WEEK 9 – Forum: Reverberating Teapots and Brain Beats

Tristan Louth-Robins – Alvin Lucier and Masters Concepts

Great to get an insight into a senior student's investigations, and thoroughly fascinating. That it brought up the point Sanad raised was almost as fascinating. If we did all coach ourselves to be focused listeners, would we then be locked in a world of sound? This hypothesis disregards the fact that one can stop listening (hopefully). In some cases maybe not! Noticing the hot rhythm section on an innocuous Britney Spears ditty is focused listening. To hear past Britney, the effects, the washes of keys, drums and bass and percussion, sequences etc. Phenomenal really.

An early 70's vocoder.

Enjoyed this session and would love to try Alvin's sensors used in 'Music for Solo Performer'. It's odd to think of a head making noise in any other way than vocally.

The removal of the human element with 'I am Sitting in a Room' was … confronting. You are faced with the fact there is a universe beyond our capabilities of sight and hearing and sensory perception. Things would be reverberating maybe forever, we just can't hear them. A dizzying thought. And if we had a wire a kilometre long, would we be able to hear it or would it be too low? It becomes colour, then a radio wave, of course!

Perhaps because past and present pop artists use some of the best players and production talent, arrangers and contemporary composers, both live and in the studio (Madonna has had some sizzling rhythm sections), you can't help but get interested. I guess the art in what we do is in being able to hear through the unrealistic EQing and production to notice sounds beyond those produced by a studio. A good understanding of a piece of string, no matter how long, is desirable before you go post producing the crap out of one. Just switch on the radio!

References:

Louth-Robins, Tristan – 'Music Technology Forum, Week 9: Alvin Lucier and Masters Concepts - Still and Moving Lines.' EMU Space,University of Adelaide, South Australia. 10 May, 2007

Whittington, Stephen. 'Music Technology Forum, Week 9.' EMU Space,University of Adelaide, South Australia. 10 May, 2007

Sanadzadeh, Khaled. 'Music Technology Forum, Week 9.' EMU Space,University of Adelaide, South Australia. 10 May, 2007

"What WaveLength Goes With What Colour?" Atmospheric Science Data Center. http://eosweb.larc.nasa.gov/EDDOCS/Wavelengths_for_Colors.html (accessed May 15, 2007).

"image: monochordon.jpg." wikipedia. This item and 'Early 70's vocoder' in public domain. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Monochord.jpg (accessed May 15, 2007).