Marc Weidenbaum's Blog, page 488

10 Seconds a Day for 6 Months (Again)

Back in July of last year, a sonic diary by Harold Shellinx was featured here. The single track concatenated 10 seconds of audio recorded every day over the course of six months, for a total of over half an hour of incidental sound. He’s done it again, and again it is featured as part of the Radius broadcast and podcast. The effect is varied. One strong impression is simply that of sound as itself the subject — rather, for example, than the day’s events being recorded. Were one to take a photograph each day or to draw something each day, it is unlikely that the result would seem to take photography or drawing as its respective subject, yet here the concept of sound never seems to recede. There’s music, and discussion of music, and recorded noise, and someone mentioning David Bowie in passing. There are other things, too, notably someone having sexual intercourse — perhaps Shellinx, perhaps someone in a movie — and snatches of attended lectures and listening to (presumably) radio broadcasts. It’s a wash of noise, with Shellinx, clearly, as its best audience; one envies what it will sound like to him in the distant future.

Track originally posted at soundcloud.com/radius-14. More information at theradius.us.

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“Alternative Musical Interfaces”: Disquiet @ GAFFTA (San Francisco, September 19)

On Wednesday, September 19, there’s a panel discussion in San Francisco at the Grey Area Foundation for the Arts on “Alternative Musical Interfaces,” and I’ll be serving as moderator.

The panelists include the highly talented trio of Michael Zbyszyński (mikezed.com), Peter Nyboer (see his bayimproviser.com entry), and Spencer Salazar (see his ccrma.stanford.edu page) — more on whom at gaffta.org.

It’s all under the auspices of GAFFTA’s Sound Research Group. GAFFTA is located at 923 Market St, Suite 200, which is between 5th and 6th Streets. The event runs from 7:00pm until 8:30. Tickets are $20, but GAFFTA has a solid “no one turned away for lack of funds” policy.

I’m excited to be headed back to GAFFTA. I last took part in a discussion there in August 2011, when I presented some thoughts on “Sound as Commentary.”

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Karriem Riggins Gets Alone Together (MP3)

The great Stones Throw record label has shared an MP3 teaser of the debut full-length from longtime sideman and producer Karriem Riggins, whose CV is absurd in its breadth, from support as a drummer to Diana Krall, Mulgrew Miller, and Ray Brown, to production work for the Roots, Slum Village, and Common. Those jazz and hip-hop threads have overlapped at times, notably in his projects with Madlib. The forthcoming Riggins album, Alone Together, will be a set of hip-hop instrumentals. The advance taste is titled “Moogy Foog It,” a bit of downtempo martial-drumming arts, the beat a flangy percussive riff, above which an 8bit snake charm melody noodles around lazily. The track ends quite suddenly, suggesting it will merge with the subsequent song when the full album appears.

Download audio file (karriem_moogy.mp3)

More on the release at stonesthrow.com. The notes on the album page are a little confusing, in that they list October 23 as the release date but state “Vinyl and digital will be released in two-parts over summer and fall 2012.” Perhaps this MP3 comprises the “digital” part of that release.

And for additional context, here’s Chet Baker covering the jazz standard, by Arthur Schwartz and Howard Dietz, from which the Riggins album takes its name:

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The Voice in Instrumental Hip-Hop (MP3)

With a bit of piano that sounds like a tape loop that’s been soaking in bourbon all night, a vocal that suggests the r&b chorus as ethereal presence, and a beat that’s so downtempo it could be mistaken for the pace of distant traffic, Dustmotes has produced an enticing bit of instrumental hip-hop. Titled “For Nikola (leviculus),” it encapsulates the pleasures of the unintended genre within which it falls, a genre that is, in essence, a byproduct that has taken on a life of its own. Listeners to — admirers of — the instrumental backing tracks to hip-hop have proceeded, over time, to make music with no intention of having a vocalist muddy their effort. The only vocal that this track needs is the one that it has used as an ingredient.

Track originally posted for free download at soundcloud.com/dustmotes. More on Dustmotes, aka Paul Croker of London, England, at dustmotes.net.

