Listening to New Music Live

 Saturday, September 13, 2008 10 AM SLT

Devin Maxwell will be performing with his group at the HD Artists Music Hall.

He is an experimental music composer from New York and for this concert he is bringing along pieces for marimba, bass clarinet, string bass and tape. He has chosen four or five pieces to perform live, and it should be an interesting program!

He works with a lot of groups in NYC – So Percussion, Steve Horowitz, Bat For Lashes, Anni Rossi, Joseph Davancens, Spider, Jason Ajemian, Mike Pisaro, and Ora Cogan.

Along with him will be Katie Porter, Clarinets and Kevin Farrell, Double Bass.

See you there at Listening to New Music Live!

HD Artists Music Hall: http://slurl.com/secondlife/Cliffoed/14/48/45/

Listening to New Music

On our next Listening to New Music on August 31 at 11 am SLT we offer the music of Mary Jane Leach.

MARY JANE LEACH is a composer/performer whose work reaveals a fascination with the physicality of sound, its acoustic properties and how they interact with space. In many of her works Leach creates an other-worldly sound using different, combination, and interference tones; these are tones not actually sounded by the performers, but avoustic phenomena arising from her deft manipulation of intonation and timbral qualities. The result is striking music which has a powerful effect on listeners.

 

 

Music of Max Go

HD Artists presents a new music radio show on their property every Sunday at 11 am SLT, and this Sunday, August 3, we present the gentle sounds of Max Go, aka Bethlehemufo. He’s a composer living in the American midwest, and his songs and pieces are quite unusual. He performed in a local band in Ypsilanti, Michigan called commandant lassard, playing backup guitar and writing the songs. He also got into writing drone music, and released several large drone works called “spreadsheets”.

So come on by our hall on Sunday and hear these pieces by Max Go.

Max Go

 

http://slurl.com/secondlife/Cliffoed/14/48/45/

To the Manor Born

Arr, get me some haggis and climb the greased pole! Musician’s Manor is built in the highlands of Scotland, and features a half-replica of… Stonehenge? Well, a bit out of place, but a nice ootdoor place for a concert! So, get into your kilt, grab the bagpipe, and coom on oover to the Manor!

 

 

Musician’s Manor ::  http://slurl.com/secondlife/Scotland%20Inchcruin/188/93/22/

MIDI

A lot of people spill out huge words when discussing technological ideas in music, and MIDI is one of them. “Does this computer use MIDI for controllers or software synthesis?”  “Is that a MIDI guitar? Cool!” But what does MIDI mean? well, it means Musical Instrument Digital Interface. It is a protocol to represent musical information in digital format, which then becomes an interchange between musical instruments and computers. MIDI itself does not contain the sounds, but it controls the functions – sound off and on, dynamics, vibrato, pitch, glissandi, and other attributes.

The basic instrument that everybody knows is, of course, the MIDI keyboard. Here’s a basic keyboard:

basic MIDI keyboard and computer

You push a key, and the MIDI information is sent to the computer (or sound device), and the appropriate sound is played, which obeys all the information sent. Using more sounds and voices at once will get you quite complex textures, like this sample here.

The keyboard is a nice, simple interface between you, the performer, and the computer. It resembles a piano, an instrument everybody knows. If you had to play via the little MIDI controller inside, you probably wouldn’t get very far:

MIDI Controller

Now, if I can make MIDI keyboards, why not MIDI trumpets, or MIDI violins, or MIDI guitars? Well, we can. Just make little MIDI sensors which detect the speed, loudness, etc; all the usual stuff, and voila! other MIDI devices!

MIDI trumpet

MIDI violin

MIDI guitars

But what about less intuitive approaches to  controlling MIDI? What I I want to create sounds by dancing? or wiggling my fingers in the air? People create all sorts of things – Here is a small device called the MIDI stick, you can use it to hit something or move around, and it sends signals to the computer to create a panoply of sounds.

MIDI stick

Or MIDI data gloves. I can put on gloves lined with MIDI sensors, and create sounds. Here is a picture of composer J. Anthony Allen wearing a pair of “data gloves”, which he designed himself. 

J. Anthony Allen in data gloves

Since MIDI can send pretty much anything to control the sound, you can make the sound do pretty much whatever you want it to do – loud, soft, swoop, stereo field control, etc and etc. I found this video on YouTube. It was the first concert of Elektronengehirn with a data glove as an instrument. With the glove the graphics were controlled, which in turn control the sound engine. The visual software is custom made with C/C++ and OpenGL while the sound engine is programmed with pd (pure data), both running on a linuxlaptop. The concert was performed at gallery KuBaSta Hamburg, Germany, on the 29. april 2006.

