Archivi categoria: Musica

Umbrellas in the Rain

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Umbrellas in the RainUmbrellas in the Rain is the alias of an austrian musician from Vienna, and ‘Wieder Daheim’ – german for ‘Home Again’ – his first effort at creating something mature enough worth listening to (and worth releasing, for that matter…). Well, he did it, and with flying colours. ‘Wieder Daheim’ is a delicate collection of abstract songs that really grab one’s heart. They are experimental enough to wander in, but also emotional enough – to the point of being nostalgic – to keep us down to earth.

We can also find enough drones to keep us occupied and plenty of found sounds of everyday objects to let us dream away. The songs are filled with a lot of different instruments too, among guitars, keyboards and xylophones.

Download from Test Tube.

Excerpt:

4 notes

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Tom Johnson is really a minimalist composer; in fact, he coined the term while serving as the new music critic for the Village Voice.

He works with simple forms, limited scales, and generally reduced materials, but he proceeds in a more logical way than most minimalists, often using formulas, permutations, predictable sequences and various mathematical models.

The Four Note Opera (1972) is a work written using four notes only (D, E, A, B). It is scored for 5 singers and a piano (no orchestra) and the singers play the role of singers in a way similar to Pirandello’s Six Characters In Search of an Author:

The only sure thing is that the crucial moment in the evolution of the piece was that evening very long ago when I read, with great excitement, Luigi Pirandello’s Six Characters In Search of an Author. Normally characters are not even conscious of their existence on a stage. They are completely obedient to the author, they conform totally to the world the author creates, and they have no thoughts of their own. But Pirandello’s masterpiece was different. His characters knew they existed in a theatrical space, and only for a couple of hours. They were aware of the audience, and of the author as well. It was not the kind of theatre that asks you to believe something that is not true. It was the kind of theatre that you have to believe, because everything is true.

Pirandello’s vision had a strong impact on me, and for years one question lingered in the back of my mind: what would happen if, instead of Six Characters in Search of an Author, there happened to be some opera characters looking for a composer? It happened that some opera characters were looking for a composer, and about 10 years after reading Pirandello they found me and came to life in The Four Note Opera.
[Tom Johnson]

Here are some excerpts in french and italian:

and the whole

Freeman Études

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John Cage, Freeman Études for solo violin (1977). A piece whose form is due to a set of misunderstanding.

In 1977 Cage was approached by Betty Freeman, who asked him to compose a set of etudes for violinist Paul Zukofsky (who would, at around the same time, also help Cage with work on the violin transcription of Cheap Imitation). Cage decided to model the work on his earlier set of etudes for piano, Études Australes. That work was a set of 32 etudes, 4 books of 8 études each, and composed using controlled chance by means of star charts and, as was usual for Cage, the I Ching. Zukofsky asked Cage for music that would be notated in a conventional manner, which he assumed Cage was returning to in Études Australes, and as precise as possible. Cage understood the request literally and proceeded to create compositions which would have so many details that it would be almost impossible to perform them.

In 1980 Cage abandoned the cycle, partly because Zukofsky attested that the pieces were unplayable. The first seventeen études were completed, though, and Books I and II (Études 1-16) were published and performed (the first performance of Books I and II was done by János Négyesy in 1984 in Turin, Italy). Violinist Irvine Arditti expressed an interest in the work and, by summer 1988, was able to perform it at an even faster tempo than indicated in the score, thus proving that the music was, in fact playable. Arditti continued to practice the études, aiming at an even faster speed, apparently misreading Cage’s indication in the score to play every measure in “as short a time-length as his virtuosity permits”, in which Cage simply meant that the duration is different for each performer. Inspired by the fact that the music was playable, Cage decided to complete the cycle, which he finally did in 1990 with the help of James Pritchett, who assisted the composer in reconstructing the method used to compose the works (which was required, because Cage himself forgot the details after 10 years of not working on the piece). The first complete performance of all Études (1-32) was given by Irvine Arditti in Zurich in June 1991. Négyesy also performed the last two books of the Etudes in the same year in Ferrara, Italy. [wikipedia]

PLOrk

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Princeton Laptop Orchestra (PLOrk) is a visionary new ensemble of laptopists, the first of its size and kind.

Founded in 2005 by Dan Trueman and Perry Cook, PLOrk takes the traditional model of the orchestra and reinvents it for the 21st century; each laptopist performs with a laptop and custom designed hemispherical speaker that emulates the way traditional orchestral instruments cast their sound in space. Wireless networking and video augment the familiar role of the conductor, suggesting unprecedented ways of organizing large ensembles.

In 2008, Trueman and Cook were awarded a major grant from the MacArthur Foundation to support further PLOrk developments. Performers and composers who have worked with PLOrk include Zakir Hussain, Pauline Oliveros, Matmos, So Percussion, the American Composers Orchestra, and others. In its still short lifetime, PLOrk has performed widely (presented by Carnegie Hall, the Northwestern Spring Festival in Chicago, the American Academy of Sciences in DC, the Kitchen (NYC) and others) and has inspired the formation of laptop orchestras across the world, from Oslo to Bangkok.

“Connectome” Performed by the Princeton Laptop Orchestra (PLOrk) (Director Jeff Snyder), PLOrk[10] concert, May 3 2017 Composition: Mike Mulshine Neuron model audio synthesis: Jeff Snyder and Aatish Bhatia Projection: Drew Wallace

Excerpt: Autopoetics I by Ted Coffin: listen to or watch a video

Other multimedia materials here.

Generative Music for iPhone

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bloom, trope, airBloom, Trope and Air are three applications developed by Brian Eno and the musician / software designer Peter Chilvers that brings to the iPhone the concept of generative music popularized by Eno.

Part instrument, part composition and part artwork, Bloom’s innovative controls allow anyone to create elaborate patterns and unique melodies by simply tapping the screen. A generative music player takes over when Bloom is left idle, creating an infinite selection of compositions and their accompanying visualisations.

Darker in tone, Trope immerses users in endlessly evolving soundscapes created by tracing abstract shapes onto the screen, varying the tone with each movement.

Air is described as “An endless Music for Airports”. It assembles vocal and piano samples into a beautiful, still and ever changing composition, which is always familiar, but never the same.
Air features four ‘Conduct’ modes, which let the user control the composition by tapping different areas on the display, and three ‘Listen’ modes, which provide a choice of arrangement. For those fortunate enough to have access to multiple iPhones and speakers, an option has been provided to spread the composition over several players.

Buy here.

Francobollo Mino Reitano?

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francobollo mino reitanoNon voglio sembrare inutilmente polemico, però un francobollo dedicato a Mino Reitano nella Giornata della Musica 2009 mi sembra eccessivo.

E proprio nel 2009 ci sarà un bis per la musica leggera italiana con un francobollo che sarà dedicato a un altro brano di popolarità indiscussa: la canzone di Mina «Tintarella di luna». La Consulta ha dato l’ok a vari francobolli aggiuntivi tra i quali quelli destinati a celebrare il centenario del Corriere dei piccoli, la storica moto italiana «Ducati», il terremoto di Messina del 1908, il centenario della morte di Edmondo De Amicis. La Consulta ha pure integrato il Programma delle emissioni 2009 con francobolli dedicati a Indro Montanelli e Norberto Bobbio, nel centenario della nascita, e a padre Agostino Gemelli, nel cinquantenario della morte.

[Corriere della Sera, 3/1/2008]

Immagino che quello dedicato a Mike Bongiorno sia in preparazione…

Nello stesso giorno, ne hanno emessi atri due dedicati a Nino Rota e Pavarotti. In entrambi i casi anche la grafica fa un po’ pena.

Oltre a quello già citato, un altro francobollo legato alla musica leggera è quello che ricorda il 50mo anniversario di Volare (Nel blu dipinto di blu).

La gerontocrazia commemora sé stessa. Come tale, non è in grado di celebrare non dico il futuro, ma nemmeno la contemporaneità.

Cfr. la serie delle poste inglesi Classic Album Covers – 7 January 2010.

