At St. James Church in Barrow-In-Furness, examining church bell systems with a Liverpool composer, Jon Hering and Glenn/John from Octopus Collective.
Climbing onto top of the church, a bell expert Andy explained soundscape of the instrument and ended up blasting barrow bells out for us!
Jon will be creating a piece for FON festival for July 2013.
I was secretively thinking how different those harmonic bells sound like from temple bells of my country.
sky and ground theory of two cultures.
Its been a great month. Me and Dominic Thibault began making music for album at studio 5 at university of Huddersfield. The studio equips classic synthesisers.
What a day, what a noise.
Thanks to all helped me to made it happen. The university concert greatly ended. Two pieces were premiered after months of talks and trials. wonderful turn-up. relief.
Shame Craig did not arrive but his voice enlivened the space low and strong alongside 18Hz that I was blasting out from the biggest Genelec subwoofer at the university.
I am happy to share the audio file of Pulse piece here. Two lions is not reproduceable in normal stereo speakers so I do not bother uploading.
The Phills Hall was totally shaken by lovely infrasound. I was merely happy to receive too much bass from his voice melting with low frequency and my little electronic device, Box of Austere.
For Pulse; what a collaboration to make silence a sign of auspicious and dignified. Thanks to Mrs. Sumie who listened to me so well to get it played.
Tone of Orient, series of composition with Japanese instruments, will continue.
Two Lions (2013)
Ryoko Akama – electronics
Craig Schofield – recorded narration
Tone of Orient series 02:The text is derived from Katsuzaburo Renjishi (Katsuzaburo Kineya / Mokuami Kawatake / 1861) a traditional Nagauta song (Japanese traditional music) that mythologises filial piety through the story of a lion and his cub.This composition critically examines what I would describe as the philosophy of austerity behind Japanese society. For this composition I use Box of Austere, an electronic device developed from a shamisen body (Japanese lute)
Pulse (2013)
Ryoko Akama -electronics
Sumie Kent – koto
Michelle Lewis-King – pulse performance
Tone of Orient series 01: PULSE is an audio-visual collaborative performance that combines digital technology and traditional instrumentation to explore the embodiment of interior and exterior soundscapes. It uses Lewis-King’s Pulse Project (a performance series which transposes people’s pulses into bespoke compositions) as a point of reference and feedback circuit for the performance of the score and the visuals. This project is jointly supported by University of Huddersfield and Anglia Ruskin University: Cultures of the Digital Economy Research Institute.
You know John Whitney and Lilian Shuwartz and Steina&Woody Vasulka and … Those lots. The founder and developer of computer generative art.
As much as I love landscape architecture, I adore geeks with machines.
Another experimentation with Alvin Lucier`s music on a long thin wire, to develop the idea behind it. (and I am doing it again on the 20th April in Leeds and July in Cumbria) We set up extra devices alongside the original specification. One of them was the oscilloscope.
I am shockingly intrigued by how the visual explains the sound phenomenon within the same space. The wire movement syncs up with scopes of waves.
Analogue equipments are too chunky-funky to miss out.
Out in sunny day, at Yorkshire Sculpture Park were my family and our friends. My dream came true to experience James Turrel`s skyspace piece.
His sequel piece, Twilight Epiphany at Suzzane Deal Pavilion (http://skyspace.rice.edu/) looks extraordinary but Deer Shelter Skyscape is nothing less but wonderful.
Having never expected to have no glassed window, the frame is open to the wild sky.
The reaction is I love it, I love it I love it I love it…
No more explanation is required. I just I love it. The masterpiece that holds its essence within the piece itself.
Windy clouds supported surrealistic feelings in me, who gazed at the framed moving picture. The blueness somehow enforces its blueness within the square. I wonder what it is like to be in the shelter on my own when it heavily rains. I would like to try one day.
Back to my house. I looked at the sunroof window in the living room.
oh, not bad indeed.
http://www.nicovideo.jp/watch/sm15321417#_=_
http://www.nicovideo.jp/watch/sm15321447#_=_
(you can log in with facebook to listen to the linked above)
I read for the first time about Keiichiro Shibuya recently (apology to my ignorance in Japanese music scene.) He is one of the most well known electronic artist in Japan. His career varies from pure classical (as a pianist) to techno to pop to contemporary (in collaboration with a composer like Yuji Takahashi). His appearances on TV and radio seems to create an endless CV. He is a multiple talented musician and knowledgeable man. The links are open air concert from his annual(maybe) radio show on electronic music, with Toshimaru Nakamura and evala.
You tube introduced me to T. Nakamura last year (again sorry for living time lagged) He works no input signal mixer and collaborates with various musicians worldwide.
The glitches and humble electronic frequency surely become enjoyable and space-odyssey-like with Shibuya`s piano performance. The noise turns into timeless scope that even start getting perceived as musical instruments.
He enjoys his uncontrollable feedback system with such controlled experience. (you know what I mean once you deal with feedback in your life)
As I am about to start a trial rehearsal for new improvisation set with people, the show was a good surprise and inspiring.
The first part of this radio show talked of Tristan Murail to Mark Fell with a guest who received a famous prize for writers, Akutagawa Prize and a famous actor. I love the mixture of people gathering in Japan. So far, it is only one place where a night event can contain any music possibly concerned. The show can have electro to pop to bit of classical – no problem.
the last day was a shnth demonstration event. Individually we presented patches and played with the hardware kit. My patch was comprised of three sections of simple configurations. I was getting a grip of understanding shlisp language finally after three days. (slow..)
Peter B. provided a little performance and talk too with a sense of humour.
It has been a great opportunity for students to get together and work on sounds physically. I enjoy the physicality of making sounds. The process counts, not the result only.
I had a mind-blowing comment from one of colleagues as well while we were lisping out:
Green A. ; (2013) states that the the more he codes the more his mind calms down and de-stresses. Having achieved new knowledge he feels no need for agitation nor self-crucification. He also mentions that he happily starts to create all over again from a blank patch without any hesitation whenever the tool he has spent on for many days stops working. As mentioned above, The feeling of `learnt` gives enough satisfaction to his being.
(written like an academic statement::)
Basically he never gets stressed out by coding because he only feels step-ups in his knowledge. HE IS cut out for coding process… in this sense, not me..?
