the music of sound

Produced by Salford University, this video shows many different sound sources filmed using a high speed camera… the way a cymbal contorts is quite disturbing whereas a whip being cracked is almost like ballet!

Entertainment for today? A video clip by David Van Tieghem, percussionist for Laurie Anderson amonst others, jamming with the furniture in the Chelsea Hotel…

interview here

I just bought myself a new toy – a Moog Modular synth!

While I dearly wish I found it in a secondhand store in Greymouth for $50, the truth is that its a Moog Modular V (as in virtual) made by Arturia – the main benefits of the V aspect being that I can take it with me in my laptop while travelling… I may well be the first person to jam on a Moog Modular while waiting in the transit lounge! Heres a bit of a history lesson:

I hope they make a virtual Synthi next – then all my dreams of making 1950s sci fi soundtracks will come true!

Posting American films in New Zealand we run across the accent problem occasionally – local actors who’s american accents waver across territorys, sometimes within one sentence.. and occasionally the only solution is to revoice, always a last resort..
Found via the ever inspiring/funny/distracting boing boing; is a list of 13 of the worst fake accents in film with youtube clips as examples. Some are cringeworthy while some are just funny (dick van dyke in mary poppins!) but for an accurate reference of just how bad some of those are, check out the Speech Accent Archive which ‘uniformly presents a large set of speech samples from a variety of language backgrounds. Native and non-native speakers of English read the same paragraph and are carefully transcribed.’

Last time I was in Tokyo (2004) I visited the ICC Gallery & had a religious experience, in fact more than just one. The first thing that struck me was a fundamental cultural difference as to how art is appreciated and supported. In New Zealand large corporations tend to invest their advertising & sponsorship funds supporting such pointless activities as rugby (violent men chasing a funny shape ball around a paddock?) whereas in Japan a Telecommunications corporation such as NTT fund a cutting edge art gallery. I sure know which I prefer! Anyway the other religious experiences involved the artworks themselves incredibly inspiring works that expanded my preconceived notions of what ‘interactive’ and ‘digital’ art actually mean. Heres a link to an archive of that exhibition: Reactivity

So while planning my imminent trip to Tokyo one of the first places I checked the schedule of, was the one & same gallery and as luck would have it, there is an ongoing exhibition called Open Space and of the exhibits one in particular caught my eye/ear: Anechoic
Room!

If you work in sound or music and have never personally experienced an anechoic room, then this little rant is going to be fairly hypothetical for you. The effect is profound & while it can be described, it cannot be appreciated unless you have been there yourself. In my youth I spent a few years attempting to study Electrical Engineering at Canterbury University & the one vivid memory I have is from spending time in the anechoic room in the Physics department… and the idea of me being at university means it was like 20 years ago, such is the perceptual imprint. For someone like me who loves sounds bouncing around my immediate environment the one word I would use to describe it is oppressive. And its funny, I well know what a vibrant & thereby tiring environment Tokyo can be & accordingly plan to spend some time seeking out Zen temples for some quiet time, but until checking on the ICC, I never imagined that quiet time would include the most extreme quiet time possible!!!

By definition an anechoic chamber is a room with no echoes, and aside from the padded walls notice in the photo above how the floor is also non-reflective – its a mesh with padding beneath. The lack of echo means there is no spatialisation information for your ears to process – EVERYTHING is a point source. Equally an anechoic chamber is isolated from outside interference & it is the combination of isolation AND lack of reflection that effected John Cage to such a degree that he compsoed the masterpiece 4′33″ But please, dont believe me or him – make a nusiance of yourself with a local university & find an anechoic chamber to experience the effects for yourself!