Ecco i dati del francobollo:

Data di emissione: 24 ottobre 2009
Valore: € 1,00
Tiratura: tre milioni di esemplari
Vignetta: il valore di € 1,00 raffigura il cantante Mino Reitano durante un’esibizione;
Su ogni francobollo è riprodotto, in basso al centro, il logo della manifestazione “ITALIA 2009”.
Completano ciascun francobollo le leggende “GIORNATA DELLA MUSICA” e “FESTIVAL INTERNAZIONALE DELLA FILATELIA”, la scritta “ITALIA”, il nome e la data “MINO REITANO 1944 – 2009”,e il valore “€ 1,00”
Bozzettista: Rita Fantini
Stampa: Officina Carte Valori dell’Istituto Poligrafico e Zecca dello Stato S.p.A., in rotocalcografia
Colori: sei
Carta: fluorescente, non filigranata
Formato carta: mm 30 x 40
Formato stampa: mm 26 x 36
Dentellatura: 13¼ x 13
Foglio: cinquanta esemplari, valore “€ 50,00”

Long Desert Cowboy

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coverWhat kind of feeling puts together the barren solitude of Sergio Leone’s western spaghetti and the ultra heavy suspense of David Lynch’s complex dramas? Living in Alentejo [a south-central region of Portugal] may have something to do with it, but Daniel Catarino’s (aka Long Desert Cowboy) own life experiences and close contact with a deserted inland are most likely the paint in the canvas, or the roll in the camera, if you wish.

Catarino’s sounds are miles away from the common western soundtracks, but his works create a mood that reminds me both the deserted plains of Ry Cooder and the suspense of Twin Peaks (are you old enough?).

Published by Test Tube netlabel. Free download here.

Excerpts:

Slept

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coverA melancholic EP inspired by this beautiful image, realized by the polish artist Slept.

‘Slept. EP’ was inspired by the cover photo – taken by a friend of the artist – and contains the first tracks made as Slept.. No samples were used. It’s all original sounds.

A little easy for me, but enjoyable.

Published by Test Tube netlabel. Free download here.

Excerpts:

140 chars of music

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A twitter. An SMS. That’s the challenge. Writing a piece of electronic digital music using only 140 chars of code.

It started as a curious project, when live coding enthusiast and Toplap member Dan Stowell started tweeting tiny snippets of musical code using SuperCollider. Pleasantly surprised by the reaction, and “not wanting this stuff to vanish into the ether” he has recently collated the best pieces into a special download for The Wire.

Of course, to satisfy such a constraint, you need a very compact programming language and SuperCollider is the best choice (see also here). It is an environment and programming language for real time audio synthesis and algorithmic composition. It provides an interpreted object-oriented language which functions as a network client to a state of the art, realtime sound synthesis server.

SuperCollider was written by James McCartney over a period of many years, and is now an open source (GPL) project maintained and developed by various people. It is used by musicians, scientists and artists working with sound. For some background, see SuperCollider described by Wikipedia.

You can download the code snippets here. Note that many of these pieces are actually generative, so if you have a working SuperCollider environment and re-run the source code you get a new (i.e. slightly different) piece of music.

Some excerpts:

The artists notes are here.

The Fauxharmonic Orchestra

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The Fauxharmonic Orchestra produces concerts and recordings of orchestral music at the highest level of aesthetic and technical quality. This “orchestra” consists of the world’s finest sample-based instruments, performed in concert halls and recording studios, directed by conductor Paul Henry Smith.

Using digital instruments The Fauxharmonic Orchestra’s mission is to bring fresh and artistically meaningful experiences of orchestral music to a diverse, world-wide audience.

The conductor, Paul Henry Smith studied conducting with Leonard Bernstein at Tanglewood and with Sergiu Celibidache at the Curtis Institute of Music and in Munich. He has studied orchestration and composition with Richard Hoffmann, Lukas Foss and Steven Scott Smalley. His career is devoted to promoting and improving the digital performance of orchestral music.

Since 2003 he has been perfecting his digital orchestra, accompanying soloists, performing live concerts and creating recordings for composers and filmmakers. His live performances have been supported by Bang & Olufsen and the Baltimore Chamber Orchestra.

Now listen to

  • Edgar Varèse – Ionisation, performed live by The Fauxharmonic Orchestra at Brandeis University on October 4, 2009. Paul Henry Smith conductor.