September 2011
1 post
on making emotional music
Emotion manifests as a result of a composer’s strive towards balance. When the composer achieves an equilibrium with the sound in his composition and the state of his life thus far, the difference between that sound and the listeners’ state is (possibly) manifested as emotion in the listener. (IMhO). An overt attempt to elicit an emotional response in the “general...
July 2011
1 post
The downward push of the string in a rest stroke,...
June 2011
4 posts
on Joyce, porn and art
I don’t think there’s an issue with whether or not emotion is expressed (or rather received) as much as whether one is intending to express a specific emotion. For instance, in the studio, when one (well, me) connects two sound together, or sculpts something in a particular way, the focus is on how that sound works in respect to the rest of the sounds around it; not in whether or not...
Just woke up
On the road, talking to another composer about bike speed. There was a map with Brum and Bham on it. One was a few miles back, one was a long ways forward. The road forward was the one in discussion, and basically all that had to be done was to “put my back in it”. Finding the gears took a while but eventually speed picked up. As the road round over some hills, a lake or large river...
Groovy Groove Jackets →
May 2011
6 posts
pinebox:
From the Vault: “Jet Stream” by Curtain...
The Psychedelic Waters of Scirrum Creek
I left the cabin today for probably the last time in a long time. The water felt great with the moss under bare feet for traction in the current.
Visa cleared, flight booked, rapture cancelled
A good day, no?
I live sweat...: Superfluous Stronghold: We're... →
ilivesweat:
Photo by Rich Guttierrez
(Andy’s note: This piece is the third in a loose series on sexism in punk and hardcore. You can check out the first and second pieces here and here.)
It all started this weekend in Mccarren Park. The Two Funerals were in town from Richmond and we were…
No Tornado News
I can say, thankfully, no one I know was hurt. It seems odd that the one caveat “no one I know” ends up sounding oddly selfish instead of the grasping at an even more odd attempt at manufacturing a positive statement from the situation. The thing is a wreck. The middle of the state is a wreck.
BUT, the massive tornado that did a lot of the now infamous destruction lifted off the...
April 2011
6 posts
Bits of paper. Paper Music as it were…
Pure Data
I’ve been using and teaching Pure Data this past term. I’m really enjoying what I can get done with it. Besides just learning a little bit more about the tools I already use, there are a lot of great ready-made toys out there already. The students are digging in to it for the most part, and it’s looking to be a great teaching tool for acoustics and digital media. Hurrah!
Rick Nance →
my own site which eventually leads back here
May 2010
1 post
January 2010
1 post
Form
http://www.thefreedictionary.com/form
November 2009
1 post
studio minds
The studio process uses the ‘best fit’ method in the bottom up tradition. The theory being that the non-grid sound art (Wishart) is too complex to use pitch based rules to help organize formal rules around. It has been said that the only system appropriate for the construction of concrete sound art is the auditory system which comes with it’s own rules. Laws of auditory...
March 2009
1 post
listening
“It could be said, and it would be more than a play on words, that traditional musical listening is listening to the sounds of stereotyped musical objects, while musicianly listening is musical listening to new sound objects put forward for use in music” (Pierre Schaeffer)
February 2009
6 posts
January 2009
3 posts
plastic persistence
I’m enjoying the prospect of reimagining the visual score while trying to take advantage of all that sight-reading ability that so many (good) instrumentalists spend so much time perfecting. And still it remains primarily and functionally aurally oriented. It is fully an ‘ear first’ piece. First of course is the work being finished before visual works start on it. Or at least...
Mixed Media Models
To look at the model in two modalities is closer to the way of thinking and reading in standard practice. The experiment with auditory-only performance models is successful, but now to work on reintegrating visual isnformation using what we’ve learned from the aurally ‘pure’ experiments as well as what we’ve discussed concerning visual auditory crossover and take advantage...