I hope we can present a live performance of a data glove at the HD Artists Music Hall one day – now that would be great!

Sites to visit:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Musical_Instrument_Digital_Interface

http://www.midi.org/

http://www.lineasblancas.com/

http://createdigitalmusic.com/2005/04/11/p5-data-glove-and-music/

 

Looking for Performers / Composers

We are looking for performer / composers to pplay in our hall.  Music that we want to have is ambient, minimalism, art noise, music influenced by popular styles, etc. If you can fill this role, just get in touch with us for more information!

Our First Concert!

We gave our first concert today! Well, not a concert, but a “listening” time, where people could listen to new music. it was quite good, and the audience didnt leave in the first 5 seconds. Here is the program note:

 

Sunday Listening Concert

July 6, 2008 1:30 pm SLT

 

Good Afternoon and welcome to our concert for new music – What the Heck is that???

New music can raise this question, but music shouldn’t always glide off the ears like soft warm water. I enjoy pop music as much as anybody, but there is more to life than just that. There is so much out there to hear, and it will reward you so greatly. The pieces we will hear today:

 

 

Adina Spire

 

Adina is a composer from Romania and currently teaches music at the conservatory there and directs several church choirs. The work presented today is a religious piece. Her music is influenced by the Eastern Orthodox Church in the use of low lugubrious sounds, sweeping landscapes and slowly changing progressions. The piece I have chosen is titled “A little Moment of my World”, written as a soundtrack for a film written by one of her students at the Music Conservatory in Arad. Although not religious, it incorporates many of the techniques used in her larger choral works.

 

A Little Moment of My World – 3’22”

http://www.garageband.com/artist/adinaspire

 

Tim Risher

 

Over and Under was written for the Palladian Ensemble in England, for alto recorder, violin, baroque guitar and bass gamba. It is a chaconne, and features the recorder and violin in virtuosic solos.

Over and Under – 7’33”

 http://www.timrisher.com

 

Michael Bies

 

A Romp Through the Wood is a set of three short pieces written for two marimbas. The two outer pieces or movements are fantasias with a similar rhythmic structure based on two groups of three eighth notes and a group of two eighth notes in various order. The second piece offers rhythmic contrast to the set and utilizes the mallett technique of “dead stroking” in large sections of the short composition hence the name “Deadwood”.

 

http://www.michaelbies.com/

 

Deadwood – 4’12”

 

Claus Gahrn

 

Danish composer of contemporary classical music and electroacoustic music.

 

Claus Gahrn (b. 1978) received his MA degree in composition from the Academy of Music in Esbjerg, Denmark, in 2006. He now lives and works in Esbjerg as a freelance composer as well as a lecturer at the Academy of Music.

 

Gahrn´s work mainly consists of music for solo instruments and small ensembles with and without electronics. His music has been performed in Denmark, Sweden, Norway, Finland, Poland, Russia and in the UK.

 

Feather – 5’56”

 http://www.clausgahrn.dk/

 

 

Charlie de Tar

 

  This piece was composed for John Arroyo’s “Remixin” project, as I’m sure you’re aware.
    The piece is based on Ruoho Ruotsi’s remix of Charles Dodge’s
“Canons for Larry (123)”. you can find the project on line at:

The piece is rather dark; the title is a TLA for Child of God.  The
screams are sampled from news reports chronicling a takeover of a
Christian boarding school by Child Services, found in the middle of a
conspiracy documentary describing the impending takeover of the UN in a
One World Government which bans religion.  The “All men are children of
god… I couldn’t wait to start” sample is from an odd ephemeral
animated public service film which equates “being a good christian” with
“being a good driver”, in which a car-shaped alien is molested and
abused by evil humans.  The piece is about moral superiority.

