Categories
Learning & Teaching Stuff to Buy

Teaching Singing to Children and Young Adults: Jenevora Williams

Will wonders never cease, my 8-year old dream* of being a professional graphic designer came true momentarily, when asked by my good friend and singing guru Jenevora Williams to create some digital designs for her seminal teaching book Teaching Singing to Children and Young Adults: Amazon.co.uk: Jenevora Williams: Books. Highly recommended. Here’s my illustration of 2-D formant frequencies so you can say “Ooooo” with confidence.

 

Formants

 

 

* Dream when I was 8 not 30-something

 

 

Categories
Composition Learning & Teaching Music Theory Top Posts

Tonal Harmony Flow Chart

I have been thinking about ‘nutshell’ images for a range of musical concepts. Here’s a work in progress on common progressions in a major key in 17-19th century tonal harmony. Yes caveat, WIP etc, but it seems quite useful. Comments and suggestions welcome! Minor key next, please don’t let me turn them into 3D models for mode mixtures and modulations.

THFC-CPMK-1.1

Categories
Guitar Guitar Lessons Publications

Another Future Publishing Guitar DVD Commission

Well I must be doing something right – or probably not enough wrong – as the good people of Future have asked me to yet another DVD this Winter.
It’s due for release in early 2014. Topic is under wraps but this little image should give you a mighty big clue. Rather excited about this one.

Yup

Missed the others? Details here and also here

Categories
Concerts & Gigs Electronic Works Leukaemia Science

Bloodlines Premiere

Bloodlines is a performance that traces the microscopic drama that plays out between a serious disease and medical treatment in the human body. It draws on its makers’ personal experience of Acute Lymphoblastic Leukaemia (which I developed in 2004) and its treatment through intensive chemotherapy, radiotherapy and a bone marrow transplant (donated by his sister Alex Mermikides, who is directing the performance). Also collaborating in the performance is Ann Van de Velde, a clinical haematologist involved in the care and treatment of blood disorders such as Leukaemia, and Anna Tanczos, a digital artist specialising in science communication.

‘…is the human body a soul-less, self-less object at the mercy of automatic internal processes…or is it a precious vessel containing a unique individual…?’

Sian Ede Art & Science. London and New York: Taurus Books, 2010. p.145

Bloodlines premiered at the Dana Centre on 18 July 2013. Future performances will be announced on the Events page.

Here’s a bootleg from the first performance.

Bloodlines is a Chimera Network project
For more background on the project see Bloodlinesproject.com

Categories
Concerts & Gigs Electronic Works Live Electronics

All at in C

On the 14th October 2013, I’ll be joining the eminent musician and fellow Wodehouse character Peter Gregson at the Luton Music Club to max out on Minimalism. Details to follow, but on the programme is Terry Riley’s seminal work In C in all its heterophonic and generative gorgeousness.

In C

Rather than play it (on my guitar) traditionally with the ensemble, I thought it fun (and more interesting) to use Ableton Live (and Push) to rebuild it so it ran generatively. I’ve done a very simple version which adopt most of the instructions, any errors kindly forgive me and my future generations.

 

Here’s a screenshot of the resultant tapestry:

In-C-Live

And here’s the WIP for your to download in the spirit of musical democracy.

In C Live Project @miltonline

Hit scene 1 and they’ll tumble through, I’ve weighted the follow actions to have on average more repeats on shorter phrases which makes sense musically. You can intervene, urging on any stragglers and holding back any clips forging too far ahead. Actually I may need to consult a statistician as the deviation in fall rates seems (in my fallible intuition) to suggest something’s a bit skewy with the randomising process. But oh well, the variation in performances is intriguing (I’m on listen number 6 and still very happy). You can of course ride volumes, edit instruments and send out effects to your ears’ content. You can always set clip 53 to – rather than stop – return to clip 1 so the piece lasts forever, with clips lapping each other – adding another dimension to the work. If Follow Actions in Live were more sophisticated or I had time to render in Max the clips could behave more intelligently by grouping together, dropping out and changing velocity more responsively as per score instructions, but it actually works quite beautifully as is, which is a testament to the power of Riley’s concept.

Incidentally if you’d like to tweak the ‘fall rate’ – and hence the resulting approximate duration – change this number on the clips (you can select multiple), but remember that you may want longer clips with lower numbers. Again I wish there was more sophistication with follow actions, which would also allow the pulse to stop after all other clips are finished, but I await Ableton Live 10 11 17

Follow

Thanks to user Jeepee on the Ableton forum, whose patch I discovered when googling this idea, I’ve kept many of Jeepee’s clips as I like how he/she played them, but am also thinking of doing it PROPERLY in Max and crowdsourcing midi and audio clips from the interwebs when the Earth slows and there’s enough hours in the day for such mischief.

For those sensible people not in to Ableton or this sort of thing, you can hear a rendered version from this patch here:

(If that doesn’t buffer or you are a suffering iPad browser) -> In C Live

 

Categories
Music Technology Music Theory Research Science Uncategorised

The Amazing Metrobird

I have a little place in Greece, on a lesser known corner of the Peloponnese, on a little beach with a derelict and rarely visited acropolis from which the islands of Ψιλι, Πλατεια and (just about) Σπετσεσ are visible.

Here

It’s a magical (and for me painfully nostalgic) place where even when we eventually installed a phone (1996),  modem (2006) and wi-fi (2013) seems eerily frozen (well baked) in time. This part of the world is home to some odd creatures: deafening cicada, scorpions, flying fish, swordfish and a plant with fruit that explode on the lightest touch.

Shore it is

One such unusual animal I have yet to (knowingly) see but I’ve been fasciated by its sound for years. It’s some kind of bird that emits a short tweet at intervals so regular that we use it as a metronome. (It sounds particularly good on beat 4 & in a bossa).

Here’s an unedited audio sample recorded on Tuesday, 7 July 2009 19:32


(non-flash) Metrobird

Notice how (separated by an unmeasured pause) there is a decent metronomic tempo established. Logic Pro X’s transient detector and beat mapping tools reveal that once a pulse is established it tends to stay within a couple of bpm. I’ve played with far worse time-keepers of the human species. Here are the numbers:

Numbers

To get a feel for it, listen to the same unedited clip with a click track.


(non-flash) Metrobird with Click
Not bad at all. Here’s how it sounds (again completely unedited) in the context of a percussion groove.


(non-flash) Metrobird Groove

Does anyone know what type of bird it is, an what evolutionary pressures gave it such tight timing?

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