009
200 GUitars at the Lincoln Center
Last night Erilka took me too the Lincoln center where one of her work makes was involved in the 200 Electric Guitars performance composed and conducted (signalled?) by Rhys Chatham. It was an interesting performance in that the audience was surrounded by a U-shape of electric guitars (see pictures for one side) which where sectoned into or and had sub-conductors (signalers) who relayed the messages of Mr.Chatham to their section. Thus Chatham was able to have pan effects moving the sound from one corner to the other.
The actual content of the piece I didn’t find that inspiring and the overall effect of the 200 guitars come across as a string section of any classical orchestra. The final crescendo was more of what I expected with all sections playing (out of time with one another) and a sort of textured drone surrounding the listener. I was hoping for more of this, with the drone changing consistency in each section, perhaps rotating around, swirling…
So I thought this would be possible with SuperCollider and using many voices (perhaps 200 even!). I recently read a tutorial on how to recreate the THX audio logo which is made up of 30 voices out of sync that converge. I’d like to combining the two ideas to create a 3D audio composition in which various drone elements would move around the listener and converge in-and-out. This wold only be possibel by computer I think as a lot of the limitations in Chathams composition where due to the ability to control the guitars.
Overall a delightful experience!
New composition ideas
Posted by: alexanderpander on: July 29, 2009
It would be nice to lay down some backing sound like like a New York subway ride and then put a drone on it and then at the right points stick in some chords or a little riff.
A bit like that Ricardo Villalobos minimal experimental thing with the harp but flipped with the backing being abstract (instead of drums) and the melody [layer] being more concrete.
Perhaps a traditional blues riff or even a cover with some lyrics. I was thinking that I might be able to add high pitched vocals if I put my voice though some sort of filter to make a wale out of it (until I get my voice back).
Drumming leasons
Posted by: alexanderpander on: March 18, 2009
I have been studying the drums recently.
I found a very cool drummers blog by some LA session drummer who pumps out a drum loop a day and talks about drumming technique in general. Has really helped scope out the head space of drumming theory for me, and I constantly keep checking back so I’m always thinkging about it.
Things I have learn for composition:
- Changing the base drum sound without it seeming like a different track all of a sudden.
- Really can’t have more than one bass drum sound (perhaps if one was raddically different, say a techno sound and one was a normal kit sound ?).
- Its nice to mix constant synth drum backbeat with a more organic sampled drum sound over the top of it, perhaps just playing the high drum sounds.
- The action or character in a dance track is all in the top part of the drums, bass alone is boring and the high parts should work with the melody.
Thats all I cn think of right now.
Two elements
Posted by: alexanderpander on: September 30, 2008
Today I started a track while working on another. It was a random idea that I got while working with a filter on a loop in Dr:Rex. I immediately started another file and perused the new idea. I think this is a good way to work, fun too, but makes for many unfinished works. I would hate to be dry of ideas!
SOLID CREATIVE PROCESS
While working on this new track I cam to the idea to work on one element at a time and when I had it to my liking, combined it with a second and worked the two together, getting ideas for recording the two together, then laid this down, and then finally introduced the third element. Like mixing a cake, bringing in new elements a little at a time once the existing ones are combined well. Its a solid process but slow and can be draining.
TODO
I think I need to practice more improvisation and live recording as I feel a bit scared of doing anything live and I feeling it would speed up things and keep it fun (and require less energy).
Also, I’ve rendered out all the stage 3 tracks I’ve made and imported to iTunes so I can listen to them mastered down and see how I feel about them. Already after one hearing I feel I know things that need to be changed in some tracks and see what it perfect the way it is (well, some mastering couldn’t hurt on them all).
Random pattern vs. Swing
Posted by: alexanderpander on: September 28, 2008
Using Reasons ‘Randomise Pattern’ option it would seem that as long as the pattern starts to repeat then it really doesn’t matter what the pattern is too much. Increasing the length of a random pattern from 16 beats to 64 still doesn’t seem to have much of an effect. The longer it s the more interesting it becomes but the less like a pattern it seems.
The question really is what gives some rthyum some swing, or funk and others nothing? I know that the basic swing beat, alternating between two sounds every 4 beats gives the maximum swing. The two seperate sounds each create their own space and the mind moves from one to the other with enough time between them, back and forth like a swing. The more sounds you bring in the more the mind jumps. Things to experiment with here might be:
- Many low sounds verses many high sounds? I suppose the depth and strength would make some stand out in a jungle of sounds. Lower sounds being more rhythmic and higher being more melodic (?)
- The maximum and minimum (i guess 2?) number of sounds. How many can the mind track in rhythms before it becomes just noise? I guess the types of sounds, how close together they are makes a difference here.
