Archives for March 2021

    I think last week’s performance was a little bit better than that from the previous weeks because more time was used to prepare and four people can definitely come up with some fact ideas. 

    The development of the musical instrument STRAND is not complicated. At first, Eden wanted to make the performance into an investigation, that we shall all behaving as detectives, using strands to make connections with things on a board (just like what detectives would do if they are trying to find out some clues). The thing is, we soon found out that the idea can be perfectly turned into a kind of musical instrument, using strands. The basic theory embedded in this musical instrument is the idea of the resistor ladders. One person will control four strands, each of which is connected to a resistor. This was, in the first place, supposed to be a four-men instrument, but Chenle was having trouble with her circuits at that time, and therefore we had to make it into a three men instrument, with three different performing ways. Eden is interested in the idea of letting gravity and Physics do the job and chose the iron ball as his tool. I prefer to perform it in the way of Guqin and made myself a finger stall. At the same time, Shireen was using the iron bar simulation the violin bow. 

(This stupid website says I can’y include images because they have too good qualities???)

Here is the link to the photos: https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1A2zax7blgA32svw5XvDWNLOsghHTpUwH?usp=sharing

    During the performance, I have to admit that we only carefully rehearsed the beginning and the ending part, which seemed more organized. However, personally speaking, I think I also managed to find a harmonious way to accompany the others during the process of the performance and created some interesting effects. However, things should be more controlled if everything is prearranged. In the next performance, we will be more controlled and pay more attention to how to integrate four people’s individual parts as a whole. 

The Infinitesimal, it is. 

Honestly speaking, I don’t think that I have fully understood Éliane Radigue, both her work and her thoughts, but I felt something, like a feeling of connection. 

As a pioneer artist, she has been working hard to illustrate the power of the Infinitesimal, the power from the small and tiny things that may seem to be powerless. I think this has led her to the path of exploration for minimalism, where she can create masterpieces from the Infinitesimal. When I first listened to the music file, I was immediately attracted. (Actually, it is now my favorite song when doing the assignment.) It directly delivers the strong and pure energy of simple frequency. It conveys the art of the Infinitesimal and reminded me of one line from the article, “the freedom to be immersed in the ambivalence of continuous modulation with the uncertainty of being and/or not being in this or that mode or tonality.” Truly, I did immerse myself in that. 

There were no variations of the frequency, and yet the variations happen everywhere. When I focused on attention solely on the part that I am listening to right now, I can only describe it as a flow of frequency, but when perceiving the music piece generally from parts to parts, something interesting happens. The music becomes alive, and this is not necessarily because that the variation happens slowly and gradually. It is because the general transformation is carefully interwoven into every note. I am, therefore, listening to something alive. 

Firstly I would like to apologize for my absence last week. I didn’t feel well on Wednesday and Thursday and therefore decided to carry out the performance in the form of recording. 

Here is the file. 

The music begins with a high frequency open and then ends with it too. There are basically four parts to this music. A piece of white noise used for background music. A high-frequency melody realized by LDR and two kins of beats with different paces realized by using the human body as the resistor. When I was exploring the possibility for the elements for this performance, I wanted to incorporate something that is better delivered with recording. I have, therefore, included different levels of music into this piece. The higher frequency was created by LDR, and I shaped my hands like a bowl and moved around to create a kind of sound like echoes. The powerful beats, on the other hand, are found by attaching the wire to my fingers. 

The general music piece flows gradually faster, with the beats moving quicker and quicker. I wish to create a state of nervousness by doing so. I wanted to hold the audience’s heartbeats and after the music reaches the climax part, suddenly release them. I was relatively satisfied with what was delivered. It can be considered as OK, but there is more to elaborate on. 

The first thing left for me to improve is the musical instrument, or in other words, the source of the sound. I should make my own circuit and make everything more integrated and a little more complex. Currently, the sound is still a bit simple, still having a large possibility to polish. 

I am now working on this week’s performances and will keep all of these in mind to make a better delivery. 

    The article Towards (a Definition of) Experimental Music, is mainly based on John Cage’s descriptions and breaks down the components of experimental music into three different parts: Composing, Performing and Listening. I don’t want to summarize the article and discuss what that article tells in what parts, but I do have something to say about some key elements that this article puts forward. The description of the time involved in the part of composing really got my attention. It conveys that our composition of a music piece shouldn’t be linear. (I think our perceptions shouldn’t also be linear.) Rather, “Beginning and ends are not points on a line but limits of a piece’s material” (Christian Wolff). This actually indicates how we should value music composition. For experimental music, music composition is actually not a process like creation. It is a process of selection freely based on time. The music starts not because it starts from that point. Instead, it starts because that is the part you hear this music. Beyond the starting and ending point, the music is infinite. The job for composers, on the other hand, is to find that part. They are selectors. 

    Apart form this point, I really appreciate the description at the end of the listening part. It uses the way we appreciate a painting to illustrate the way we appreciate a music piece. Our attention could start at any part, and end at any point, just like what we do when we focus our eyes on the canvas. This is, at least, especially true applying to Ground. When the audience is appreciating the music, there is not necessarily a prearranged starting point left for them to place their attention. They can jump in anywhere, any sec. There is, also, no strong emphasis in the general music piece, which means that there won’t be too much distractions for their appreciations. The relationship between the performer and the audience is equal. Nothing is done for the audience and everything is prepared to them. Through the creation-appreciation harmony, a piece of experimental music was born. 

Vibrations

Instead of the exploration of the purity and peculiarity of the sound, this week’s material’s focus is on the vibration, or to be more precise, the visualization of the vibration. 

I really enjoy reading the Hearing Essay by Glennie. In the last week’s essay, I put forward the idea that sound and vision coexist harmoniously, but I really appreciate Glennie’s description that hearing is about touching. Hearing is about feeling the vibration of the air and this gives a new trait to sound. Sound, therefore, has become something produced and transported in the form of vibration, received by the ear, processed by the brain to leave a picture in your head, and eventually gives you direct feelings, feelings about hearing. Being a profoundly deaf musician, Glennie is offered the ability to directly learn more about this process. Maybe the concept of interpreting the way how deaf people hear would be an intriguing topic for NIME.

The Black Hole Horizon by Kubli, on the other hand, is a great way to show this concept. I like the method used to illustrate vibrations caused by sound waves by bubbles, which allows the audience to directly feel and see what they are listening to right now. We are able to get the shape of the sound by directly perceive the shapes of the bubbles. This led me to think more of the visualization of the sound waves. Using bubbles shall be a brilliant idea, and I am wondering whether using powder can yield similar outcomes. Perhaps piling powders in advance onto the speaker and then perform the music will also get some dramatic effects, which is something I wanna try this week.