Luc Ferrari – Petite symphonie intuitive pour une paysage de printemps (1973-74)
A review by Blue Gene Tyranny
A lovely work of electro-acoustic music by one of the French pioneers of musique concrète, “Petite Symphonie Intuitive Pour un Paysage de Printemps” (“Little Intuitive Symphony for a Spring Landscape”) recreates the composer’s experiences during a climb toward sunset on the Causse Méjean, a high plateau in the Massif Central, including his recollection of a shepherd’s flute and its reverberations across the landscape. The flute sounds and multiple echoes continue in changing musical modes throughout the piece (the tonic redefined by electronic drones), blending together with sounds of the countryside and conversational fragments from the human presence to create a beautiful sonic landscape of 25 minutes duration.
In this post, the story of Nabaztag is taken from Wikipedia, with some notes by myself.
The word Nabaztag (“նապաստակ” which in Armenian language means rabbit) indicates the wifi rabbit conceived by Rafi Haladjian and Olivier Mével and produced in 2005 by the French company Violet.
The object, sold from June 2005, by the end of October 2006 had reached 35,000 copies in France alone. At the end of 2006 a more advanced model was introduced, the Nabaztag: tag that supports mp3 streaming via the internet, has a microphone to receive voice commands and an RFID reader with personalized tags to receive commands. This model also has PULL technology, which means it can query the server on its own initiative. As of September 2007, there are more than 180,000 Nabaztags around the world.
On October 20, 2009, Violet, struggling for insane management, is bought by the well-known software publisher Mindscape which puts on the market an even more advanced model called Karotz with webcam and greater memory capacity. Soon, however, even the latter entered into crisis. On July 29, 2011 Mindscape announced the shutdown of Nabaztag’s management servers, creating 180,000 orphans in one go, but made public the code for managing multimedia “bunnies”, making it possible for different user communities to create new servers. However, the various user communities have favored alternative solutions, based on the Opensource OpenJabNab, Nabizdead and OpenNag projects, simpler to implement than the original server (called “burrow”, referring to wild rabbit burrows) Violet / Mindscape but without support for older first generation Nabaztag units. The user communities born in the immediate closure of the “official” server support only Nabaztag: tags.
Later Mindscape is acquired by Aldebaran Robotics, a company specializing in toy and amateur robots, which sells Karotz’s stocks without developing the product, despite the fact that it had incorporated and clearly visible hooks for accessories and extensions. Finally, with a shocking announcement from its CEO, it communicates the shutdown of the Karotz servers for February 18, 2015, thus marking the end of the project whose existence remains entrusted to amateur servers.
Since the creation of Nabaztag, Antoine Schmitt is its behavioral designer and Jean-Jacques Birgé its sound designer. Together, they also composed the Opera Nabaz’mob for 100 communicating rabbits, which won the Prix Ars Electronica Award of Distinction Digital Musics 2009 and an excerpt of which can be seen in this video.
The video on this page is a shorter excerpt, but the audio is better.
The orchestra consists of 12 robotic manipulators of various designs, each of which is equipped with a sound-transmitting speaker. The manipulators, combined together, form a single multi-channel electronic sound orchestra. Due to constant displacement speakers in space, changing direction of the sound and the algorithms for generating compositions, the orchestra creates a dynamic soundscape. In order to interact with the orchestra, controller Leap Motion is used, that allows to control robots and sound by simple hands gestures in the air – similarly to conducting an orchestra.
The project is based on the idea of a combination of modern music, computer, interactive and robotic concepts and approaches for the creation of works of art. In many ways, it is inspired by well-known works that were presented in the recent past, such as Pendulum Choir (2011) and Mendelssohn Effektorium (2013). However, Nayral Ro is different from these projects in many ways. Its algorithmic system, in which sound and musical composition are being produced, is real time, and the acoustic environment also changes simultaneously with the process of creating the musical piece. Also, the whole process is completely subordinated by the “conductor”, so this a role is similar to such of a composer, performer and operator at the same time.
Creation of more sophisticated versions, more subtly revealing the potential of Leap Motion for tuning to the movement and changes in sound, is being planned for the future development.
Questa splendida e inusuale macchina sonora è stata progettata e costruita dal media-artist russo Dmitry Morozov (aka ::vtol::).
The Metaphase Sound Machine is a kind of homage to the ideas of the American physicist Nick Herbert who in the 1970s has created both Metaphase Typewriter and Quantum Metaphone (a speech synthesizer). These were some of the first attempts to put the phenomenon of quantum entanglement in practice and one of the first steps towards the creation of a quantum computer. The experimental devices, however, had not confirmed theoretical research, and Herbert’s obsession with metaphysics resulted in the publication of several of his works on the metaphysical in quantum physics, that have led to a serious loss of interest to the ideas of quantum communication. One day, in a course of his experiments, Herbert has hacked into an university computer trying to establish a contact with the spirit of illusionist Harry Houdini at the day of the centenary of his birth.
