From: owner-zorn-list-digest@lists.xmission.com (Zorn List Digest) To: zorn-list-digest@lists.xmission.com Subject: Zorn List Digest V3 #152 Reply-To: zorn-list Sender: owner-zorn-list-digest@lists.xmission.com Errors-To: owner-zorn-list-digest@lists.xmission.com Precedence: bulk Zorn List Digest Thursday, November 2 2000 Volume 03 : Number 152 In this issue: - Re: last night's Stilluppsteypa/TV Pow show Re: Zorn List Digest V3 #150 laptop instruments Re: last night's Stilluppsteypa/TV Pow show Pisa/Florence recommendations? Re: last night's Stilluppsteypa/TV Pow show re: terminology: acousmatic Re: Zorn List Digest V3 #150 PIGPEN show!!!!!! Kinda OT- Rev. Fred Lane Re: last night's Stilluppsteypa/TV Pow show Re: Kinda OT- Rev. Fred Lane klezmonauts Re: Bowie goes ... Moondoc/Parker in Montreal Stilluppsteypa/TV Pow Odp: Zorn List Digest V3 #150 ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Thu, 2 Nov 2000 03:56:45 -0500 From: "Jesse Kudler" Subject: Re: last night's Stilluppsteypa/TV Pow show - ----- Original Message ----- From: "Steve Smith" Marclay). So is it perhaps, then, that my lack of understanding of the > mechanics of music production using laptop computers has made me feel so out of > touch? And if so, is there a simple primer that might help me (as a layman) > understand what all these people with blue and green screens reflected on their > faces throughout their gigs are actually *doing* with their computers to make > those sounds I'm hearing? They're probably doing a lot of things. I won't try to be comprehensive here, just broad (and brief). There's synthesis and then there's processing. The former being the same as in an analog synth, but with computers, there's a lot more control (maybe not mechanically i.e. no sliders and knobs, but with what parameters you can control and by what increments). Probably, you have either some kinds of oscillators or noise generators or other generic sound sources which you can tweak in various ways. Then you can start and stop these sounds in various ways to make short or long sounds. Processing would involve taking some samples or other material and applying various effects. A lot of this would be stuff you can get in guitar pedals (though again, more tweakable), but there's also more elaborate stuff like granulation or using pitch as a control. You can also get various kinds of sequencing, which is essentially placing your sounds in time. So you can make patterns and what not. That's pretty vague, but it's late, and I'm too tired to write more. basically, I think it's easiest to think of a laptop as a really powerful synthesizer in one box, except that you can essentially design the whole synth yourself in software. And maybe add a sampler and sequencer. Helpful? - -Jesse - - ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 02 Nov 2000 13:32:05 +0000 From: Nuno Barreiro Subject: Re: Zorn List Digest V3 #150 > People still wonder what is the use and achievements of IRCAM... Besides, > of course, being a vehicle for Boulez' ego. I think you are a little harsh on IRCAM. Of course Boulez is an asshole, but, fortunately, IRCAM is not just Boulez. They develop interesting tools to work with sound synthesis as well as software for education (showing, for instance, a 2D membrane vibrating in 3D that you can virtually hit like a drum... quite spectacular and much more exciting than the vibrating string). > More important would be the harsh criticism that Boulez threw on the > whole musique concrete after a short stay there. Knowing the respect (often > based on intimidation) that Boulez gathered in the late '50s, any critic > from him was equal to a death penalty. For him musique concrete was not > serious (in fact like any other genres of music except his own). I agree 100%. The only french composer that has survived in the Boulez reign is Varese: he was older and already established (and also respected) when Boulez (with his undeniable charisma) has started his death penalty jugements. Boulez did not even try to go against Varese. From my viewpoint, he was quite clever not to, since Varese is clearly a genious... and, of course, Boulez music stinks... Just go through his hit pick "Improvisations sur Malharme'" to hear what I mean. Nuno - - ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 02 Nov 2000 08:05:37 -0600 From: orrick@earthlink.net Subject: laptop instruments >From: Steve Smith >Subject: Re: last night's Stilluppsteypa/TV Pow show >... is there a simple primer that might help me (as a layman) >understand what all these people with blue and green screens reflected on >their faces throughout their gigs are actually *doing* with their computers to >make those sounds I'm hearing? To have a better understanding of the instrument visit www.steim.nl (the Studio for Electro-Instrumental Music). You can get a free demo version of LiSa (live sampling), the software used by Kaffe Matthews and others. This product runs on mac powerbooks using the built in audio interface. I heard her