Do you do live sampling in your improvisations? Join us in the Live Sampling mix on Weblogmusic! Just video yourself playing along with the first track (below), using it as your ONLY SOUND SOURCE, post it on YouTube, and send it to us. Details are at http://weblogmusic.org . To keep the mix pure, even the first track is built by using itself as a sound source: simple acoustic feedback.
Category Archives: By Me
Sonic Glimpses Art Installation
Created for the grand opening of our new building at TAMU, built by students, and covered in World Architecture magazine.
Sonic Glimpses is a site specific interactive art installation to celebrate the grand opening of the five-story Liberal Arts: Arts and Humanities building on the prestigious East Quad on the main campus of Texas A&M University in College Station, The building was designed by Brown Reynolds Watford Architects to meet the criteria of the Leadership in Engineering and Environmental Design (LEED) silver rating. The opening gala was held April 19, 2013, and the installation remained on display through July 15, 2013.
The art installation was designed to turn a trip up the grand staircase into an audio tour of the research and creative work being done in the building. Sound clips are triggered by traffic on the staircase, sounding near the location of each passerby. Faculty and students in the building contributed clips of their own creative work or the literature they study. Students in the Department of Performance Studies recorded the sound clips, performed some of the voice-acting work, installed the hardware, assisted in calibrating the software settings, and created the video documentation of the project. Creators Jeff Morris and Autum Casey worked with the building proctor, Environmental Health and Safety department, and the Audiovisual Surveillance Technology committee to ensure the installation satisfied concerns of all stakeholders.
The heart of the installation is a secure rack with Apple Mac Mini computer inside, along with multichannel audio interface, amplifier, and rack-mounted keyboard, trackpad, and video display. The computer runs a custom software program created by Jeff Morris in the Max graphic programming environment (by Cycling74). The rack is connected to two analog video cameras for control input (connected to digitizers inside the rack) and six bare speaker cones for audio output.
For aesthetic reasons and also to satisfy Environmental Health and Safety officials, especially since the grand staircase is the primary emergency exit route for most building occupants, we took efforts to keep the hardware minimally invasive. Most notably, we used only two video cameras for motion detection, mounted overhead, instead of sensors mounted on the stairs, such as pressure sensors, infrared tripwires, or infrared or ultrasonic proximity sensors.
The cameras provide vastly more data than such local sensors. This allowed for complex variations in the control data, resulting in the appearance that the artwork responds with a human-like whimsical character, with varying moods. The software turns cameras into motion detectors through frame differencing: calculating the absolute difference between each frame and the next, pixel by pixel, and summing the absolute difference of each pixel to yield a single number corresponding to motion. Since the staircase runs along a large windowed wall, natural light, changing throughout the day and affected by weather, influenced the artwork’s responsiveness over time, and differently so for each color. Further, the color contrasts and patterns of visitors’ clothing, skin, and hair and the ways in which they move each trigger the sounds in unique ways.
Designed by: Jeff Morris and Autum Casey
On the occasion of the Liberal Arts: Arts and Humanities building grand opening April 19, 2013 through July 15, 2013
Content contributors: Jayson Beaster-Jones, Michael Collins, Jeffrey Davis, Rayna Dexter, Mariana Gariazzo, Amy Guerin, Emily McManus’s Music in World Cultures class, Britt Mize, Rohan Sinha, Nancy Warren, Jennifer Wollock, Jaeeun Yi, Costume shop student workers
Content recorded by: Marco Pisterzi, Trent Tate, Casey Gilbert, Priscilla Lopez, Katharine Hinson Installed by Jeff Morris’s Intermedia Performance class and Autum Casey’s New Technology for Designers
Live Sampling with Jazz Saxophone
At this year’s TAMU Music Faculty Recital, I performed a live sampling improvisation with tenor saxophonist Jayson Beaster-Jones using the Motet and Elektrodynamik environments.
PerfTech Presents: The TAMU Laptet and Friends with Guest Artist Ivica Ico Bukvic
PerfTech students presented new compositions for live electronics with a 3D surround sound system in TAMU’s Fallout Theatre. The concert featured a performance by the TAMU Laptet, TAMU’s freshman laptop ensemble, one by guest artist Ivica Ico Bukvic (Virginia Tech). Continue reading
Third Prize in Music/Architecture Competition
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Research Embodied, a site-specific intermedia performance created for the Lyndon B. Johnson Presidential Library with designer Autum Casey was selected as a finalist from 70 international submissions, performed on October 19, 2011, and awarded third prize in the Music in Architecture—Architecture in Music symposium in Austin, Texas.
Third Prize in the Music in Architecture International Symposium
Research Embodied, a site-specific intermedia performance and installation created for the Great Hall of the Lyndon B. Johnson Presidential Library and Museum (Austin, Texas) was awarded Third Prize in the Music in Architecture—Architecture in Music International Symposium It was one of five finalists chosen from 74 entries (6.8% acceptance rate), from among international and Ivy League competitors. And it was performed by our students!
TAMU Faculty Recital with Mariana Gariazzo: Afterimages Premiere
Flutist Mariana Gariazzo premiered Afterimages for bass flute and live electronics.
Folding: Imitative Counterpoint in Improvisation through Live Sampling
Folding is a study in using live sampling as an extension of the classic technique of imitative counterpoint. The title refers to the molecular folding of proteins and other molecules: atoms link together at angles and fold over themselves as they form the molecule, and the resulting shape affects the function of the chemical. Similarly, the voice of an improvising soloist is folded onto itself live to build a musical form.
The work is a hybrid between composition and instrument. The software is equipped to make decisions at a small level on its own, in order to maintain interest without requiring constant intervention by the performer, but it relies on the performer to initiate changes from one state to another. The software uses delay lines and pitch shifters to turn the soloist into a quintet.
The six states of the software’s behavior dictate the approximate delay settings for each voice:
- Now (acting as a harmonizer, or in homophony),
- Near (within the last few seconds, an echo or stretto ),
- Then (recalling a previous timepoint specified during the performance),
- Same (recalling a randomly-chosen timepoint from earlier in the performance),
- Different (each of the four delay lines go to different points in the delay line, exploring and recombining moments from the past, which may be used as a developmental or transitional section), and
- Early (recalling the first material played in the performance, or a recapitulation).
The solo instrumental performer is able to choose the behavior of the software (as one of these states) and how to play in relation to them, for example he or she may play the same material, so all recapitulate the opening material or may play a new countermelody to it. In some performances, performers have enjoyed having me or another computer attendant direct the software as they respond to their past selves, recontextualized in performance through the software.
Performance with Jayson Beaster-Jones, tenor saxophone (MP3)
Performance with Eric km Clark, violin
This work also has a distinct voice when used in a feedback system, when it hears only its own output. Compare this with “Tappatappatappa.” “Folding” with feedback:
To run the software:
- Download and install the free Max runtime for your operating system (Mac OS or Windows): click here
- Download the performance software (ZIP), unzip it, and open it with the Max runtime.
For solo performance, I can adapt the controls to your MIDI or USB controller. Contact me to let me know what device you’d like to use in performance!
Bellingham Electronic Arts Festival
Tappatappatappa is an improvised performance using custom software created by the artist and a cone microphone to amplify small sounds and room resonances. This performance was on the opening gala concert of the Bellingham Electronic Arts Festival at the American Museum of Radio and Electricity, November 2006.