Forum - Week 4 - Pedal Pushers and Flushing Toilets

I was certainly lined up for a good improvisation workshop this
week, as I have managed to source a multi-FX pedal that I plan
use with a microphone. During the week I had plugged it into the
Laney amp to great effect, with the octave-down pitch shift and
power-chord effects sounding very interesting with vocals. It
seems as though I will need to arouse an amplifier from elsewhere
in the Shultz building, as there is a great need for the old Laney.
Nonetheless our group spent 40 minutes trying to get a sound
from anything, especially now that one of the decks that Matt was
using has been pilfered by another group. I am curious why a
group has suddenly decided that they need a deck, in week 4.
In any case I have little to report.

Student presentations swung into action again, first up being
Henry Reed, who’s existence I was unaware of until this class.
His composition was a heartfelt piece dedicated to his
Grandfather who served in World War II, and consisted of
various war sounds and other less definable noises. It may have
been on purpose or perhaps because of the speakers, but there
seemed to be very little low end sound, and it even sounded
monophonic. Overall it was an enjoyable piece, and maintained
the listener’s interest throughout. Following Henry was
Matthew Mazzone, presenting various compositions. The first
was designed for a computer game, and would live up to this
very well with a great atmosphere and nice harmonics. The only
negative I drew was that it used synth strings, which denigrated
the organic feel presented by the piano. His next piece was
created on Live earlier in the day, and it was enjoyable if a little
repetitive. The next song was something he had made in previous
years, and was basically a pop dance song. It was agreeable, but
I am not a fan of this style of music. Considering this and Dragos’
piece from last week, I believe I may have moved away from the
4-chord song structure that I used so much in high school. Surely
this isn’t a bad thing? Finally there was guy (who’s name escapes
me) presenting a recording of his death metal band. I have a soft
spot for Slipknot, Soulfly and Sepultura, so I did enjoy this except
for some small engineering issues. I’ll just put this out there- has
anyone who has recorded with the RODE NTV found it to have a
dead sound? I would think such an expensive microphone would
be relatively indiscriminate in its frequency pickup. Vocal
recordings I have done on Neumann U87/89 turn out beautiful,
but NTV recordings have needed drastic equalisation to get a clean
and natural sound. Due to this I have demoted the NTV to
‘room-mic’ as it seems quite capable of pick up a flushing a toilet 2
floors down.

Forum - Week 3 - Funk Jam and Indian Sunset

Practising improvisation seems to be a conflict of interest
in itself, but I suppose there is nothing wrong with being
prepared. This session was the first introduction of our
chosen instruments; Jake on drums in ‘Live’, Matt on the
decks with LP’s, Dave on guitar (“The Axe”), Dragos and
Adrian with their whole computer thing, and me with vocal
acrobatics. I would say our initial aspirations for the final
performance seem to be within the realm of possibility, as
our first jam session could have been the performance in
itself. David begun a funky jam on guitar with special
thanks to his wah pedal, and I was putting down bass lines
and beats on a microphone plugged into the Laney guitar
amplifier with the distortion set high. As a result I have
decided to try and find an effects pedal for which I can
further assault my voice. I am looking forward to hearing
other groups improvisations, especially John “Private Parts”
Delaney’s group, as I understand he has an interest in
playing a barbecue. Such an act would be open to many puns,
so I’ll see what I can “cook” up.

This week’s student presentations were by David Dowling,
Dragos Nastasie and Vinny Bhagat. David presented his
Semester 1 Audio Arts recording of a band called Tuscadero.
I am hardly a fan of country music, and unfortunately this
was too close for comfort (also the singer was crap). David
also presented his Creative Computing composition,
consisting of non-stop spine-melting guitar solos, performed
by John “Colonel Sanders” Delaney and David himself. A
very enjoyable piece, with the difference in soloing technique
between the two virtuosos adding humour to the mix. The
next presentation was from Dragos, who quite possibly has
the coolest name in the world. It was nice to know that
somebody else isn’t obsessed with ambient like the majority
of EMU- Dragos slapped them all in the face with some
Hi-NRG dance. As far as dance tracks go I found it a little
amateur, as it was highly repetitive and melodically slapdash.
Even though it was made entirely on Reason 2.0, it still
sounded like MIDI music I made on Logic in high school.
Perhaps my classical training has ruined me for dance music?
Vinny was the last performer, and he finished off the
afternoon nicely with a claming, Indian inspired ‘rag’,
combining the grand piano with the laptop to wonderful
effect. I was captivated by the symmetry of the visuals and
droning tanpura underneath the melodic explorations on the
grand, and the experience could only have been improved
if we had a view of the sunset at the same time.