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Reducing the Buddha

C. Reider has posted a two-track set of Buddha Machine reworkings, which he has titled Buddha Reduction. The music results from putting the machine’s now familiar loops of sedate ebbs and flows through a sequence of recursive sonic processings. What is left is splendidly similar to mininal techno, a dank, atmospheric effect resulting from echoed percussion and hazy pattern fields. Reider explains a bit about how the work came together:

“Buddha Reduction” was composed using a process I have been calling “reduction” in which a source sound is subjected to a series of repeated noise reductions using a type of processing that uses a sound sample selected by the user to reduce unwanted noise. The source sounds for this particular release were taken from the Buddha Machine and the Buddha Machine 2 from FM3.

I have used this same reduction process in the past, most recently for one of the Disquiet Junto challenges on soundcloud: “Bottle Reduction”. Before that, the process was used to “remove the drone from the drone” in a recording titled “Inconstant”.

Originally posted for free download at vuzhmusic.com/releases. More on his process at vuzhmusic.com/blog.

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Past Week at Twitter.com/Disquiet

RIP, soprano Evelyn Lear (b. 1926), acclaimed interpreter of Alban Berg: http://t.co/QPq7kh1A #
Bonus: along with http://disquiet.com being newly mobile/tablet-responsive, comments will be a whole lot tidier. Likely live this weekend. #
Blogger’s Remorse: Is a separate topic-specific @tumblr necessary, or should it just be a tag on your existing site? #
Super close to mobile/tablet-optimized http://disquiet.com. (Main site looks the same. Changes are all about device-based responsiveness.) #
New @tumblr I’ve got going, collecting links re: the “Sounds of Brands / Brands of Sounds” class I’m teaching: http://t.co/Fjk1qo9m #
Filed article with British magazine on the Fourth of July. Felt vaguely traitorous. #

