Music Students, Varese and AOL

Its been an interesting week here. Yesterday I spent half the day at the Saturday Conservatory of Music in Pasadena giving placement exams and helping kids with music stuff. I was subbing for my friend Jason McKee-Ota and had expected to be teaching a class on Harmony but on arrival found out that they were re-testing everyone into classes. I was kind of excited about teaching but I had fun nonetheless. Its really great to see programs like this in action. Its also an interesting look at the way music is being taught to young people. It seems that classical music (as in Mozart) dominates and the idea that music after 1900 or so exists is not explained at all. I got to have a long conversation with a fellow composer about the state of music education and its problems over a pastrami sandwich and a gigantic tub of chili-cheese fries (which was enough for the next year I think). In one conversation with faculty I mentioned that I was going to see the LA Phil play Varese's "Amerique" on Sunday and was met with the response "hmm.. never heard of Varese." That threw me back a bit. I don't know why but I thought he was a pretty big composer in the music world. Big enough to at least be a familiar name.

As I'm writing this I just got back from the concert conducted by David Robertson along with Crumb's "A Haunted Landscape," Zappa's "Dupree's Paradise," and Copland's "City." The performance was fantastic and I particularly enjoyed the Crumb. We grabbed some student rush tickets and lucked out with some great seats up front. It was nice to get blasted with Varese's extended percussion section.

This past month I've been working on about 3 pieces concurrently and as I speak I'm loading about 2 million records into a database for some data mining. The data comes outta this.
I find it a bit disturbing, especially since while this data is theoretically anonymous, with little to no effort each record can be traced back to its origin. It is, however, interesting data and certainly is a nice glimpse into internet surfing in the country.

Things

Jacques Attali
Phenomenology
Particles
Time
Chili-Cheese Dogs

For Violin and Computer

I've been working a lot lately in improvised music, electronic music instruments and highly interactive music. So far it's taking me down the roads of interactive musical installations, 5 years of study in central Javanese, Sundanese, Malaysian, and Cirebonese gamelan (the latter containing the majority of the improvisatory material), and installation-style electronic music improvisations. These days though I've been working more with electronic solo improv along with various other combinations of instruments. This year I'll be getting together with a saxophone player (Casey) and a violinist (Megan) on Saturday mornings to practice and really develop music out of our own ideas.

Anyway after some working with a patch I created for performance, I've started to get a hang of it's nature. I think the patch itself, in a way, replaces a score as it limits the outcome and while there are many possible outcomes, they all seem to retain a similarity. I may post a few iterations of this piece but here's the first I've recorded. As usual in these sort of things, the best versions tend to occur when I'm not recording, but I think that's one of the great things about the form. I hope you enjoy:


For Violin and Computer (Oct30th2007)- 26'22"

Living in the Aftermath of Nuclear Explosion

So wow... So much stuff to tell.

I'm now officially located in Valencia, CA and attending the California Institute of the Arts. On campus housing is pretty decent. I've got a nice little setup with my own room in what amounts to a six bedroom apartment.

The past weeks have been a whirlwind of composition, study, and listening. The legacy of Tenney is strong here and I've been able to listen to a lot of his works both in concert and in the library. I'm really impressed by pretty much everything that guy did. His electronic music is gorgeous and the chamber works i've heard were excellent as well. There's a great article online called "John Cage and the Theory of Harmony" which begins to detail out a lot of his thinking on the matter. Meta / Hodos was also a great book that inspired a lot of thought about form and analysis and has lead me down some interesting paths in experimentation. I've never been so bombarded with acoustics before I got here.

They recently hired 2 new composers on staff too. Wolfgang Von Schweinitz and Ulrich Krieger. Both of them seem incredibly nice and knowledgeable.

Got a workstudy job at the electronic/recording studio. I'm helping out with various things as well as maintaining 2 hours a week for simply sitting in there in case people need help with Max/recording/electronic music/etc. It also happens to be the studio that houses the Disklavier which is fucking awesome.

FINALLY I get to play some Gong Kebyar! They got a good sized ensemble here and it's loads of fun. The shear power of the ensemble as a whole is invigorating. The tuning system involved is great and produces a nice rich complex of difference tones in the air. Each instrument is tuned in pairs (bout 8-10 cents apart) to produce a nice beating effect... MMMmmmm... add about 6 layers of that and life is good. Also joined an experimental electro-acoustic music ensemble and am learning a lot about building performance ready instruments.

In terms of personal work; I just put the double bars on my new violin/electronics piece over the weekend and am now inputting it into Sibelius so I can get it performed... hopefully soon and now comes the process of beginning work on the next piece. I've been developing some software for a video work that I've been wanting to do for a long time and I right before I started writing this I got it to the point of usability but I'm not quite sure when this'll be used. Hopefully the summer at the latest.

I'm really under the impression at this point that CalArts really is what you make of it. There's a lot to gain here but also a lot of room for screwing around. I've seen about 4 or 5 concerts already though in the 3 weeks I've been here and missed at least three. That's a pretty amazing feature in itself. 99% of it is all contemporary music and they got some great talent.

Anyway, I'm rambling. I'm studying with Mark Trayle this semester and have my first lesson tomorrow so I'm off to get ready.

Btw, the reference in the title is to an episode of 24 that was recently aired.

Evelyn Glennie

Evelyn Glennie is an incredible musician. I saw her perform a snare concerto with the Santa Barbara Symphony and was blown away. Here she is talking about playing music and listening.

BBC

Ever notice how normal it seems when men dress as women, raise their voice and act like cranky middle-aged women in British comedy?

...today I built a small machine that mocks me...

.. . ...the good news is that I'm able to have it mock friends...

It will be needing an eye.

Alaska

I just got back from Anchorage! Highlights include Alisa running a marathon, flying around Mt. McKinley, rafting through a river, a quirky host from Holland at our bed & breakfast, Moose, outhouses and "family restaurants." Also a midnight sun, hiking and swarms of mosquitoes attacking us at a graveyard around 1am while the graves themselves refused to be photographed (until we hid in the bushes). Highly recommended place to visit. I would definitely go back, it's absolutely gorgeous up there.. although I'd like to visit the northern parts of Alaska if/when I go back.

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