Picture test

I am merely trying something out. Don't get excited...I'm probably not returning to blogging.

New year + really teaching

UF is starting its fall semester this Wednesday. Odd to start on a Wednesday, but I suppose it balances out the 2-day week at Thanksgiving (aka T-give). Anyway, I've had quite a busy summer and am ready to get back into school mode.

This year I'm finally, fully in charge of a class. I did teach an online class last summer, taught theory labs and co-taught the freshman technology class last school year, but this year I am teaching Intro to Music Technology on my own, and I'm very excited for it.

I've spent quite a bit of time planning it, and you can see my syllabus, etc. here. This class is required of all undergrad music majors, and from what I can tell is a fairly common course in most schools. Every teacher emphasizes different things, and I guess what I'm emphasizing is 'everything.'

Syllabi I have read (just from rudimentary Google searches) tend to spend a lot of time on notation programs and MIDI sequencing. I am doing both, but not spending tons of time on either. I am also basing my grades on student projects, so if a student gets really into MIDI sequencing, good for them! But I feel it's more important to throw out more concepts and tools.

I am also using this as an opportunity to fill what I perceive are some gaps in the undergraduate curriculum. Specifically, I am hoping to guide my students to some understanding of entrepreneurship and self-promotion in our field, as well as a general sense of media culture/theory. I want them to be able to drum up gigs, but more importantly, be able to advocate for our artform.

I am going to be teaching out of Douglas Rushkoff's great little book Program or Be Programmed. It's short and touches on a lot of media theory; not much depth, but it will be a good catalyst for discussion, I'm sure.

We're also going to listen to a fair amount of music, mainly rock but also some electroacoustic, in order to gain an understanding of different effects and production techniques. I'm also hopeful that this kind of listening will train these young ears to listen to compositions in multiple dimensions (not just for melody and harmony) in order to achieve better balance when playing in ensembles, better sense of stylistic differentiation, etc. etc. etc.

It may be a totally crazy plan, but I think it will be fun and interesting!

reflections on the soundSCAPE festival

A week ago today, I left Maccagno, Italy, where I had participated in the soundSCAPE Festival, an intensive festival for composers and performers. After a few days in Milan, then Atlanta, I'm finally home in Gainesville (FL), with some time to relax and reflect.

First of all, I cannot recommend this festival enough for emerging composers and "new music" performers. We had a packed schedule of great events, and the camaraderie that developed was awesome. I didn't know quite what to expect before I went, as I think I found only one blog from a participant's perspective, so hopefully this will reach a few prospective participants for 2013 and beyond (feel free to drop me a line with any questions).

The basic schedule of my days: wake up around 630, have some coffee and then some cardio workout run by guest guitarist Robert Bekkers (we did some leg-killing military drills the first day and a lot of people gave up on this...I took a few days to recover, then had some fun one-on-one boxing training a few times). A quick shower, and off to the composition colloquium at 8am.

The colloquium featured 2-3 of the participant composers each day, who had 30 minutes to present some music, followed by 15-30 minutes of discussion. Most participants played 2 pieces in their entirety, though a few us (me included) presented excerpts from several pieces to show a better view of our work. Composition coordinator Brian Hulse led the discussions about the works, which were great - leaning towards the philosophical and away from the mundane "how did you pick your notes" discussions so often found in these situations. The presentations/discussions really helped everyone get a sense of each others' approach and aesthetic, and it was a very warm and supportive environment with an eclectic mix of styles.

I usually had 1030-230 free, and much of this was spent back at "the Casa" eating a brunch and chatting with folks. The Casa Emmaus is a religious retreat, and we lived dorm-style with around 8 people in each 2-bedroom 'apartment' with a shared bathroom. So it was sort of a summer camp with a lot of wine, if that helps you picture things :).

A few times during the 1030-230 block I had rehearsals of my piece, Tearmunn for horn and vibraphone. These went great - the second and third were coached by faculty performers Lisa Cella and Aiyun Huang, who both had great ideas and suggestions.