 

Cog – 4’12”

 http://tirl.org/

 

 

Alex Kotch

 

Here is Alex’s bio from his website:

blahblahblahDjembeEnsembleblahblahblahblahblahblahblahElectronicablahblahblahblahconstructedconsciousness.blogspot.comblahblahb
lahblahblahblahblahblahblahblahBrown2006blahblahblaTrioSaxianahblahblahblahblahblahbla(b.1983)hblahblahblahblahblahblahblStephenJ
affeahblahblahblahblahblahblahblahblBrownNewMusicahblahblahblahblahblahblahblahblahblagGraffitihblahblahblahblahblahblahblahblahblah
blahblahblahblahblahblahblahblahblahbDukeNewMusicEnsemblelahblahblahblahblahblahbPlanetSiriuslahblahblahblahblahblahblahblahblahbl
ahblahblahblahblahblahblahblahblaIvoryTowerhblahblahblahblahblahblahblahblahAlexKotchblahblahblahblahClarinetblahblahblahblahwww.al
exkotch.comblahblahblahblahblahblahblahblahblahblahblahblahblahblahblahblahblahblahblahblahblahblahblahblahblaScottLindrothhblahblahb
lahblahblaStatusQuohblahblahblahblahblahblahDukePhDblahblahblahblahblahblahblahblahblahblahblahblahblahblahblahblahblahblaSaxopho
nehblahblahEnsembleZelligblahblahblahblahblahblahblahblahblahblNewMediaahblahblahblahblahblahblahblahblahblahblahblahblahblahSciFib
lahblwww.myspace.com/alexkotchahblahblahblahblahblahblahblahblaChapelHillNChblahblahblahblahblahblahblahblahblahblahblrepressived
esublimationblahblahbblahblahblahblahblahblahblahblahblahlahblahblahblahblahblahblahblahblahblahblahblahblahblahblahblahblahblahb

 

 

I have chosen his remix Nude (Cyborg Remix) to grace our little show. It’s sung by a little cyborg.

5′ 19”

 http://www.alexkotch.com/

Tim Risher

 

Alex’s piece leads directly into a second little piece by Tim Risher called “My Advice”. An unusual little pop piece using voices as the basis of the rhythms. This was recorded using live and computer sounds.

 

My Advice – 3’18”

Trace Aureity

Trace Aureity – a small island covered with musical immersive sculptures.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

1) Arahata, The Mute Swan.

Making eerie sounds on touch.

 If a sound was already playing when
 we were born, played througout ourlife, and continued playing after we
 were gone, would we hear it?

 

Canescent Interval

           An interactive audiovisual sculpture.
         Walk around and through the sculpture,
        make small movements in and around it,
            try also jumping and floating in it.
         It’s like a sonic bath for eyes and ears,
               if you are weary, it will revive.

 

Infra Assemblage

Click on the yellow ball above the
sculpture to make balls drop out.
           
As the balls hit the tines of the
sculpture, the tines sound.
Each tine has a different sound.

You can climb in the sculpture too.
    
Click on the red auto/manual switch
ball to change modes. In auto mode,
the yellow ball  randomly drops balls.

It’s fun to put it in auto mode then
get inside the sculpture and alt-zoom.
              
The balls clean themselves up.
To finish, just walk away.

 

Trace Aureity:: http://slurl.com/secondlife/Marni/202/202/22/

Bibi’s Sky Castle

 

A modest space hanging 687 meters above Bibi’s Beach, equipped with an actual floating moon, Bibi’s Sky Castle offers concerts of excellent quality. Here you see a concert with AldoManutio Abruzzo, an improv guitarist. I found sitting in the beanbag chairs for the whole concert, however, a tad uncomfortable; my avatar sits in a strangely bed-like position which looks like he had something stuck up his spine. But the space itself is well designed, subdued colors and pleasant surroundings.

Bibi’s Sky Castle::http://slurl.com/secondlife/Yongnam/219/36/687/

HD Artists

Ok, so I’m bragging about my own place, but we are now ready for concerts. I hope it stays as nice here as right now. The building is located next to a future road, which has its advantages and disadvantages.

Advantages

One side of the building will always be open.

People can drive by easily.

Disadvantages

The tendency for giant advertising signs to be built along the road.

I think neighborhoods should have the ability to get together to ban this kind of thing, personally. Why not? after all, the neighborhoods have many rules patterned after RL.

Things we should be able to control:

1. Giant advertising signs. These signs destroy the area for everybody else. “Oh, but I have to be able to advertise my products!” Oh, and you need a sign the size of the Empire State Building to do it?

2. Red restriction borders. These guys that stick up their red ban borders ruin the movement around the area. When we first constructed our hall in another region, our neighbors around us put up these red No Entry walls. And it is frustrating to have to fly all over the place to simple move 30 meters. Why do you need them on all the time? It’s ok during special parties and such, but why all the time?

Oops, well, I’ve gone off subject! Our hall is roomy and has a nice little stage full of equipment for your edification.

We hope to start having more concerts soon!

HD Artists Concert Hall:: http://slurl.com/secondlife/Cliffoed/15/52/46/