A quote from John Cage, after visiting the anechoic chamber at Harvard University back in the late 1940s: Cage entered the chamber expecting to hear silence, but as he wrote later, he “heard two sounds, one high and one low. When I described them to the engineer in charge, he informed me that the high one was my nervous system in operation, the low one my blood in circulation.” Oh, and heres a MIDI file of 4′33″ incase you have the technology to enjoy it…

Apologies for my lack of attention – tomorrow is our first day of final mixing on 30 Days of Night so i’m rather busy keeping on top of FX Predubs A, B, C, D, E, F, G, H, I, J, K, L (all 5.1 stems) plus Atmos predubs (4 x 5.0 + 2 x LCR stems) plus Creature vocals virtual/automated predub plus my sound design ProTools session running live into the mix….

So we’re final mixing one reel per day, then double head screening, fixes for 2 days, rescreen, another day fixing, two days print mastering, then a week of deliverys/archiving… THEN a wrap party, a hangover & lots of sleep, and then & only then some form of normal transmission…

And 38 sleeps until i am in Tokyo for a holiday! And if you are reading this & happen to live there, please do email me – i’m looking forward to meeting a few kindred spirits; music/sound/art/architecture/whatever… and will definitely be at the next Visualux at Superdeluxe on October 6th… arigatou gozimasu!

email tim

tired of virtual instruments but dont have room in your house for the real thing? Check this:

ok I know I’ve ranted about it previously but Yamaha are slowly releasing more info… & simultaneously both odd & inspiring is the fact/my opninion that of the three musicians they give prototypes to for trials, two I know of (Atom Heart & Jim O’Rourke) & they make fairly boring/preset sounds with it, while the musician I know the least, Robert Lippok (of Te Rococo Rot) manages to coax some of the most intriging sounds…

Its so confusing, I like the idea of the Tenori On purely as a controller with visual feedback… but it can playback samples? really? well its a MIDI controller so of course thats true (depending what you choose to load up on your laptop) but natively?

i vote artist #4 is DJ Food or Amon Tobin or So Percussion…. or me when I have some spare time (ie 3 weeks from now!) or at least someone with a worn out trigger finger…
people like Atom Heart frowning at it really isn’t the best marketing – it says something about him, it, or how long he has had access to it….. and if the idea of a new visual/audio interface is as profound as many people wish it would be (me included) then other than the initial novelty a serious investment in time would be required, no?

ask anyone learning the violin… & divide by n

Last day of the festival today & I’m off to see The Future Is Unwritten, a doco about Joe Strummer & The Clash… Last night I saw Gus Van Sants new film: Paranoid Park, and while I really liked it there was one moment when the score totally pulled me out of the film & I’ve been thinking about why. The film often uses a technique, especially when we are right there with the lead boys point of view, of removing all ‘real’ sound & shifting the soundtrack to quite beautiful ambient music. The effect is very powerful in an understated & evocative way and after doing a few searches I discovered the music was created by musician & sound artist Ethan Rose: “Whether it be taped-up player piano rolls, broken music boxes, or instruments of a more traditional sort, all the sounds were carefully and randomly interrupted by my hands, before being arranged into larger pieces. For the most part it is a love of the archaic mechanizations of gears spinning and paper scratching, of textural sounds discovered in old things that propelled me into making these songs.”
Check out his myspace, record label & boomkat site, plus heres some mp3s:

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So far so good, but for me the film broke its spell at a crucial moment (spoiler warning) when the boy witnesses a death. Although we are with the boys point of view at that moment, the score switches to a completely over the top blast of classical music. It just felt so heavy handed it totally broke my concentration & I started thinking, what is this? The score to Gods point of view? Will there be thunder & lightning next? It was a shame as it was a lapse in an otherwise brilliant soundtrack & felt totally unnecessary….

Relatedly there was a moment in Inland Empire where music did the same thing although it is more easily forgiven in Inland Empire as it is such a fragmented film there are many many times when you cannot suspend your disbelief because you simply dont know what you are watching: is it the film within the film, or the film itself? But the moment that bugged me was when the Beck song Black Tambourine kicked in. I dont mind Becks music, but the song felt out of place in the film & i think it is because the score had otherwise used almost timeless music ie not of a particular era, & then when the Beck song started it was like, oh right 2006…

Music & film eh?
When it works it is SO powerful..
but when it doesnt it pulls you right out of the movie like bad acting