The 27th Disquiet Junto project instructions have gone to the email list + are live at the @soundcloud page http://t.co/IjQw7mvf #
Lesson from last night about fireworks and perception: loudness doesn’t equal proximity; detail equals proximity. #
Indeed. LED fireworks: world’s first reusable. RT @ioflow: @disquiet nah, LED fireworks are The New Thing. #
Outboard-brain side-project related to “Sounds of Brands / Brands of Sounds” class I’m teaching: http://t.co/Fjk1qo9m. #
These new CFL fireworks are cool, but I miss the incandescent ones. #
The music to the new Spider-Man makes Prometheus seem subtle. That said, the use of voices in the score is interesting, if not enjoyable. #
Fascinating site about cicada songs, the transnational anthem of electronic music: cicadasong.eu. #
Great interview (and splendidly shot) with Steve Reich on influences on his work: http://t.co/3vIGp5AH. #
The 27th weekly @djunto project will be about interpreting a text file as sound. #
Looking at Fireworks (Waveforms): http://t.co/U5DxMVOn #
Chinese Red Glare & Blare: http://t.co/hKplrUq9 #
The Music of Fireworks: http://t.co/4Ycnqc0H #
The mixture of enthusiasm and solitude that is the July 3 firework. #
History of my listening goes from what’s my favorite song to what’s my favorite album to what’s my favorite appliance. NP: washing machine. #
Looking forward to moderating panel discussion on “Alternative Musical Interfaces” @gaffta on 9/19 (7pm): http://t.co/g8Z8RMEY #
48 minutes of music made by 15 musicians in 4 days from samples of trash: https://t.co/7W9pd5rt #
Tuesday noon siren peculiarly loud on a bright, clear-sky day. #
“‘Spider-Man’ feels like one of those unnecessary software versions, more Spider-Man 1.5″ says Manohla Dargis. I agree, and I dug 500 Days. #
If my tweets are especially off later today, it may be because I saw the midnight Spider-man. #
Eight musicians now confirmed for the August 19 Disquiet Junto concert in Denver. #
More details on the class I’m teaching this autumn at @academy_of_art: http://t.co/D4D3h3zZ #
Sound-art PTSD. MT @qDot: After living between stacks of cardboard boxes while moving, gonna take a while to appreciate Zimoun again. #
1/2 hour of music by 10 musicians made of sounds sampled from items found in their garbage (and one trip to the dump): https://t.co/7W9pd5rt #
Glad the http://t.co/brhasUxl netlabel is back. Two tracks posted last month, the first since November. #
Briefly concerned when I saw unfamiliar icon in one of my backup programs. Then realized what the icon meant: done uploading. #
Excuse me, it’s with Christof Migone. http://t.co/Lqgv0GL6 #mars #soundart #bradbury #
My interview with sound artist Christoph Migone about listening to Ray Bradbury’s Mars: http://t.co/hSQu3yBf #
Looking like December 6 for the San Francisco Disquiet Junto concert. #
Not a speaker. (Older variation on sidewalk grate.) http://t.co/8hiGwuw4 #
Not a speaker. (Sidewalk grate.) http://t.co/XgQhB3Rm #
I love when Facebook reminds me of a netlabel’s birthday because of how the account was set up. (“Record labels are people.”) #
Pretty impressive that Transformers 3 couldn’t get three sentences in without a grammatical error in the narration. #
For @djunto #26 stijnh shot his garbage mid-sample: http://t.co/lIZJ6Xah #
Mostly for @artofplanning: Has Shepard Fairey done anything that looks less like he’s done it? Rolling Stones logo: http://t.co/3iEF4ihl #
Guy next to me at café is like the Keith Jarrett of writers. He’s read out loud quietly as he typed on his laptop all day. #
Now 7 musicians confirmed for the Disquiet Junto (@djunto) show in Denver on August 19. Almost certainly more to come. #
Waiting for Google++ #
Inlet went extra mile for current @djunto sonic recycling project, sampling sounds of local dump: https://t.co/kuxXSSE0. #
Concert is 8/19 in Denver. MT @vuzhmusic: Confirmed @djunto lineup so far: @c_yantis @mysterybear @falsereactions @tenandtracer and yrs trly #
For one day only 4’33″ will be 4’34″ (http://t.co/pCUGh7en) #
Looks like the mobile/tablet-optimized http://t.co/xdF1T26R should be live pretty soon. Clean, size-responsive formatting. #
Found Yegorova’s Artemiev book behind Marclay’s Shuffle box and between books by Cardiff and Kurzweil. I need to diversify my diet. #
Afternoon listening: the “Train” track from Artemiev’s score to Tarkovsky’s Stalker: http://t.co/o0y1HplR #dyer #zona #
Initial thoughts about Geoff Dyer’s engrossing book about Andrei Tarkovsky’s movie Stalker: http://t.co/2LqxmdP1 #
Remains convinced that Stalker will be remade with Jason Statham in the lead role. #
Best thing about 3rd book in Mira Grant’s great trilogy of zombie novels is moral parallel it draws between zombies & clones. #
Geoff Emerick’s memoir about recording the Beatles in the 1960s is unintentionally the best book about how manga is made today. #

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The Sound (and Sound Application) of Video Art (MP3)

The Tate Modern’s interview featuring artists Peter Campus and Douglas Gordon, as moderated by former Whitney Museum of American Art director David A. Ross, is focused on their video work, but it serves wider-ranging consideration and application (MP3). As Ross says early on, it’s almost unseemly to simply refer to them simply as video artists, because to do so seems to unintentionally but firmly subjugate their work as some sort of subset, or offshoot, instead of as artworks whose elected medium was simply defined by the projects they desired to implement, the questions they wished to probe. This is a situation not unlike that of “sound art” — it often seems like “sound arts” is a more applicable term, much as feminists rightly speak of “feminisms” lest they unintentionally feed the impression of a unified collective point of view, or better yet of “sound in art.”

Download audio file (2008_04_17DouglasGordon.mp3)

In any case, the Tate interview, which dates from April 2008 but only recently popped up in the museum’s RSS feed, is quite thought-provoking, especially Campus’ depiction of early interactive work, and Gordon’s thoughts on matters of slowing down pre-existing media (this is the artist who created 24 Hour Psycho). And those listeners hoping for a touch of the purely sonic will appreciate a moment when Gordon aims to characterize the sound of Campus’ studio, the sound inside Campus’ head; he does this by intoning a wordless hum that he modulates incrementally up and down.

Track originally posted for download at tate.org.uk. (Image up top of 24 Hour Psycho from cbc.ca.)