At 230 each day was the improv workshop, led by Tom Rosenkranz. We began by playing Zorn's Cobra before moving on to looser structures. This was a lot of fun, and a good opportunity to get some performing in. One day we walked to a spot part of the way up the mountain with a nice view of the lake to perform. On the next-to-last day of the fest we had a 30-minute performance of a few short 'provs' in the Auditorium, followed by a sweet 45-minute performance of John Cage's Songbooks.

The afternoon, 315-600 block was a little different each day. There were several presentations by the faculty (Brian Hulse, Marcella Pavia, Josh Levine) and guest artists Sela Roder and Lei Liang. Also squeezed into this time were individual lessons from the faculty for the participant composers. We met at the local cafe and gelateria for these, which were both chill and informative.

Most nights we had two concerts, one at 6pm and another at 9pm. In between was dinner, which sometimes I made at the Casa but sometimes were at some of the local restaurants. The most popular of these were the takeaway "Pizza 2000" and the sit-down "Lake Pizza" (Pizza 2000 is the actual name, but we could never remember the name of the second one, hence the affectionate nickname. It had a great view of Lago Maggiore). The evening concerts were a mix of premieres by the composers, contemporary works chosen by the performers, and concerts by the faculty and guest artists.

Following the late concert I sometimes had to crash but sometimes joined in on the late night wine hangouts. Some people have more energy than me and did this every night! I was the second-oldest participant (31), so go figure... ;)

There are of course more specific stories and fun things to tell, but I hope this gives a glimpse into this excellent, well-run, friendly festival. I highly, highly recommend attending!

on being prolific

Just read this interesting article in the Chicago Tribune. The subject of prolificacy haunts me a little - I strive to be prolific, yet feel sometimes that 'real' artists take their time. I guess they are just expected to do so, to dip into culture with something profound, then dip out again, as the writer says.

The article discusses Steven Soderbergh, whom I like but frankly have not seen any of his films in the past nearly 10 years (last I saw was his Solaris remake). But I do admire his pace, and his attitude that the article highlights. Many of these films are experimental, are often quite different from each other, and aren't consistently successful - and he is okay with this.

I generally compose 5-6 pieces a year. 2 per semester, or thereabouts. Sometimes more. In some ways I worry that I'm not spending enough time, making them 'profound' enough. But at the same time I have come to realize that I like pieces that have simple, well-developed concepts. I like pieces on the shorter side, in general. But there is a hidden pressure, from teachers, from 'the field,' that each piece have such nebulous qualities as 'weight' and 'scope.'

To which I have jokingly asked to my composer friends: "why does every piece have to be every piece?"

By that I don't mean "why do they all have to sound the same?" What I mean is, why are the first suggestions from teachers or colleagues in seminar or masterclass settings always concerning what one could/should add to the piece? Why not subtract?

Why should you add key clicks to your flute solo? So people know it's contemporary?

Why should you arrange this for concert band? Is brass quintet really not enough volume?

Why should you add more movements? Sure, the piece is 'only' four minutes long, but will it have that much better chance of being programmed if it has 3 more 4-minute movements tacked onto the end?

So all I'm saying is that what I am trying to do is make a bunch of little pieces with clear ideas of their own, that can go out and represent what I was interested in at a certain point of time. I'm not interested in (or perhaps even capable of) creating grandiose emotional 'life-changing' expressions.

Why does every piece have to be like Mahler (who really did want every piece to be every piece)? I'd really rather be like Webern - each piece is a little crystal, and you don't really understand them until you've collected a few in your memory.

Anxiety of ignorance

3 blog entries in a week...I must have something to say, or 'free time.'

Might as well start collecting thoughts here about my impending dissertation...

I've been thinking a lot about instruments as fetish objects - where people "need" particular models (like the Fender Stratocaster, but also from certain years or countries of manufacture), but also how general categories and aesthetics are fetishized, such as circuit-bent toys.

I took a seminar on postmodern music in the spring, and recently read Simon Reynolds's Retromania, both of which brought out some other important thoughts.

