a score that sings {?!}

DXarts Digital Sound class, continued!

[in case you missed it, here's my first post about this class I took, summer 2012]

The Breakdown:

Every class was broken down into an hour or so of lecture, usually covering technical topics from how the ear works to how to use Reaper (a free digital audio workstation program); followed by an hour or so of listening. We began with listening to examples from the early days of electronic music, occasionally venturing into classical music, particularly Baroque, and followed a generally meandering, sometimes curious, often jarring, aural path up to the latest and greatest in digital sound art.

A few works I particularly enjoyed:

Charles Dodge's "The Waves (with Joan La Barbara)" 12 min.
this woman has ridiculous vocal control, and this piece is both poem and poetry of voice. with words from The Waves, by Virginia Wolf.

Jonty Harrison's "....et ansi de suite..." 20 min.
an artist takes glass sounds to a whole new level, and then continues to take it all somewhere else entirely. I enjoyed how he grounded us in typical glass sounds, then took us a great distance from them (though we know all the sounds are made from glass objects, he takes us to where they don't sound like it anymore), so that we become aware of how it is we hear, and how we are compelled to identify the what we hear -- and if you're lucky, you can escape this mental prattle and just enjoy the sounds ;)

Luciano Berio's "Sequenza XII for bassoon" 18 min.
this composer gives the bassoon freedom to do things it had never done before - before this guy and this piece, this poor wind instrument was quite neglected and unexplored. btw, this is a continuous breathing piece (!) -- the performer inhales/exhales and plays constantly for the entire 18+ minutes. truly phenomenal.

There are other pieces that blew me away, but I'll leave my list to these three for now. That's a good deal of listening in any case ;)

LAB 1
So. The next assignment, and one much more up my alley, being visual and all:

Make a score for the first 50" of Bernard Parmegiani's, De natura sonorum: Dynamique de la Résonance

Here's mine, click the song title link above while looking at this:

by yours truly, in Photoshop w/ my trusty drawing pad

I had fun doing this one.

But -- I assure you that as this intensive class continued (4 days a week, 3 hours a day in class, 3 hours a day homework plus my algebra homework that was threatening to bury me; plus, you know, *my life*) well, suffice it to say that my scores become increasingly less elegant, as you will soon see, and came to be something much more Frankenstein-ish. (Not to diss the poor creature or anything, I'm sure he's a lovely guy, on the inside.)

cheers,

me

Stories of Art, Part II

Part I of my posts on James Elkins’ Stories of Art begged the questions:

Is the Story of Art History a multicultural one? Or is it an inherently Western Story?

Why does it matter {how the Story of Art is told} anyway?

the pale blue dot, from NASA's website

Before I can begin to answer these questions, I must look back at where the discipline of Art History began. Weird to think that at some point it was non-existant, no? In my world, it’s as essential as Math or English. But as far as the universe is concerned, Art History is barely a blip on the radar. Which reminds me, have you ever seen the famous “pale blue dot” photo of the earth taken by Voyager 1 as it exited our solar system? The earth appears as a single pale blue pixel lost in the vastness of space – as though it were a blemish on an otherwise dark spectral canvas that begs to be photoshopped out. That’s the kind of perspective I’m talking about ;)

My Latest Read: 'Stories of Art' by James Elkins

"… Stories of Art is a terrific and transparent meditation on what’s at stake in the histories of art we all so glibly recite. Instead of writing yet another survey, James Elkins provides the little counternarrative that rubs up against the monumental survey volumes with a kind of graceful annoyance. This is the little buzzing bee that worries the elephant.” –Michael Ann Holly, Clark Art Institute (from the back cover of the book)

I’m writing this on my laptop, which is perched upon my own survey of art history book from college – Gardner’s Art Through the Ages, ninth edition. It is almost 9 ½” wide by over 11” long, it has 1,135 pages, weighs approximately 8 pounds according to my bathroom scale and currently has two bent and battered slips of paper sticking out the top from when I last perused it for inspiration. It’s great for pressing flowers or, if you can heft it, for whacking upside somebody’s head in self defense.