use this system for a performance she arrived at without any prepared samples. Source sounds were obtained live with wireless mics located just outside the peformance space. Orrick n.p. Edgar Meyer Bach cello suites on double bass - - ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 2 Nov 2000 10:31:10 -0500 From: Joseph Zitt Subject: Re: last night's Stilluppsteypa/TV Pow show Really good show from Stillupsteppya, TV Pow, and localite 87 Central here in DC last night. While it felt like everything (except the closing collaboration) went on too long for my tastes, I rather enjoyed it. This was the first show I'd seen of laptop music, and it was more compelling than I would have thought. While I could see little of what the players were doing, the quality of attention evident in their faces and postures made it clear that they were actively doing *something*, even if we couldn't tell what it was. Interestingly, while the sets by the groups on their own were both somewhat noisy, the collaboration was quite lowercase. I got the feeling that, having established the general steadystate sound that lasted throughout the piece, each was contributing the quiet burbles and samples vaguely audible beneath it. Good stuff. The owner of the space, BTW, who was also new to the genre, picked up on what she heard as samples of babies crying, failing machinery, and the like, and asked if there was an apocalyptic streak that characterised the field as a whole. Hmm. - -- |> ~The only thing that is not art is inattention~ --- Marcel Duchamp <| | jzitt@metatronpress.com http://www.metatronpress.com/jzitt | | Latest CD: Jerusaklyn http://www.mp3.com/josephzitt | | Comma: Voices of New Music Silence: the John Cage Discussion List | - - ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 1 Nov 2000 11:19:16 -0500 From: "Joslyn Layne" Subject: Pisa/Florence recommendations? Hello folks, i am going to Pisa next week for the Italian Instabile Festival! i'll have a couple of days to tool around, so if you have any must-check-out recommendations, just email me-- i'd certainly appreciate the info! thanks, joslyn - - ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 2 Nov 2000 12:00:58 EST From: JonAbbey2@aol.com Subject: Re: last night's Stilluppsteypa/TV Pow show In a message dated 11/2/00 3:33:53 AM, ssmith36@sprynet.com writes: << I attended this evening of music as much to learn as to enjoy, but at the same time I found myself a bit wary, given my lack of familiarity with the electro-improv scene and its key players, wondering how much I "wouldn't get." And while I derived a great deal of pleasure from the music that was played, I still found myself a bit at odds because I guess I still don't understand the basics of HOW these musicians are making the music they make on their laptops. >> while not answering Steve's question directly, here are some related thoughts: this set was somewhat unusual, in that it involved multiple laptop performers at the same time (six in the third set). most of the laptop shows I've seen are either solo, or with some other instrument (Stangl/Kurzmann, for instance). so you don't know how the sounds are being produced, but at least you know who is producing them. the other thing which is occasionally done is to let the audience see what's going on on the screen, either via a projection behind the musician, or in the case of the 24 hour MIMEO show, by seating the musicians around the outside of four tables shaped in a square, so that interested audience members could look over the shoulders of the musicians while they were playing. this is obviously less feasible with one or two musicians though. the last point is more of a personal one. I find that one difference between this new wave of electroacoustic improv and much recent experimental acoustic improv, is that which musicians are producing which sounds is much less important than the soundscape taken as a whole, and that some of the most successful combinations are the ones in which individual identity is almost entirely submerged (the titles which come to mind that best represent this are Particles and Smears and La Voyelle Liquide, both on Erstwhile, sorry). I believe this philosophy largely comes from AMM, although they were more interested in sticking rigidly to this earlier in their careers. so, to roughly quote P-Funk, "sit back, relax and dig while they do it to your earhole!" Jon www.erstwhilerecords.com - - ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 2 Nov 2000 11:11:26 -0600 (CST) From: Whit Schonbein Subject: re: terminology: acousmatic steve koenig asks: >does 'acousmatic' specify a particular genre of electro-acoustic music? and then caleb gave a definition snipped from somewhere on the web. i'm familiar (slightly) with the term from some exposure to musical aesthetics, and the sense in which the term is used in that context is much more broad. one begins by noting that music (or sound in general) differs from other sorts of experience in that it does not