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sound.tumblr.com

In association with the 15-week class that I’m teaching this fall at the Academy of Art in San Francisco, “Sounds of Brands / Brands of Sounds,” I’ve started a new Tumblr side-blog project, a lightly annotated outboard brain of links associated with the topics that are core to the class: the use of sound in marketing and advertising, the marketing and advertising of sound-related brands, sound design in consumer products, and music licensing, among other things.

I may collate and/or cross-post some of those pieces here, but in the meanwhile, you can follow it all at sound.tumblr.com.

Initial posts include the presence of sound design at the London Design Festival this year (developed by Arup, with audio by Squarepusher and Jana Winderen, among others), consideration of the purchase of Mog by Dr. Dre’s Beats, the work Scanner (aka Robin Rimbaud) did on an alarm clock for Philips, and the use of Roland 808 imagery by Nokia to tease a forthcoming smartphone.

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Disquiet Junto Project 0027: Texting

Each Thursday evening at the Disquiet Junto group on Soundcloud.com a new compositional challenge is set before the group’s members, who then have just over four days to upload a track in response to the assignment. Membership to the Junto is open: just join and participate.

This week’s project may blow up in my face, because it may simply prove ineffective — or unnecessarily complicated to put into effect — for some participants. The theme is turning text into sound in a specifically abstract manner. At a technological level, though, it simply may not function for everyone involved. I’m hopeful that it will work, but if nothing else, the project provides solid evidence that the Disquiet Junto is as much a place where I, as founder and moderator, experiment as it is for the musicians who respond to the projects with their own tracks. I’ve said in the past that the goal of the Junto is, at its core, to provide a place where people feel comfortable failing — and that’s as true for me as it is for the participants.

The assignment was made late in the day, California time, on Thursday, July 5, with 11:59pm on the following Monday, July 9, as the deadline. View a search return for all the entries as they are posted: disquiet0027-texting.

These are the instructions that went out to the group’s email list (at tinyletter.com/disquiet-junto). They appear below translated into six additional languages: French, German, Japanese, and Turkish, courtesy of Éric Legendre, Allan Brugg, Naoyuki Sasanami, and M. Emre Meydan, respectively.

Disquiet Junto Project 0027: Texting

We’re continuing the theme of “creative reuse” this week. In past Disquiet Junto projects we have reworked audio files, and in the process of interpreting a photograph as a graphic score, some participants treated the image file as abstract audio. This week, we’ll be interpreting a text file as sound.

Please copy the instructions to this project and save them as a text file. You will then open that file in one or more pieces of audio-processing software. The resulting sound will serve as the foundation of your track. You can only use the sounds resulting from the text file in the process of making your track. You can manipulate the sounds, and you can use multiple versions that result from different pieces of software, but you cannot add any other sounds.

Deadline: Monday, July 9, at 11:59pm wherever you are.

Length: Please keep your track to between 2 and 5 minutes.

Information: Please when posting your track on SoundCloud, please include a description of your process in planning, composing, and recording it. This description is an essential element of the communicative process inherent in the Disquiet Junto.

Title/Tag: When adding your track to the Disquiet Junto group on Soundcloud.com, please include the term “disquiet0027-texting” in the title of your track, and as a tag for your track.

Download: As always, you don’t have to set your track for download, but it would be preferable.

Linking: When posting the track please include this information:

More details on the Disquiet Junto at:

http://soundcloud.com/groups/disquiet...

. . . . .

Instructions in French:

Projet Disquiet Junto 0027 : textage

Nous poursuivons cette semaine sur le thème de la « réutilisation créative ». Dans de précédents projets du Junto de Disquiet, nous avons retravaillé des fichiers audio, et dans le processus d’interprétation d’une photographie en tant que partition graphique, certains participants ont alors traité le fichier image en tant qu’audio abstraite. Cette semaine, nous allons interpréter un fichier texte comme son.

S’il vous plait, copier les instructions de ce projet et les enregistrer dans un fichier texte. Vous ouvrirez ensuite ce fichier dans un ou plusieurs éléments d’un logiciel de traitement audio. Le résultat sonore servira de base à votre piste. Vous devez utiliser uniquement les sons provenant du fichier texte dans la production de votre piste. Vous pouvez manipuler les sons, et vous pouvez utiliser plusieurs versions qui résultent des différents éléments du logiciel, mais vous ne pouvez pas ajouter aucun autre son.

