Month: June 2021

This lecture was good but it didn’t spark my interest as much as others did although some good points where made. I liked the quote on refusal “refusal is the everyday practice of saying no to the structures that consign us to death” I thought this was very poignant as it made me evaluate the everyday infastructures and institutions that we are made to conform with from birth without having a choice. Also, acceptance of societal norms without consciousness, this is something I have been thinking a lot recently and it aligns with my meditation practice of mindfulness and the act of trying to be mindful about the things that I consume and the things I take for granted. Also being a creative there is a lot of pressures that we must act a certain way or have a certain way we deliver our art. Maddisons views on aesthetics and ways of delivering art to the public raised these thoughts in my head and made me think of new more unconventional ways to release my art into the world.

This lecture was interesting to me as it was one from a man who’s specialism lies in instrumentalism, a virtuoso in the oud it was interesting to see how he relates his experiences playing quite a ‘niche’ instrument in the western world and where he stands as an academic. His words on ethnomusicology where very poignant and he said a lot of things I can take into account of in my ethnographic studies and writing. Also it was very interesting to see how he re purposed western music for use in with the oud and working with oud ensembles

This was a great lecture, I am a big fan of the ‘Make techno black again’ movement, and his cause that he fights for is one that is very key. He details the origins of house and musical movements out of Detroit back to the days of slavery and how the ramifications of that pain and suffering and genocide are still felt to this day but on the contrary he shows how the resilience of black people have assured that they have a voice to this day and how even against all odds the black community are still managing to strive to a better future. His book  ‘Assembling a Black Counter Culture’ is something I am definitely going to buy as I think it is. essential reading as a POC person in music.\

I enjoyed this lecture as I liked her individual approach to live performance I like the blend of sound art with traditional instruments and how she blends abstract concepts and very strange technological approaches with nice tangible pieces. I also love her use of vocal sampling and how she manipulates her voice and combines it with synthesis to create worlds of sound which are extremely interesting to me as a listener. Her live set ups though were the most interesting, I loved her laptop band and the sounds they created .

I absolutely loved this lecture, it was more so interesting for me as a human being and a member of the African diaspora than as a sound artist, but I believe it is just as important to gain knowledge from people who speak on issues that concern you and people in your family as a matter of human necessity and as a matter of inspiration and fuel to my spirit as a creative. I loved how she linked our tribal polyrhythmic culture to the sound of Afro-Diasporic music to this day, this is key to me as I wish to expand upon this point within my Essay. I loved how she linked the problems in the afro community today as a political one with deep roots in genocide and slavery. Big up Janine! Very special lecture

Todays lecture was very interesting, I am a big fan of Korg synthesisers, having a few of my own. It was very enriching to get an insight of Korg from the point of view of someone who actually works within the business itself. I liked how he spoke about trying to make his products as user friendly and as widely easy to use as possible, I thought this was interesting as you often think of synthesisers as nerdy products that you think are made by nerds for nerds.

The works of artists like Sun Ra and Ornette Coleman are very integral to me as a creative spirit as, I believe they embody something which is key to sound in general which is Freedom. As this is one of the main crux’s of my piece it is important that I once again revisit their amazing works and try and channel some of their free spirit into my work.

This piece is a journey through an introspective quest for freedom from the point of view from a seagull migrating from London back to the seaside, an improvised quest through rhythm with live vibraphone, drums and sax with samples and vocal manipulations being triggered on the fly.

The score of the film bird man by Antonio Sanchez is a big inspiration to this project, I love the use of live drums as a soundbed for narrative and emotion, this is something I definitely wish to endeavour into for this project. Also for me rhythm is freedom, the drum kit is the humans most common connotation for rhythm combined with the freedom motif I am going for it all makes sense that the live drum is going to be a central element of this piece. I will mic up a drum kit fairly loosely in the style of 60’s free jazz with minimal mic’ing and see where we go!. this combined with live samples will make for an interesting experience for me as both the performer and the listener.

This is a demo of a song I made today with artist Nega Brandon, the song is about a seagull, the freedom of the seagull and the violins recorded will form a basis of this track the freedom of a pesky seagull stealing your chips is something that interests me as the freedom of a seagull with its ability to fly is something that always occurs to me in my dreams, it is this I wish to endeavour into within my work for this creative sound project.

The improvisational nature of which my piece will embody will aim to reflect the freedom of an urban flying animal migrating from the seaside to the city in search of survival and to fulfil its natural given instincts. Take a listen to the song.

In todays lecture we learnt about spacial audio, we did tests of seeing how moving a sound source in different areas around your head can alter your hearing of a sound, this was a very interesting experience for me as I began really getting into the nitty gritty of the minute differences in what ‘space’ does to sound almost trying to visualise the EQ and panning of the sound as if it was a channel strip on my DAW, very intriguing experience.

I will definitely use it in my final piece!

Also interesting to see Apple are coming out with there own version of a Spacial Audio system. https://www.whathifi.com/advice/what-is-apple-spatial-audio