Music of Sound

They’re called BeatSneaks & theres a ‘How-To’ here!

Listverse has a list of their 10 best uses of classical music in a cartoon, but it doesnt include my favorite, the 1928 Mickey Mouse cartoon Steamboat Willie:

Whats your favorite?

Apologies for my reduced resolution but I am in deep thought mode, which is a bit like deep listening mode except without any music… hence less stuff gets written, researched & posted…. but other things happen in their absence. And maybe thats the point… I vaguely promised the virtual intern applicants I would be in touch with them within a “few weeks’ and those few weeks are almost at an end, so where am I at? Funny you should ask. Heres my thinking; of 19 applicants there isn’t one who isn’t worthy. So that leaves me in a quandry, who to eliminate? And how to eliminate them? And why to eliminate them? Of the 19 there are 5 who stand out, but this also presents a quandry- maybe the best one doesn’t need mentoring at all? Am I looking for the best of the 19 or the most in need of mentoring?
Anyway the Film Festival finishes this weekend so next week I have free time to resolve all this, but the main thing I wanted to say to the 19 people who applied is that I think I will find a way to mentor you all – maybe via a private forum or maybe just via this blog… I need to narrow it down as I am well aware of the problem of being spread so thin that individual worth becomes negligible, but I also appreciate that of all the stuff I do with the intern, 50% will be specific to them & their situation while the other 50% is more generalised & of value to all the interns…. So its this latter 50% I am thinking through the best means of involving everyone. Does that make sense?

Anyway I’ve got two movies to race off & see today (a Siggraph presentation and then Lars Von Triers AntiChrist!?!) but if you need something to think about in the meantime how about this: When does sound become music? Such an important question, asked on the Fwonk forum, but as with all questions asked, it begs the answer; as though there is only one answer. There is of course many, many answers, all equally valid… But whats your instinct? Go have a read…

What is it with Tuesdays & the Film Festival? I got back from holiday & its Tuesday again & I again had 3 movies booked – I only ended up leaving the theatre to caffeinate, eat & get back to me seat! First up was NZ film Strength of Water, a beautiful, moving film set in a Maori community in Hokianga.. highly recomended!
Next was Jim Jarmusch’s new film The Limits of Control which was brilliant & almost zen-like in its ritualistic minimalism…..

Next up was the highlight of the day & maybe the highlight of the festival! The film was called Mother by Korean director Joon-ho Bong (I never saw his earlier film The Host, presuming it was a generic monster movie, but I will definitely check it out after seeing such brilliant writing & directing)

A few people sent me links to this (thanks Tim & Gustavo) and it is definitely worth a watch: Music from a Tree

Diego Stocco – Music From A Tree from Diego Stocco on Vimeo.

Quoting from the vimeo text: “In the garden of my house there’s a tree with lots of randomly grown twigs. It looks odd and nice at the same time. One day I asked myself if I could create a piece of music with it. To tune the tree I picked a fundamental note and tuned the twigs by trimming them with a pencil sharpener. I used two Røde NT6 and a NTG-2 as microphones, combined with a customized stethoscope. I recorded the tracks live on a Pro Tools LE system. I didn’t use any synthesizer or sampler to create or modify the sounds. All the sounds come from playing the tree, by bowing the twigs, shaking the leaves, playing rhythms on the cortex and so on.”

More info & photos here and high rez audio here

Just got back from 5 days in Ngawi, a remote fishing town about 2 hours from Wellington. Apart from chilling out, drinking too much with my friends & laughing a lot we did go on a number of excursions, with camera & sound recording kit so I’ll post a few photos now & update when I load up the sounds & play with the timelapse I shot…. One photo I didnt take (& only because it was impossible) was of the night sky. OMFG!!!!! Living in a light polluted city means you really don’t see the night sky, so to be a in rural location on a clear night was almost overwhelming!!!

When we arrived the forecast wasnt good & we were prepared to be rained on for 4 days solid, but i just loved the inky black sea! I shot a timelapse of it but will have to wait until I’m in the right mood to make some appropriate music & sound for it….

Next morning the sky was clear so first trip was to the seal colony, and wow it was better than any zoo I’ve ever been to. To walk around amongst these seals in their natural habitat was fantastic and at times a little scary. The seals are very good at blending into the environment (eg that first photo below there are 9 seals) so we had to be very careful not to walk around blithely & upset them. I did a lot of recording & scared myself more than once; I would walk slowly around a rock & one of them would vocalise at me & due to a sensitive mic & having the headphones cranked up I would jump, thinking it was right beside me!!! And yes, some of these recordings will definitely be in the next horror film I get to do!

The diffuse sea roar from the lighthouse was just so beautiful!

White Rock – this is a scary coast – bleak & desolate with serious surf. The photo below is taken standing well back with a wide angle lens but while we were there all three of us climbed up on a rock that looked directly into really turbulent water, where 2m waves were crashing in. After standing up there for five minutes taking photos I climbed back down & then heard a shout; a rogue wave was approaching that was literally 4m high – it passed across the outcrop you see in the photo like it wasnt even there & crashed into the rock we were standing on. I ducked & my two friends just grabbed the rock & held on, one got completely drenched but all 3 of us were seriously shaken up by it. I’ve never seen anything like it & it was a timely reminder of just how vulnerable you can be; every year a number of fishermen are drowned in NZ by being knocked off their fishing spot by rogue waves & we left there glad that we could laugh nervously about it afterwards… White Rock – scary place!

The film I start work on in 2 weeks time is set in a coastal community where the sound of the sea is omnipresent so I did a lot of recording of the sea, but primarily from a wide perspective – aiming to capture variations on the lovely soft textured roar…

This recording was so peaceful; the waves were fair crashing on the beach but being so far back it felt like gentle explosions rolling towards me… I’ll repost some recordings later….

A contrasting sunset to the first photo…

I hear salt water is pretty good for strativarii….

nice cuts!

I must have listened to this piece of music a hundred times in the last month, ever since discovering it on a Giles Petterson compilation – heres a version by a piano teacher, its called Peace Piece by Bill Evans…. & I think I might even try & teach myself to play it… on gamelan (kidding!)

Beautiful huh? especially when Bill Evans himself plays it, if it appeals hunt down his album ‘Everybody Digs Bill Evans’… Miles Davis is quoted as saying:”Bill had this quiet fire that I loved on piano. The way he approached it, the sound he got, was like crystal notes or sparkling water cascading down from some clear waterfall.”
Funnily enough, the piece came into existence during a recording session for a piece of music called Some Other Time by Leonard Bernstein; “I started to play the introduction, and it started to get so much of its own feeling and identity that I just figured, well, I’ll keep going.” Have a listen:

Funnily enough Miles Davis went on to appropriate the intro for Flamenco Sketches on the Kind of Blue album… And lastly, a truly beautiful arrangement of Peace Piece for vibes by Evan Chapman: