71063A_33681483_1 Live Performance This project was perfect for forcing me to think outside my normal practice. As Christian Marclay said when discussing improvisation: “/ had to throw myself into the moment, try and forget everything and try and discover the sound at the same time as the audience”. In a similar philosophical vein, my performance was to be an improvisation, incorporating ‘elements that | have been thinking about and developing over the years, as well implementing ideas and techniques discovered through the course. Inspired by the turntablists Maria Chavez’, Graham Dunning? and Christian Marclay* | wanted to use my Technic 1200s and DVS Ready Pioneer DJM-250 mixer (timecode viny!*) to play analog samples and experiment with vinyl, utilising analog and digital signals. My idea was first to create analog samples using a DSi Prophet 08 and then via the DJM-250 play them through vinyl like a physical instrument; using the pitch bend and other slowing and speeding up techniques to alter the sound. This was proving to be an interesting study into microtonal pitch shifting and the resulting dissonance/ consonance but wasn't aesthetically engaging, so after more experimentation I composed an Impressionist inspired ‘composition (see attached), recorded it on piano, processed the sounds through various Sound Particle sessions, and then used these samples as my palette to be performed via the timecode vinyl. At its maximum adjustment the pitch slider could change the pitch approximately a tone up or down based on the pitch of the sample used at any one time. Iwas also experimenting with doctoring vinyl to produce different sounds, very much in keeping with the work of Chavez and Marclay. I created many loops by putting stickers over particular points in the grooves to two contrasting vinyl: Ravi Shankar's ‘Inside The Kremlin’, ‘and Gong's ‘Gazeuse!”, which are both heard towards the end of the performance. lam interested in gesture control and live performance and have been developing a workflow using motion control sensors and machine learning. Inspired by the work of Marco Donnarumma’, for this project | wanted effects parameters to be controlled by moving a body part, in this case my hand, via a leap motion sensor. I assigned multiple parameters to effects within Ableton (including gain delay, echo, auto filter, distortion and Output's ‘Portal’) * Everything has is firsl lime, “CHRISTIAN MARCLAY performing RECORD PLAYER’, YouTube Video, 1:42, December 15, 2017, htins:limmw.youtuhe.camiwatch?v=a7FMlaCtKXk, (Accessed 21 January, 2021). 2 Vpro vrij geluiden, “Maria Chavez - The Language of Chance #1(live @LGW2018)", Youtube Video, 1:3, November 25, 2018, hitos:/imww. youtube, com/watch?v=cFkKNbbfRzs, (Accessed 29 October, 2021) ® Graham Dunning, “MECHANICAL TECHNO DEMONSTRATION’, YouTube Video, 1:6, November 17, 2015, nttpsi/iwww youtube, com/watch?v=wl1ZrEza7uY feature=emb Jogo, (Accessed 29 October, 2021), “Chris Cutler, Plunderphonia - Audio Culture, Revised Edition: Readings in Modern Music (London: Bloomsbury Publishing, 2017). ® Christian Yates, "A Beginners Guide To Digital Vinyl Systems", diglaldtips.com, lass (Accessed § February, 2021). * Ravi Shankar, “Inside the Kremlin’, BMG, 1988, viny) 7 Gong, ‘Gazeuse!”, Virgin Records, 1976, vinyl ® Marco Donnarumma, "XTH Sense - Marco Donnarumma | Ominous | Biophysical Music, YouTube Video, 1:5, August 23, 2014, https:/iwww.youtube.com/watch?v=v4jz_7PDVIo, (Accessed 29 October, 2021),to several axis within Leap Motion and GECO MIDI, meaning, for example, that if my left hand went up and down, the dry wet signal within Portal would increase/ decrease etc. | also wanted to incorporate my voice into the performance so inspired by the live looping of Georgina Brett and the artificial harmonies of Imogen Heap”, | set up two microphones to use during the performance. Both were assigned contrasting effects and had unique parameters accessed via the gestural controller. The idea was to first supplement the overall performance, and second to have a separate duet going on with just one voice. The last sound source was the acoustic piano which was set up with stereo mics and drenched in reverb and delay. All these elements combined are what constituted my live set up which is partially analog. I wanted the performance to have an expressive quality and not be atonal or noise based and | feel it achieved this aim. Cut & Splice This project was impacted by the pandemic somewhat. My family's semi-shielding status made accessing exciting locations outside the house difficult, and the house being full of 4 people at all times made finding quiet moments to record almost impossible. All recordings were made at night when the children were sleeping, My initial idea was to create a nightmarish piece around the sounds that are heard in my childrens bedroom as they sleep. | recorded my eldest asleep