First of all, the idea of retromania (revivals of particular cultural aesthetics) is interesting from a generational point of view. My generation (I'm 31 so I'm either a tail-end Xer or an early Millenial) grew up in a postmodern millieu, where all cultures, styles, etc. are constantly and instantly accessible. I sense a tension from the artists of preceding generations, who lived through all these stylistic changes and seek more 'newness' (a modernist trait) and my own generation, to whom all these styles already existed and therefore have yet to become cliche.

Think of analog synthesizers, for example. From what I can sense from electroacoustic concerts and conferences is that these 'old-school' timbres are scorned in a been-there-done-that way. But for a generation who has heard only some of the literature, who has yet to endure twenty years of SEAMUS conferences, these timbres might still be fresh.

It seems like quite a burden for young artists to catch up on everything that had been done before (this is often a prerequisite for doing something new, after all). There is simply too much on which to catch up! Culture and technology advanced so rapidly in the 20th century; it could be assessed if you lived through it, but it's difficult to assimilate it all for someone to whom it is all history.

I read a short article this week about younger people asking "Who is Rodney King?" on Twitter, and I began to think about my own lackluster history education (even in a middle-to-upper-middle class school system). Due to curriculum changes, I learned about the Fertile Crescent three years in a row. I never learned about ancient China, Ethiopia, etc. European history was not required. US History emphasized the Civil War and WWII, and ended around the Civil Rights movement. My formal education barely mentioned that anything happened in the past now 50 years, yet as an informed citizen I'm expected to have a working knowledge of that time period.

The same applies to the arts. Thinking about postmodern classical music (what an oxymoron), it assumes a knowledge of the entirety of the classical repertory, as well as knowledge of pop styles throughout the 20th century and music of non-European cultures. As an exercise, I made this collage. There are 30 pieces used, and I think that it 'expects' a knowledge of various music, from Mahler to Varese to Dave Brubeck to Ravi Shankar.

Collage

I recently (finally) watched Tarantino's Inglourious Basterds, which is a very postmodern pastiche of styles. And it made me wonder how much the knowledge of those styles is important to the appreciation of the film. Does the viewer need to see The Dirty Dozen first? Seargeant York? What about the Leone spaghetti westerns? Listen to the Best of David Bowie? Is a knowledge of the references, homages, anachronisms, etc. essential to the viewing or does it deepen it? I'm sure this has been written on at length before...

Besides the references, is it essential to see all of Tarantino's films to have an understanding of his latest? Perhaps. Seeing a trailer for Django Unchained, I think you need to understand his aesthetic to see why a late-1800s period film has James Brown on the soundtrack.

That got me thinking, too, about the 'need' to have a knowledge of 'everything.' I am frequently hesitant to declare myself a fan of anything that I don't have near-complete knowledge of. For example, I watched Cronenberg's A Dangerous Method last night. I have seen the majority of his films, but not all, so can I truly call myself a fan? What if someone tries to test me on the few I don't know?

Can I call myself a hip-hop fan? I 'only' own about 20 hip-hop CDs. I remember not knowing this 'smooth jazz' artist Praful and my dad said I wasn't a big jazz fan. I guess a jazz history class and over 30 CDs don't count.

Well this was quite rambly, but I feel better!

First circuit bent toy

I've been wanting to try circuit bending for awhile, and finally had some time to do so. I bought this and 2 other toys from Goodwill for about 3 or 4 bucks a piece. In the meantime I've invested in a bunch of components for doing such crazy things.

This is a keyboard of sorts, and had 2 settings - one that played songs and one that let you play. I poked around a bit to find some interesting sounds. Not as off-the-wall as some circuit-bending jobs, but still pretty fun. I left in a few moments of the normal functioning of the keyboard for comparison. 

New videos

I thought I had posted these here already, but guess not...


New, shorter and tighter version of fluid dynamics: 



New video Simoom, with sound based on the backing track of a piece of the same name for quarter-tone alto flute and tape. The video has some contrast and color adjustments but otherwise has no editing and was achieved practically.




I have footage for two other videos that I hope to put sound to in the near future.