November 2008
2 posts
Metropolitan Youth Orchestras
As my new presidency limps ahead I can say that, in my own opinion, things are going more positively than they were. Things were a wreck and now some of the dents have been pounded out. There are still parts that don’t work, but in some cases they’re being replaced with better ideas and people that can carry those ideas forward.
some people are being driven by energies that are...
Kontakte in Atlanta
Went on another music road trip avec Louisiana/Alabama composer Brian Wilke. We heard a brilliant performance of Stockhausen’s Kontakte by Atlanta piano-percussion duo of Stuart Gerber and Michael Fowler.
Gerber also performed (but we were too late to hear) a work dedicated to him by Stockhausen. He’ll be here in Birmingham in February. Should be great.
October 2008
8 posts
60x60
Craig Hultgren’s rendition of Click Glut is now published and touring with the 3rd volume of Robert Voisey’s collection of one minute compositions by as many composers, 60x60.
Ecological Psychology and Fodder for Formalisation
I’ve been working with three kinds of frogs (i think) and what may possibly be a sheen of crickets. there’s an occasional fish flop, but I didn’t get the overhead passenger jets.
I can only guess as to any deep stucture that’s going on here but the guesswork is really the point here I suppose.
The frogs themselves are mostly concerned with the landscape and each other....
12 tags
commisions anyone?
Performance Instructions: “Mimic” the model in the headphones.
That’s probably the most succint instructions I can give once the model is made. All the information needed for the performance is sought from the studio version and the effectivities of the instrument. The spectromorphology of the audio signal, coupled with the boundaries of the cello is the primary instruction. One...
Softworks is
strictly musings in un-strict fashion. Just wondering how to think about software interaction and how you divvy it up——-
any piece of art that is conceived in such a way that some aspect of its realisation must be formalised as software.
‘worksware’ is the actual programme or patch(es) written for the piece
Ideally in this group there will be a proportional amount of...
September 2008
4 posts
txt
I caught a yawp in the breeze, unhappy and shattered
it sits in a jar in the kitchen
sometimes at night I wake up and sit in the dark watching it shimmer
fasterr-r--r-- - - - - -
(a bit) but it runs a little hot. Needs a bit o’ silver sync grease I think.
The frog calls are starting to really speak, but mostly it’s in my head. I’m still looking for a way to balance the digits with the neurons (the outside and the in) and come up with some sort of demonstrable integration. (don’t read that one either)
more toys
If I find the right screwdrivers I’m doubling the speed on the laptop.
up and running
new drive, 6 times larger, 1.5 times faster, super cheap (or else not at all) and back in spin. Still contemplating the summer of heat, crickets, and so on. When you sleep and the crickets don’t stop for a few years (except when they’re drowned out by cicadas) does it lead to tinnitus?
All night you hear frogs, owls, and grasshoppers and you don’t know if you’re really...
August 2008
2 posts
Title
The crickets, frogs, and fish… “Dreamless Summer”? I hate using the word ‘dream’ in a title. I should be shot
cras-recrash
a…nd crash again. New HD on order. Nuendo is squeezing ProTools outa my brain.
July 2008
5 posts
massive system crash
I guess they’re all pretty massive, but mine was worse. Total hard drive failure. And get this: Two! (count ‘em) Two sets of backups. I am so coooool!
Reformat, reinstall, nearly all apps working fine, those not working are free, and an extra 2GB of unaccounted for hard drive space. The machine runs a lot faster now too. yeSSSSS!
(you may touch the hem of my jeans now)
moving boxes
My folks just bought a house! Gonna go do a mobile family reunion.
Learning Curves
Getting a handle on Nuendo and Kyma at the same time is proving slow. In keeping with the eco-psych, mediated vs unmediated, and where the software intersects witht he wetware issue; how should I proceed?
Right now I’m thinking, since aurality is always the issue, I need to be learning this stuff using the sounds I intend for the project. The procedure then should be to collect my model...