My page about History of Audio Technology and Electroacoustic Music has been updated.
Sorry, currently the page is in italian only. It will be translated as soon as possible
Ho finalmente aggiornato la pagina dedicata alla Cronologia della Tecnologia Audio e della Musica Elettroacustica.
Mancano ancora un po’ di cose, comunque è quasi completa e consultabile, con molte immagini, link di approfondimento e link per ascoltare via You Tube le composizioni citate.
Tonic is a deck of cards that offer instant tips in the style of the famous Oblique Strategies by Brian Eno and Peter Schmidt from the 70s. The difference is that Tonic is specific to musicians.
The author, Mr Scott Hughes says:
Some cards tell you what pitches to use. Others have time constraints. Some are for specific instruments. A few are visual. Some ask you to use your computer or phone. Some are meditative, and some are chaotic. Some are straightforward, and some are … a little abstract.
Tonic is nice, but what makes me a bit perplexed is that the sentences are … a bit too specific.
For example:
use only one interval. You are free to move it around using as many pitches as you like.
or
play this graph The vertical axis is intensity. The horizontal is time. It takes about 3 minutes to play.
3 minutes? why 3 minutes? and why that graphic?
I understand that you can say that the ideas expressed in the cards can always be interpreted in a different way, but for me are too … assertive, at least as to the oblique strategies that I use from time to time.
Honor your error as a hidden intention
has another depth.
$ 25 from the author’s site
Italian artist Jacopo Rosati created a series of tarots images inspired by the social networks experience. So you can get the Fake News card, the Conspiracy (It’s all connected), the Russian Hacker (ransomware infection) or Chinese (your password got stolen).
In 2002, the Scandinavian composer Leif Inge took Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony and stretched it out to 24 hours without distortion or pitch variations. The 9th Symphony’s standard duration is around 67 minutes (but it depends on the director: it can also exceed 70′ and reach up to 77’16 “in the Kubelik version of ’74), it is an expansion of about 21.5 times.
The title of this expanded version is 9 Beet Stretch. It sounds like a slow-moving sound continuum, but not so slow that it does not allow you to perceive changes in a reasonable time (a few minutes, but generally shorter). Obviously, with these times, the melody is completely lost and everything turns into a sequence of chords, but the dramatic sense of harmony remains.
All note’s entries are very gradual because it is not a simple metro slow-down but an audio signal stretched, so any attack that in the original file lasts 1/10 second, becomes 2.15 seconds in the expanded version. The audio file is a Naxos recording directed by Béla Drahos with Nicolaus Esterházy Symphony and Choir (Naxos 8.553478).
The stream can be listened on the internet from the 9 Beet Stretch site (click the player at the top right of the page). It’s an ongoing 24/7 stream of 9 Beet Stretch, starting at the time of sunset, Wien, march 26th, the date Ludwig van Beethoven died, so the four movements start at:
Note: CET = central Europe time.
In daylight saving time add one hour.
Link: the 9 Beet Stretch site
A singer within the St. John’s Baptistery, in Piazza dei Miracoli (Pisa, Italy), uses the acoustic qualities of the architecture to turn a mono-melody into harmony.
The reverberation time of the Baptistery can reach up to 15 seconds, offering a vast space of time to handle sustained notes, so a single singer can create harmony superimposing new notes on the reverberation of the previous ones.
A composition written for the Baptistery in Pisa is Ian Costabile’s Earth and Sky Voices (here on You Tube). There is also an electroacoustic composition: SiderisVox by Leonardo Tarabella performend here on 2006. You can find some notes here. Unfortunately I could not find an audio extract.
Some details about the video: the tourist speaking thinks that singer has come by chance, but he does not know that acoustics demonstrations are very frequent. He also speak about “echo”, but of course the correct name of the sound effect is reverberation.
Links to other post about this topic are below the video.
An excerpt from the Suguru Goto’s Japanese tour of 2016. The video, from Tokyo concert, is a collage of three songs with music by Suguru Goto and graphics by three different artists Patrick Defasten, Lucio Arese and Antoine Schmitt .
The songs are:
Body Jack, Suguru Goto music, Patrick Defasten graphics
CsO, Suguru Goto music, Antoine Schmitt graphics
Continuum, Suguru Goto music, Lucio Arese graphics
There is no detailed info, but I guess that all the songs could be generated with one of the classic audio and video software, such as Max/Jitter or PD/GEM or, at least, Max/PD exchanging data with Processing.
In the first two tracks the graphic part is completely generated by the computer. The second one is based on the particles most likely by Jitter.
The former exhibits a considerable amount of objects assembled in a toroidal configuration, which then explode into other forms. Rotations are not a problem because they are not the objects to move, but the virtual camera (the “viewpoint”). But the amount of objects and their arrangement suggests some kind of specialized software.
In the third, however, there are almost organic shapes that resemble jellyfish, and it is more difficult to understand if we have to deal with a totally computerized graphic or with a few shots.
Unfortunately this site no longer exists
14&15 Mobile Photographers is the first international showcase dedicated exclusively to mobile photographers and to their work. We are driven by a great curiosity to explore the new frontiers of digital photography, the mobile photography. For this reason, in 2015 we launched this platform, with the aim of promoting this sector of photography which is growing fast worldwide. We believe that the smartphone is only a tool to take pictures and does not represent anything more than an easy and fast camera. But this smart tool is always with us, ready to record our life in every moment.
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They are not playing cards. Removed is a project by American photographer Eric Pickersgill where the pervasiveness of the cellphone is highlighted through its absence. Ordinary images in which the central object is removed and in this way the scene appears in all its absurdity.
Pickersgill comments:
Family sitting next to me at Illium café in Troy, NY is so disconnected from one another. Not much talking. Father and two daughters have their own phones out. Mom doesn’t have one or chooses to leave it put away. She stares out the window, sad and alone in the company of her closest family. Dad looks up every so often to announce some obscure piece of info he found online. Twice he goes on about a large fish that was caught. No one replies. I am saddened by the use of technology for interaction in exchange for not interacting. This has never happened before and I doubt we have scratched the surface of the social impact of this new experience. Mom has her phone out now.
The Removed site is here, with many images.
Hello, by Alexander Schubert
(2014) For {any number of} instruments, live-electronics and video
Excerpts from composer’s notes:
The piece is audio-visual. It’s basically a video that is accompanied by the instruments. The video consists of video recordings of the composer performing certain actions / gestures. These gestures are notated in the score as well and need to be interpreted by the musicians (as musical events – not as theatrical actions / physical movement – the idea is to find corresponding or contrasting music events for the given gestures).
The piece is really based on the video and the electronics in the tape, meaning that in the rehearsal progress, rather use the video as an orientation and not the only the score. The score is a tool to make it easier to play along with the video, but eventually the video is the real score.
The piece can be played more or less by any combination of instruments. It is advised to have at least four players, one of which is a piano/guitar/accordion or similar to play chords. Also a percussionist should be included. For combinations that do not fall into this description please contact the composer to check.
You are invited to use other small instruments or props other than those found in your ensemble. For example toy instruments, everyday household tools or found objects. Chose these instruments in order to fit a given video gesture you want to accompany.
More info here and here.
Either/Or: Elliott Sharp – Venus & Jupiter (premiere)
(because in this days I get up at dawn and I always see Venus and Jupiter close in the sky)
Richard Carrick – piano, Stephanie Griffin – viola, Margaret Lancaster – alto flute, Chris McIntyre – trombone, Josh Rubin – bass clarinet, David Shively – percussion, Alex Waterman – cello with Elliott Sharp – electro-acoustic guitar