In his device Herbert in order to achieve a quantum entangled state used as a source radioactive thallium, which was controlled by the Geiger radiation counter. The time interval between pulses was chosen as conversion code. Several psychics had participated in the experiments. They tried to influence the endless stream of random anagrams arising from a typewriter or cause “the ghost voice” to be heard out of metaphone. Scientists also have conducted sessions to bring about the “spirit” of a colleague who had recently died, and who knew about this typewriter. In 1985 Herbert wrote a book about metaphysical in physics. In general, his invention and articles quite severely compromised the ideas of quantum communication in the eyes of potential researchers and by the end of the XX century no any substantial progress in this direction was observed.
The Metaphase Sound Machine is an object with 6 rotating disks. Each of the discs is equipped with acoustic sound source (a speaker) and a microphone. Each of the microphones is connected via computer and the rotary axis to the speakers on the disks. Also in the center of installation a Geiger-Mueller counter is set, that detects ionizing radiation in the surrounding area. The intervals between these particles influence rotation velocity of each of the disks. Essentially the object is an audio- and kinetic installation in which a sound is synthesized based on feedbacks, produced by microphones and speakers on rotating discs. Feedback whistles are used as triggers for more complex sound synthesis. Additional harmonic signal processing, as well as the volatility of the dynamic system, lead to the endless variations of sound. The form of the object refers to the generally accepted symbolic notation of quantum entanglement as a biphoton – crossing discs of the orbits.
Tempo Reale Festival 2012
RUMORE ROSA Il paesaggio delle voci
MUSICA COMUNISTA
Salvatore Miele, coordinamento e live electronics
Francesco Casciaro, oggetti sensibili e live electronics
Daniela Cattivelli, campionatore e live electronics
Andrea Gozzi, chitarra elettrica e live electronics
Damiano Meaccii, regia del suono
Cornelius Cardew
Treatise, per ensemble elettroacustico
(prima esecuzione a Firenze)
Un altro brano corale di Murray Schafer con una bella partitura grafica.
Epitaph for Moonlight (1968), for youth choir with optional bells.
Roanoke College Choir, Jeffrey Sandborg director.
It is a free composition in which the singers must improvise from given indications of pitch, intensity and duration. To accompany the voices there is a selection of instruments as desired: glockenspiels, metallophones, vibraphones, triangles, bells, cymbals. The vibrations from these instruments, when used carefully, produced luminous effects that are evocative of moonlight reflecting on water. The score is written graphically and so does not require a knowledge of conventional musical notation.
R. Murray Schafer – Snowforms (1982) – for treble choir
The text consists of inuit words for various kinds of snow : apingaut , first snowfall; mauyk, soft snow; akelrorak , drifting snow ; pokaktok , snow like salt.
Notes from the composer:
In 1971 I flew the polar route from Europe to Vancouver over Greenland. Clear weather provided an excellent opportunity to study the forms of that spectacular and terrifying geography. Immediately, I had an idea for a symphonic work in which sustained bulks of sound would be fractured by occasional splinters of colour. That experience remains clear in memory. It suggested the orchestral textures of “North/White” and it returns now to shape “Snowforms”, yet very differently, for my memory of the vast foldings of Arctic snow has been modified by the experience of passing winters in Ontario. Often on a winter day I have broken off from other work to study the snow from my farmhouse window, and it is the memory of these forms which has suggested most of the continuous horizon of “Snowforms “.
Sometimes I have given children ‘sight-singing’ exercises in which they are asked to ‘sing’ drawings or the shapes of the distant horizon. Snowforms began as a series of sketches of snowdrifts, seen out the window of my Monteagle Valley farmhouse. I took these sketches and traced a pentagram over them. The notes of the pieced emerged wherever the lines of the sketch and the stave crossed. Of course I modified the drawings as necessary since the work is primarily a piece of music and only secondarily a set of sketches. I printed the work so that the shapes of the snow were in white over a pale blue background.
The entire piece is soft, and I wanted the voices to slide from note to note just like falling or drifting snow. Snowforms is related to Epitaph for Moonlight, Miniwanka and Sun ; they are all descriptions of nature. Later I was to add Fire, A Garden of Bells and Once on a Windy Night as further celebrations of natural phenomena. As the urban populations of the world grow, the forces and charms of nature are more distanced from increasing numbers of people. But I do not write such works out of nostalgia; they are a very real part of my life. Snowforms was actually preceded by a much more complex work of the same name which was performed once by the Vancouver Chamber Choir, but I am glad I withdrew it, substituting this simpler and purer expression of one of nature’s most beautiful elements.