When writing the title for this blog entry I had an idea for
a cocktail drink-
- 2 oz Tequila
- 4 oz Orange Juice
- 1 oz Grenadine
- 4 drops tabasco sauce

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

Hmm...

If anyone knows how I can stop the text going all the way to the right of the page, can you please inform me. Cheers!

Forum - Week 1 - Martin Armiger's Career Choice Problems

Like a herd of pigs being fattened up for consumption, we
begin feeding on a second semester of the psychological
slops trough known as “Forum”. Sadly it was only half
a forum, with my old pal Dirty Harry
indisposed, perhaps polishing his .44 Magnum while reading
my blog from last semester. Nonetheless, guest presenter
Martin Armiger (1) kept us entertained and jealous. AFTRS
head of screen composition and screen composer
himself, Martin has the job most of us would wish we were
good enough for, which is why his aversion towards almost
everything in film music upset me. To roughly quote;
“There is a lot of shit”. Sorry Martin, I’ll try and do
better next time okay?

Apart from his industry gripe, and
after a pointless stab at any religious
people in the room about evolution,
he did have some interesting nuggets
of thought to share. An interesting
observation was that “Film is a
collision of many aesthetics”, for
which he listed about 15 components
which must work symbiotically to
achieve a pleasing and profitable
result. Another area covered was
human responses to certain
frequencies, epitomised in the “Psycho” shower scene in the
use of high pitched sounds to enhance panic and suspense.
He continued with this subject, stating “Music is a mechanism
for controlling behaviour”. Something clicked in my brain, and
I got flashbacks of Christian telling me how everybody in high
positions in the world are actually lizards. Could it be? Martin,
a lizard that can control behaviour? Hold on, didn’t Godzilla
have theme music!?

Of particular interest was the “7 functions of a movie score”,
regurgitated by Martin from a book by Claudia Gorbman
(Unheard Melodies). To re-regurgitate*: Invisible, Inaudible,
Cues emotions, Sense of place, Provides point-of-view,
Continuity, and Unity in repetition/variation. Considering
this, it is understandable that a composer in the industry
may be bitter, as there is much constriction on his/her
outcome, and composer’s tastes seem to carry little
weight on the process.

*Interestingly, ‘gurgitate’ does not actually mean eat.
You ‘ingest’ food then ‘regurgitate’ it. Kind of like putting
‘bread’ in a toaster and getting ‘toast’ back.


1. Martin Armiger. “The Problem with Film Music.” Lecture
presented at the Electronic Music Unit, University of Adelaide,
South Australia, 27/07/2006.


Picture: Claudia Gorbman. From The University Of Washington,
Tacoma website. http://www.tacoma.washington.edu/

NB. As I could not source a picture of Martin from the web,
I have borrowed the ever reliable Intangent's. In this process
I had to delete a copy of the picture, from which XP kindly
asked me, "Are you sure you want to send "Martin" to the
recycling bin?" Yes. Yes I do.

CC2 - Week 1 - Cubase Video Setup.

I didn't have real trouble setting up this, so I included the MIDI
thing we learnt as well. You'll notice in this snapshot that the
'note on' thing in Reason is on, thus proving how cool I am. I don't
know what it does yet though. I guess one problem I had was
taking a screen shot, as I had forgotten the 12-button ultra-cool
Mac code for the shortcut. After minimising ALL the open
windows I was able to double click on one of the temp drives,
and from there searched backwards for the 'screen grab' program.
Kiss my user-friendly arse. Oh wait, now it is in .tiff format.
Export as jpeg then. Oh great, now my file upload server won't
accept ANYTHING from this computer. Well, I guess I'll just
transfer it to my laptop (through email of course) and add the
picture link then. Here you go.