Date limite : lundi 9 juillet, à 23 h 59 où que vous soyez.

Durée : Veuillez S.V.P. vous assurer de conserver la durée de votre pièce entre 2 et 5 minutes.

Information : S’il vous plait, lors du téléversement de votre piste sur SoundCloud, veillez à inclure une description de votre processus suite à la conception, la composition et l’enregistrement. Cette description est un élément essentiel du processus de communication inhérente au Junto de Disquiet.

Titre/mot-clé : Lorsque vous ajoutez votre pièce au groupe Disquiet Junto sur Soundcloud.com, veillez à y inclure l’expression « disquiet0027-texting » dans le titre de votre pièce, mais également comme mot-clé.

Téléchargement : comme à l’habitude, vous n’avez pas à permettre le téléchargement de votre pièce, mais cela serait souhaitable.

Lien : lorsque vous publiez votre pièce, S.V.P. inclure ces informations :

Plus de détails à propos Projet Disquiet Junto :

http://soundcloud.com/groups/disquiet...

. . . . .

Instructions in German:

Disquiet Junto Projekt 0027: Texten

Wir setzen das Thema der “kreativen Wiederverwertung” diese Woche fort. In vergangenen Disquiet Junto Projekten haben wir Audio Dateien überarbeitet, und im Prozess, eine Photographie als graphische Partitur zu interpretieren, haben einige Teilnehmer die Bilddatei als abstractes Audio behandelt. Diese Woche werden wir ein Text-File als Klang deuten.

Bitte kopiert die Anweisungen dieses Projekts und speichert sie als Textdatei. Ihr werdet sie dann am Stück oder in mehreren Teilen in einem Audio-Programm öffnen. Der resultierende Klang wird als Grundlage eures Tracks dienen. Ihr könnt ausschließlich die aus dem Text resultierenden Klänge verwenden. Ihr könnt die Klänge manipulieren, und ihr könnt mehrere Versionen, die aus unterschiedlicher Software hervorgehen, verwenden, aber ihr könnt keine anderen Klänge hinzufügen.

Abgabefrist: Montag, 9. Juli, um 23:59 Uhr, wo immer ihr seid.

Länge: Bitte haltet den Track zwischen 2 und 5 Minuten.

Information: Bitte fügt eurem Track, wenn ihr ihn auf Soundcloud hochladet, eine Beschreibung des Planungs-, Kompositions- und Aufnahmeprozesses hinzu. Diese Beschreibung ist essentieller Bestandteil des kommunikativen Austauschs, der Disquiet Junto eigen ist.

Titel/Tag: Wenn ihr euren Track der Disquiet Junto Gruppe auf Soundcloud.com hinzufügt, schließt bitte die Bezeichnung “disquiet0027-texting” im Titel und als Tag mit ein.

Download: Wie immer, ihr müsst eure Tracks nicht zum Download freigeben, es wäre aber wünschenswert.

Verlinkung: Wenn ihr euren Track postet, fügt bitte die folgende Information hinzu:

Mehr zu Disquiet Junto unter:

http://soundcloud.com/groups/disquiet...

. . . . .

Instructions in Japanese:

Disquiet Junto Project 0027: 文字を鳴らす

　わたしたちは、引き続きクリエイティヴな再利用のテーマを続けます。過去のプロジェクトでは、一枚の写真を図形譜として解釈したり、ある参加者はイメージを抽象的な音響として処理したりしました。今週はテキストファイルをサウンドとして解釈します。

　このプロジェクトの指示をコピーして１つのテキストファイルとして保存してください。そして、そのファイルを１つまたはいくつかのサウンド加工ソフトウェアで開きます。その結果できた音素材をトラックの土台とします。テキストファイルから作られた音素材のみを使用してください。なんらかの操作を施したり、いろいろなソフトウェアから得られた異なる複数の結果を使用してもかまいませんが、そのプロセス以外の音を加えてはいけません。