all night and found interesting patterns that were all separated by 15 minute intervals. The stammering heard at the start and towards the end of the piece are portions of his breathing that ocourred within this pattern of 15 minutes throughout the night, There was a fantastically creepy bit of sleep talking that | was tempted to include but left out to save my son any embarrassment. There simply wasn't enough material in their bedroom so | had to change tack. | also made recordings of my car hom in different environments, akin to Tidoni's ‘A Balloon For Linz", but that was logistically too difficult to develop in depth. | decided to settle on the not so original concept of recording everything in my house that either made a sound naturally or mechanically, concluding that considering the health and covid limitations mentioned above, | was going to be able to find an array of sounds that would fill much of the sonic spectrum. I used a pair of Shure KSM 141's and a Zoom HA6 for every recording and did nearly all of the recordings close mic’d. There are some extra recordings that take place in different locations, for example, you'll hear the car wash from inside the car, some of SE London’s parakeets, and the sound of stomps recorded in 2020 from beneath my parents’ stairs that | remember hearing as a child. Considering the Schaeferrian ‘Typo-morphology’ theory | grouped my recordings (identification) initially into ‘sub groups - Early recordings, Ambience, Sentience and Artificial Intelligence (classification), ° "Hear the Gorgeous, Ethereal Vocal Music of Georgina Brett, and More Live Looping ", CDM ingl, (Accessed 21 January, 2021). Ethan Hein, “Imogen Heap and arificial harmony”, The Ethan Hein Blog, ‘htip-www.ethanhein,comwn/201 O/imogen-heapl, (Accessed 21 January, 2021). David Tidoni - A BALLOON FOR LINZ - 2011", vimeo, accessed 26 November, 2020, hitps:livimeo.com/28686368and then analysed each sound in detail, and rather than describing each characteristic, | exported the most characterful sections of each recording and used these as my working palette (description). Close mic’d recordings of water running and draining, gas hobs igniting and ovens roasting all presented health and safety issues, mainly for my equipment, but every recording was done properly. Once | had created a palette of 43 recordings, | then began arranging the work in the DAW. Using the aforementioned timecode vinyl enabled mixer | was able to load the sounds into the DVS software and then expand and contract time, and play samples in reverse, akin to the tape techniques used by Musique Concrete composers. | created 17 variations of the initial palette using this technique that are heard throughout. I deliberately tried to make every sound as unidentifiable as possible, in keeping with the Larousse dictionary's definition of what can be considered ‘acousmatic"®. | hope that this can be listened to as a piece accessed entirely by reduced listening."* There are some ‘examples which are obviously birds or clearly a toilet flushing but most of what is heard should manage to steer a listener away from utilising causal and semantic listening." Each of the techniques, procedures and methods detailed in the assessment brief are utilised - superimposition, cloche coupee, juxtaposition, reversing, sillon ferme and pitch/ speed ‘changes multiple times per method, | had hoped to use the stereo field of the KSM 141's to give the feel of panning but that didn’t work quite as planned. It's more of a cloche coupe panning effect. Interdisciplinary This project | found to be the most difficult of the three. | work in theatre composition so have ‘experience in collaborative work of this nature, but never done exclusively over VoiceoverlP. We lost two group members straight away so we were immediately down to five, three of which were musicians, meaning our roles were going to have to be varied whether we liked it ‘or nol, After watching all three of the reference films we shared our thoughts on them, Areas I mentioned exploring were the camera angles and use of looping in Meshes of the Afternoon, the implementation of montage and disorientating camera angles in Battleship Potemkin, and the realism employed within certain scenes in Daughters of the Dust. The others had other very interesting points so we brainstormed some concepts - first separately, then as a group. It was arranged for us to meet in person but | wasn't able to attend for shielding purposes. Those that did get together explored several areas including improvisation. Inspired by this improvisation, and the stained hands featured in both Daughters and Meshes, | devised a ichel Chion, 1983, Guide to Sound Objects, trans. John Dack! Christine North, Paris: 1995. * Pierre Schaeffer, Acousmatics - Audio Culture, Revised Edition: Readings in Modern Music (London: Bloomsbury Publishing, 2017) ¥ Michel Chion, 1947, Audio-Vision : Sound on Screen, trans. Claudia Gorbman, New York :Columbia University Press, 1994. 