June in Buffalo 2008
UB afforded me another phenomenal experience. On this year’s theme of Music and Computers, here is what some of the composers, students, and faculty are up to at the 2008 June in Buffalo.
Miller Puckette
Author of Pd, the open source programming language, as well as Max/MSP, Miller’s software dominates the field of interactive sound, and his workshop bemused the history and future of signal processing. To paraphrase, “Why play a video game, like guitar hero, that rewards you for some behavior and punishes you for others–like a lab rat–when you can program the computer to do your bidding?”
Miller spent a good portion of his talk explaining the difficulties of score following and pitch tracking, citing the importance of artist control in performance. He also denounced a broad sound spatialization detracting the focus from an on-stage performer. On this note I agree–I’d love to see a speaker mounted on the back of a cello, or some such. Also, spatialization was a sort of sub-theme at June in
Student Works
Andrew Colella’s Rhythmus 21 used histograms from a video stream to cue sounds using Pd. Andrew said the composition process was more interesting than the piece itself. I suggested he turn it into a theater piece whereby he explains the composition process.
Guitarist James Soares’ Vertiginous Rotation performed by virtuoso Magnus Andersson so fully utilized the capacities of the guitar and the computer interaction was splendid. A thrilling piece!
Charles Dodge
After being treated to a splendid performance of Any Resemblance is Purely Coincidental the night before, Charles Dodge reminisced to us about the early days of electronic music. He felt that it was probably a crazy waste of his time–but interesting. Digital-Analog Converters were not readily available, but there was one at Bell Labs. So after programming the computer from a control panel and manually addressing memory registers, one would commit the program to digital tape, and ask for time at the lab in order to hear it. Maybe a week later, you might get to hear what you programmed–assuming there were no bugs. Dodge: “It was like learning to play the piano by pressing a key and then coming back next week to hear what it sounded like.”
Currently Charles Dodge is working with just intonation. He’s working on a piece that, cycle after cycle, expands on the number of partials, and/or retunes pitches down from a given partial. It’s a very bold compositional gesture, with ideas as simple and pure as the consonances they are realized with.
Roberto Morales
Having demonstrated the integration of improvisation, computer responses to audio, as well as motion detection with computer responses in video from the previous night on Historia de Culebras, Robert Morales shared his vision for the future of music. He talked about the challenges involved in motion/movement detection (for his piece he used a pair of Wii remotes strapped to his arms). I really like where he is taking the arts–composer as improviser, integration of movement and video, all with interactive computer programs… it’s an exciting world.
Ben Thigpen
What can I say but that 0.95652173913 and malfunction30931 “struck a chord” with me. Something really clicked with fixed media this year and I felt a total connection with the aesthetics of these pieces. I felt transformed by hearing them, as if I had entered a new plane of existence. These works enchanted the audience, who seemed docile and entranced upon their completion. Ben Thigpen is a real master of the electronic arts, and friendly to boot. He is so sensitive to the beauty of the sounds, each of them carefully equalized so they fit perfectly together like the ancient stonework of a fine mason. Each sound flows seamlessly into the next. The form is so organic and never elicits a conscious structural element forcing the listener into the moment.
Ben is using some custom software built in Max. He takes a sound file and chisels out a clip to use, and then loops it. Another check box loops the sound alternatively forward and backwards. More magic changes the starting and ending points of the clip–perhaps only the attack of a sound is heart one time, and the decay, separately, the next. At this point the sound clip really feels alive. More parameters put a delay across another channel and manipulate the frequency independently. The result is a present, living sound that Ben can then tweak and record.
malfunction30931 borrowed some errant output from the sound card at IRCAM. The sound changed slightly as windows were dragged around, etc. The fascinating source sound resulted in a profound and meditative piece. Ben said that he has 5.1 mixes of many of his newer works. There are a lot of home users with systems capable of this format, thirsty for content (I’m one of them!). I really hope Ben will get his act together and put out an album of recent works in 5.1.
Hans Tutschku
Hans Tutschku is a brilliant musician and user of Max/MSP. He has a set of patches that are the envy of any electronic musician. He talked a bit about score following using terraced dynamic registers and timers; a loud sound (relatively louder than ambient noise-absolute values being impossible with different microphones/setups) would act as a trigger, but then start a timer so that performing within a designated time space would not accidently trigger the next section. He also emphasized the importance of composing your patches for rehearsal; that 95% of the time, you will use your software in rehearsal, but only 5% of the time in performance, so it should be very easy to use. He discouraged the use of global paths and encouraged compiling your program as a stand alone application, increasing the chance that your application will work properly on other computers. He had a very cool patch that arranged 8 channels of sound into a 2d circle, and then matrixed it out to the nearest speaker for whatever number of channels may be present, making the piece flexible for different performance environments. The beginning of each patch literally has a checklist that steps the user/musician through setting up the sound outputs, number of speakers, etc. This is stereotypical of Hans, who is so sensitive to the nature of all things, human and musical, and carefully accounts for everything. Another example is allowing performers practice time if they need to do something unusual in their piece, for example, using a midi pedal to trigger events. What is the musician trained for (dynamics, interpretation, etc.)? What is the musician not trained for (pressing a midi pedal while playing)? Take everything into account.
What does the audience think when they see a musician on stage looking into a computer screen? They could be checking their email, for all the audience knows. Hans encouraged performers (as he does himself) to use specialized controllers and keep away from the computer on stage as much as possible. He encouraged heavy computer interactors to stay at the mixing board. Performance practice is important and we should be considering it as carefully for experimental electronic music as we do for the proper performance of a baroque piece.
In addition to music, Hans has been busy using his programming prowess to prepare interactive art and sound installations. Why sit in the audience and watch a performer on stage have all the fun? Further, why do we suffer the traditional confines of a concert hall and ancient performance practice? How about a “concert” with different interactive musical experiences going on in different rooms, with the “audience” free to wander from space to space as they please? Hans also insisted that the public be free to interact with his exhibits in any way they choose, including unpredictable ways, and that we must, as artists, accept this. Hans is so sensitive and accommodating to the nature of things.
Cort Lippe
As a composer, Cort Lippe explained the challenges of getting past, for example, the “pianoness” of a piano; that when an audience sees and hears an instrument, they bring, in the case of the piano, hundreds of years of history along with them. Cort tries to get the audience past this history and begin hearing instruments for what they really are, aptly demonstrated in Music for Marimba and Computer and Music for Snare Drum and Computer, which I thoroughly enjoyed. Also, in retrospect, I recall being acquainted with the true sound character of the piano, free from history, in Braxton Sherouse’s Regulated Action.
Karlheinz Stockhausen
Though no longer with us, Stockhausen is as alive as ever thanks to several outstanding performances at this year’s June in Buffalo, including a magnificent rendition of Capricorn by bass vocalist Nicholas Isherwood, who, piously bowing to Stockhausen, never fails to disappoint.
Thanks
As with any June in
Programs
Programs are available for June in Buffalo 2008 and June in Buffalo 2007.