Forum - Week 2 - Improv Delegation and Religious Relegation

When Clint Eastwood jumps into the ocean he doesn't get wet,

the ocean gets Clint Eastwood.



No more Dirty Harry music? What am I going to write about!?

We have instead been prescribed an adventure in improvisation (1).

I am curious what subject our ‘workshop’ class is actually an

extension of, as we do not have any improvisation lectures or

tutorials. Nonetheless, the first workshop comprised of

subject explanation and group organisation. After Stephen

Whittington made a big deal about how the randomly chosen

groups would allow the various year level to work together,

my group had four 1st years and two 2nd years, while another

group had four 3rd years and one 1st year. Despite this, the

group I was involved in turned out to have the same vision

for a final performance that I had: a central theme of rhythm,

removed from ambient. Luckily we all had differing talents,

so we have a nice instrumental diversity. I say ‘talent’

loosely as I don’t play any real instrument. I have nominated

myself to provide vocal… umm… effects. I’m not sure how

well this is going to turn out, but I’m sure it will be fun in the

very least.

Another new part of forum is student presentations, where

we are now obligated to give a talk on something we worked

on last semester. First up was Luke Digance and

John “Maggot” Delaney, both presenting their Semester 1

Creative Computing compositions. Luke’s was an interesting

journey through harmonics(2), the sounds of which were

sourced from items in the EMU kitchen. While he seemed

to cop some slack over the introduction of rhythmic drum

sounds, such people seemed to have forgotten that the point

of the piece was to unite harmony and rhythm with Musique

Concrete. Maggot Delaney’s piece (3) was not new to me, as I

was one of the performers recorded in the production. Patrick

McCartney and I joined forces, and slapped the Buddhist

religion with our attempt at vocal harmonics. The resultant

sound was very cool, but I wish I had done my part now as

I have discovered a way to do harmonics more effectively.

Here's a guy you wouldn't want to be in a jail cell with.

1. David Harris and Stephen Whittington. "Improvisation

Workshop" Presented at the Electronic Music Unit, University

of Adelaide. 3/08/2006.

2. Luke Digance. “Musique Concrete Presentation.”

Presented at the Electronic Music Unit, University of

Adelaide. 3/08/2006.

3. John Delaney. “Performance Symmetry.” Presented at

the Electronic Music Unit, University of Adelaide. 3/08/2006.

Pictures
Dirty Harry -
http://www.space-debris.com/spy_eastwood_dirtyHarry_LG.jpg