need to be experienced as inhering in some object. for example, color cannot be experienced except as the color of something (a red apple, a blue book, etc). but sound can be experienced independently of any object. so sound is referred to acousmatic, and the experience of sound is acousmatic experience. [at least that's the story; i'm not sure what one makes of (i) visual hallucinations or (ii) the fact that the experience of sound carries spatio-temporal information] then, i suppose one can cash out concrete music as the process of detaching sounds from their objects, making the experience of those sounds acousmatic. so concrete music is just one variety of acousmatic music. in contrast with the definition given by caleb, this weaker usage makes no restrictions on the sort of object that actually produces the sound. that is, the sound need not be fully determined (e.g., on a tape, as a fixed set of computer instructions) to potentially generate an acousmatic experience. one need only detach the sound from the object producing it, and presumably closing one's eyes during a performance works just as well as taping a sound and playing it back at some other point in time. roger scruton has a discussion of the term in the first chapter of his _aesthetics of music_, and i think i've captured the essence of his usage here. hope this helps, whit - - ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 02 Nov 2000 09:58:21 -0800 From: "Patrice L. Roussel" Subject: Re: Zorn List Digest V3 #150 On Thu, 02 Nov 2000 13:32:05 +0000 Nuno Barreiro wrote: > > I agree 100%. The only french composer that has survived in the Boulez > reign is Varese: he was older and already established (and also respected) I am not sure what you mean by the above... Messiaen does not apply? > when Boulez (with his undeniable charisma) has started his death penalty > jugements. Boulez did not even try to go against Varese. From my viewpoint, > he was quite clever not to, since Varese is clearly a genious... and, of course, > Boulez music stinks... Just go through his hit pick "Improvisations sur Malharme'" > to hear what I mean. To dismiss somebody like Boulez you will need more than statements like "Boulez music stinks..." (I mean, we are not talking of Limp Bizkit here). Not to mention that "Improvisations sur Malharme" is, I think, a great composi- tion. Hardly something that I would use against him. Patrice. - - ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 02 Nov 2000 12:25:21 CST From: "Lenny Barszap" Subject: PIGPEN show!!!!!! If anyone in the Seattle area doesn't know, Pigpen is playing again! If anyone is going and will be recording these shows, I'd greatly appreciate setting up a trade for copies of them: at the OK Hotel Cafe, Seattle, WA Thursday, November 9th in the ballroom 1st Set - "Zony Mash + Pigpen = Mashpen" with guests Briggan Krauss, Fred Chalenor & Mike Stone -first Pigpen performance since 1996! 2nd Set - "Zony Mash & ZM Horns" cover - $8 Friday, November 10th in the ballroom 1st Set - all improvised set with special guests Eyvind Kang, Briggan Krauss and others... 2nd Set - "Zony Mash & ZM Horns" cover - $10 ZM Horns are: Skerik: Baritone Sax Briggan Krauss: Alto Sax Dave Carter: Trumpet Steve Moore: Trombone I wish I could be there, but unfortunately those type shows don't come to Austin! Lenny http://www.tapercities.com/TheCrossroads/lendakike/traders.html _________________________________________________________________________ Get Your Private, Free E-mail from MSN Hotmail at http://www.hotmail.com. Share information about yourself, create your own public profile at http://profiles.msn.com. - - ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 2 Nov 2000 13:47:10 EST From: Dgasque@aol.com Subject: Kinda OT- Rev. Fred Lane - --part1_47.2ef95a2.273310ae_boundary Content-Type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Just got my CD copies of both Rev. Fred Lane albums on Shimmy Disc. I remember reading somewhere the true identities of the musicians behind these...ahem...classics. I'm pretty sure Davy/LaDonna Smith and Chadborne being in the list. Can somebody provide a complete list? - --part1_47.2ef95a2.273310ae_boundary Content-Type: text/html; charset="US-ASCII" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Just got my CD copies of both Rev. Fred Lane albums on Shimmy Disc.  I
remember reading somewhere the true identities of the musicians behind
these...ahem...classics.  I'm pretty sure Davy/LaDonna Smith and Chadborne