Notes from co-conductors :
This 20 th century monument of treble choral literature was written in 1982 by the imaginative, highly respected, internationally praised composer, R. Murray Schafer. Watching from his farmhouse window in Ontario , Schafer was intrigued by the various shapes, forms, and ever-changing, soft foldings of snow. From these observations came the inspiration to write Snowforms. Using graphic notation, he asks singers to sing ‘shapes’ or ‘drawings’ which are representations of snow forms on the distant horizon. Schafer’s graphic notation is augmented by suggested pitches and the voices are asked to ‘glide’ from one pitch to another in a continuous portamento. A time log is written in the score to suggest durations but Schafer is quite specific that conductors should not feel ‘enslaved’ by the timed suggestions. Although it was written for two part treble chorus, there are a few times within the score when each of the two parts split into four independent lines. Except for the occasional interjection of words which mean various types of ‘snow’ in the Inuit language the entire piece is hummed thereby giving a sense of smoothness and peaceful quietness or hush. Challenges for the conductor are to find gestures that suggest and mirror the contours that are found within the score. Challenges for the singers are to believe the piece will ‘work’ and to trust the instincts and imagination of not only the composer and conductor but also of themselves. Snowforms is a remarkable work that fascinates listeners but more importantly encourages collaboration and exchange of ideas between conductors and singers. It encourages performers to create music beyond the bounds of a traditional score with very satisfying results. – DL
Barry Truax – Arras (1980) – for four computer-synthesized soundtracks
Author’s notes:
Arras refers metaphorically to the heavy wall hanging or tapestry originally produced in the French town of the same name. The threads running through the material form both a background and, when coloured, a foreground pattern as well, even when they are the same thread. In the piece there is a constant ambiguity between whether a component sound is heard as part of the background texture, or whether it is heard as a foreground event because, in fact, the frequencies are the same. The listener can easily be drawn into the internal complexity of the constantly shifting pattern, but at the same time can sense the overall flow of the entire structure.
Arras is a continuously evolving texture based on a fusion of harmonic and inharmonic spectra. The large-scale structure of the piece follows a pattern of harmonic change going from closely spaced odd harmonics through to widely spaced harmonics towards the end. Each harmonic timbre is paired with an inharmonic one with which it shares specific harmonics, and with which it overlaps after each twenty-five second interval. This harmonic/inharmonic structure forms a background against which specific events are poised: shorter events, specific high pitches which otherwise would be imbedded in the overall timbre, and some percussive events. However, all frequencies found in the foreground events are the same as those in the background texture; hence the constant ambiguity between them.
Arras received an honourable mention in the computer music category of the 1980 International Competition of Electroacoustic Music sponsored by the G.M.E.B. in Bourges, France.
Arras is available on the Cambridge Street Records CD Pacific Rim, and the RCI Anthology of Canadian Electroacoustic Music.
Barry Truax – Androgyny (1978) – a spatial environment with four computer-synthesized soundtracks
Author’s notes:
Androgyny explores the theme of its title in the abstract world of pure sound. The piece, however, is not programmatic; instead, the dramatic form of the piece has been derived from the nature of the sound material itself. In this case, the sound construction is based on ideas about an acoustic polarity, namely “harmonic” and “inharmonic,” or alternatively, “consonance” and “dissonance.” These concepts are not opposed, but instead, are related in ways that show that a continuum exists between them, such as in the middle of the piece when harmonic timbres slowly “pull apart” and become increasingly dissonant at the peak intensity of the work. At that point a deep harmonic 60 Hz drone enters, similar to the opening section, but now reinforced an octave lower, and leads the piece through to a peaceful conclusion. High above the drone are heard inharmonic bell-like timbres which are tuned to the same fundamental pitch as the harmonic drone, a technique used throughout the work with deeper bells.
The work is designed to sound different spatially when heard on headphones. Through the use of small binaural time delays, instead of intensity differences, the sounds are localized outside the head when heard through headphones. Various spatial movements can also be detected, such as the circular movement of the drones in the last section of the piece.
Although not intended to be programmatic, the work still has environmental images associated with it, namely those suggested by the I Ching hexagram number 62, Preponderance of the Small, with a changing line to number 31, Wooing. The reading describes a mountain, a masculine image, hollowed out at the top to enclose a lake, a feminine image. The two exist as a unity. Thunder is heard close by, clouds race past without giving rain, and a bird soars high but returns to earth.
Androgyny is available on the Melbourne album Androgyne and the Cambridge Street Records CD, SFU 40.
Production Note:
The work was realized with the composer’s POD6 and POD7 programs for computer sound synthesis and composition at Simon Fraser University. All the component sounds are examples of frequency modulation (FM) synthesis, generated in binaural stereo, with time differences between channels. However, considerable analog mixing in the Sonic Research Studio at Simon Fraser University produced the resulting complex work.
R. Murray Schafer – Snowforms (1982) – for treble choir