8 Michel Chion, 1947, Audio-Vision : Sound on Screen, trans. Claudia Gorman, New York :Columbia University Press, 1994.serialist-esque system which would give potential rules to what would otherwise be a chaotic online improvisational performance, please see the attached image. It's a movement style ‘chinese whispers-esque’ game where person A follows B but inverts, C follows D but inverts etc, The stained hands | suggested could be represented by paint being randomly smeared ‘across our faces. The group went for this idea but when we tested it the improvisational element was impossible to follow, which the tutor Graham Miller agreed with. We then decided that our performance needed more narrative. We arrived at a more sensical concept of a gathering, exactly as you'd expect to witness on Voiceover'P in times like these. One of our group members pointed out, Daughters is told from the perspective of a ‘Griot’, a West African diarist figure that documents what they witness within a community situation. She then told a tragic anecdote she'd been told about someone dying during a Zoom pilates class and not being noticed, which served as the main ‘concept to our film. The concept was to be seen and heard from the perspective of an outsider, not partial to the group discourse, and all alone but seemingly involved. We all performed in the recording. Regarding the sound we decided to not use a soundtrack and instead reinforce the isolation felt by the ‘griot/ outsider’ character by granulating all other voices except his. We recorded all of our spoken audio on separate devices to the Zoom recording, giving us more control in post production. | did all of the post production, which involved syncing all the individual vocal tracks to the film, realising and adding more or less granulation over the voices as per the groups instruction, and exporting all the footage. | found this task to be at first gruelling but by the end one of the more pleasant experiences of this terrible year. Watching everyone's performances on December 10th was my highlight of this MMus so far. What an amazing array of talent was on display that day. Group work in ‘educational settings tends to lead to an imbalance of duties, as in the professional world, but my group alll wanted to be involved and contribute in whichever way they could, which when. you're relying on things like unreliable internet connection presents a new set of problems. | think having less musicians and more performance makers would have been helpful but things seemed to go well regardless. Bibliography CDM, “Hear the Gorgeous, Ethereal Vocal Music of Georgina Brett, and More Live Looping Accessed 21 January, 2021, Chion, Michel, 1947, “The Three Listening Modes” - Audio-Vision : Sound on Screen, trans. Claudia Gorbman, 1994, New York :Columbia University Press, 2019. Chion, Michel, “Guide to Sound Objects’, trans. John Dack/ Christine North, 2009, Paris: Buchet/ Chastel, 1983 Cutler, Chris, “Plunderphonia” - Audio Culture, Revised Edition: Readings in Modern Music, edited by Christoph Cox and Daniel Wamer, London: Bloomsbury Publishing, 2017Digitaldjtips, Yates, Christian, "A Beginner's Guide To Digital Vinyl Systems", Accessed 5 February, 2021, httos://www. digitalditips.com/2017/06/a-beginners-quide-to-digital-vinyl-systems/, Gong, “Gazeuse!”, Virgin Records, OVED 18, 1976, Vinyl. Schaeffer, Pierre, “Acousmatics” - Audio Culture, Revised Edition: Readings in Modern Music, edited by Christoph Cox and Daniel Warmer, London: Bloomsbury Publishing, 2017. Shankar, Ravi, “Inside the Kremlin’, BMG, LC 7309, 1988, Vinyl The Ethan Hein Blog, Hein, Ethan “Imogen Heap and artificial harmony”, Accessed 21 January, 2021, http://www.ethanhein.com/wp/2010/imogen-heap/, Vimeo, "David Tidoni - A BALLOON FOR LINZ - 2011", Accessed 26 November, 2020, https://vimeo,com/28686368 YouTube. “CHRISTIAN MARCLAY performing RECORD PLAYER’, Accessed 21 January, 2021. httos:/iwww. m/watch?v=a7FMleCtkXk, ‘YouTube. “Maria Chavez - The Language of Chance #1 (live @LGW2018)", Accessed 29 October, 2021, htips://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cFkKNbbiRzs YouTube, “MECHANICAL TECHNO DEMONSTRATION’, Accessed 29 October, 2021, https:/www youtube com/watch?v=wliZrEza7uY &feature=emb_logo YouTube, “XTH Sense - Marco Donnarumma | Ominous | Biophysical Music’, Accessed 29 October, 2021, https://www. youtube.com/watch?v=v4jz_7PDVfo Appendix Live Performance’ Film - 71063A_33681483_1_LivePerformance_Video.mp4 Live Performance - Notation.pdf Live Performance - Signal Chart png Interdisciplinary: Film - 71063A_33681483_1_InterdisciplinaryCollaboration.mp4 Interdisciplinary_Collaboration_Audio.wav Interdisciplinary_Collaboration_brainstorm.jpg Cut & Splice: Track - 71063A_33681483_1_Cut&Splice. wav Source materials.zip