being in the list.  Can somebody provide a complete list? - --part1_47.2ef95a2.273310ae_boundary-- - - ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 02 Nov 2000 13:49:39 -0500 From: Steve Smith Subject: Re: last night's Stilluppsteypa/TV Pow show Jesse Kudler wrote: > Helpful? Yes, thanks. That does make it a bit more clear. I think I'd really like to see, even just once, an example like the one Jon cited (the 24 hour Mimeo show) where the screen of the computer was in some way visible - I think that would make things a lot more clear and tactile to me. Nevertheless, I did and do find the music itself quite compelling, and Jon's subsequent statement regarding the notion of all egos and identities being submerged in the collective whole a la AMM was also enlightening. Steve Smith ssmith36@sprynet.com - - ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 2 Nov 2000 16:16:49 EST From: JonAbbey2@aol.com Subject: Re: Kinda OT- Rev. Fred Lane In a message dated 11/2/00 1:48:43 PM, Dgasque@aol.com writes: << Just got my CD copies of both Rev. Fred Lane albums on Shimmy Disc. I remember reading somewhere the true identities of the musicians behind these...ahem...classics. I'm pretty sure Davy/LaDonna Smith and Chadborne being in the list. Can somebody provide a complete list? >> can't seem to find personnel for those records here, but check out this site: http://homepages.enterprise.net/scruss/fredlane/ some English label (Alcohol, maybe?) is supposedly working on reissuing the first disc. Jon www.erstwhilerecords.com - - ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 3 Nov 2000 12:30:34 +1100 From: "Julian" Subject: klezmonauts This band has just released a Xmas klezmer cd, sounds kind of like the Shirim Klezmer Orchestra (the guys from Naftule's Dream before they were Naftule's Dream) doing Xmas carols. Anyone know who's in the band? I wouldn't be surprised if maybe some of the members from Naftule's Dream are on this cd... - - ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 02 Nov 2000 22:07:43 -0800 From: Mike Chamberlain Subject: Re: Bowie goes ... on 11/1/00 6:37 AM, Joseph Zitt at jzitt@metatronpress.com wrote: > Bowie toured as Iggy Pop's pianist in the '70s. > As did Blue Gene Tyranny at one point. - --Mike (Who can't recommend Duckworth's _Talking Music_ highly enough) - - ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 02 Nov 2000 23:08:13 -0500 From: Mathieu Belanger Subject: Moondoc/Parker in Montreal Hello, Did anybody attended the Jameel Moondoc/William Parker show yesterday at Casa del Popolo? If so, I am curious to know what you think of it. Personally, I think it was great, but far from being wonderful. I think they could communicate more (musically I mean). The first 30 minutes of the first set were almost like an alto sax playing over a rythm section... On the other hand, when they would interact more like at the end of the 55 minutes piece that composed most of the first set, it was really good. Maybe it is a coincidence, but it was often when Mr. Parker was using his bow. Some gorgeous playing with the bow by the way... Any other opinions? Mathieu P.S. Sorry for the Montreal-related topic... - - ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 2 Nov 2000 23:30:12 EST From: Orangejazz@aol.com Subject: Stilluppsteypa/TV Pow Hey, I just saw TV Pow and Stilluppstepya in Pittsburgh. I couldn't stay for their entire collaboration, it seemed to be getting pretty harsh when I left. I had the exact opposite assertions from Jon, however. I found TV Pow to be less predictable than Stilluppstepya. TV Pow definitely had a very organic sound going, but their was a lot of variation and a lot of sharp explosions at different points. Stilluppstepya just seemed to keep building to climaxes and stopping, and building and stoping, etc. I found the Stilluppstepya set to be much less intriguing. However, I definitely reccomend TV Pow to any of the people really concerned with the whole Musique Concrete thread or anyone who enjoys modern electronic music. They were really fantastic. I wouldn't shut up the entire car trip home about their set. from, mattt http://www.mp3.com/mattwellins - - ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 3 Nov 2000 06:50:16 +0100 From: "Marcin Gokieli" Subject: Odp: Zorn List Digest V3 #150 From: Nuno Barreiro > I think you are a little harsh on IRCAM. Of course Boulez is an asshole, but, > fortunately, IRCAM is not just Boulez. They develop interesting tools to work Even if Boulez IS an asshole, that's not that evident. His conducting abilities are just stunning - just listen to his versions of Varese, for example. And let's not forget that he's one of the few conductors who performs contemporary music. Without him we would have a way less modern pieces on cds or vinyl. As for his own works, JZ said that 'matreau sans maitre' is one of the best music pieces ever. Marcin Gokieli marcin.gokieli@mospan.pl marcingokieli@go2.pl Generally speaking, if a philosopher offers to 'dissolve' the problem you are working on, tell him to go climb a tree - Jerry Fodor - - ------------------------------ End of Zorn List Digest V3 #152 ******************************* To unsubscribe from zorn-list-digest, send an email to "majordomo@lists.xmission.com" with "unsubscribe zorn-list-digest" in the body of the message. For information on digests or retrieving files and old messages send "help" to the same address. Do not use quotes in your message. 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