〆切：7月9日月曜日11:59pm あなたの居住地にかかわらず

長さ：2分から5分の間の長さにしてください

情報：作品をサウンドクラウドのグループに投稿する際には、あなたの構想、作曲、録音の過程についての説明をつけてください。この記述がこのグループの本来の目的であるコミュニケーションに大事なものとなります

タイトル／タグ：Disquiet Juntoグループに作品を投稿する際には”disquiet0027-texting” をタグとしてタイトルに追加してください

ダウンロード：いつものように必ずしもダウンロード可能にする必要はありませんが、望ましい

リンク：投稿する際には以下の情報を追加してください 


More details on the Disquiet Junto at:

http://soundcloud.com/groups/disquiet...

. . . . .

Instructions in Turkish:

Disquiet Junto Projesi 0027: Texting

Talimatlar:

Bu hafta da “yaratıcı tekrar kullanım” temasıyla devam ediyoruz. Önceki Disquiet Junto projelerinde ses dosyalarını tekrar düzenlemek konusunda çalışmıştık; ve bir fotoğrafın grafiksel nota yazımı gibi kullanıldığı projede bazı katılımcılar verilen görseli soyut ses olarak yorumlamıştı. Bu hafta ise bir yazı dosyasını ses olarak yorumlayacağız.

Lütfen bu projenin talimatlarını bir yazı (text) dosyası olarak kaydedip, bu dosyayı bir (ya da birkaç) ses-düzenleme yazılımında (sanki ses dosyasıymış gibi) açın. Elde ettiğiniz ses, oluşturacağınız parçanın temelini oluşturacak. Parçanız üzerinde çalışırken sadece bu yazıdan elde ettiğiniz sesleri kullanacaksınız. Sesleri dönüştürebilirsiniz, ve farklı yazılımlar kullanarak elde edeceğiniz farklı versiyonlarını bir arada kullanabilirsiniz, ama başka ses ekleyemezsiniz.

Son Teslim Tarihi: 9 temmuz pazartesi, 23:59 (bulunduğunuz ülkenin saatine göre)

Uzunluk: Lütfen bestenizin uzunluğunu 2-5 dakika arasında tutun.

Bilgi: Yaptığınız parçayı paylaşırken, lütfen bu parçanın planlama, besteleme ve kayıt süreciyle ilgili bilgi de verin. Bu açıklama, Disquiet Junto’ya içkin iletişim sürecinin önemli bir parçasıdır.

İsim/Etiket: Parçanızı Soundcloud.com’daki Disquiet Junto grubuna eklerken, lütfen “disquiet0027-texting” kelimesini hem parçanın isminde, hem de etiket (tag) olarak kullanın.

Download: Her zamanki gibi; parçanızın indirilebilir olması gerekmiyor, ama öyle olması tercih edilir.

Linkler: Yaptığınız parçayı paylaşırken, lütfen şu satırları ekleyin:

More details on the Disquiet Junto at:

http://soundcloud.com/groups/disquiet...

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The Bass as Violin / The String Quartet as Sequencer (MP3)

The string quartet “Ocean Body,” composed by Jason Charney, is by no particular means electronic. Heard in a rendition recorded live by the Fifth House Ensemble at the Ravinia Festival last month, however, it displays numerous elements that make it something of a sonic fellow traveler. There is its modest pace, which posits it in a meditative sphere. There is its grid-like metric system, which aligns it with step sequencers. There is the way it builds steadily, a composition-by-accrual approach that suggests a method not unlike that of the sampler. There is the attention to the texture of the instruments, the violin and viola in particular. And yes, that is violin singular. Beyond its intricate internal maneuvers, which become apparent as the work proceeds, “Ocean Body” has an additional distinguishing characteristic, which is that Charney directs the quartet to replace one of its traditional two violins with a bass, played here by Kyle Wescott. The result is a rich sense of grounding.

Track originally posted for free download at soundcloud.com/jasoncharney. More on Charney, who participated in several of the early Disquiet Junto projects and who is based in Lawrence, Kansas, at jasoncharney.com. More on Fifth House at fifth-house.com. More on the Ravinia Festival at ravinia.org.

And here, as a bonus, is video of Charney peforming his work “Compass” (for iPhone and Max/MSP) at an Apple Store:

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