Electroacoustic Barn Dance

I just got back from the Electroacoustic Barn Dance in Fredericksburg, Virginia.
The festival was October 27-29 at the University of Mary Washington school of music.
I had my piece Wait performed and delivered a paper on GUA with J. Corey Knoll and Jeff Albert.
There was a bunch of good music and a growing number of familiar faces.

electroacoustic vs. soundscape

“The essential difference between an electroacoustic composition that uses pre-recorded environmental sound as its source material, and a work that can be called a soundscape composition, is that in the former, the sound loses all or most of its environmental context. In fact, even its original identity is frequently
lost through the extensive manipulation it has undergone, and the listener may not recognise the source unless so informed by the composer. In the soundscape composition, on the other hand, it is precisely the environmental context that is preserved, enhanced and exploited by the composer.” – Barry Truax

Wait

Wait (2011) for 4-channel diffusion.

Program Notes

This work explores the confluence of two disparate sounds cast in a field of space and dynamics. The form of Wait is 4 repetitions of a single thought. Each repetition is a slight expansion and elaboration of the previous.

 

Wait – Stereo Mix

 

Wait – Left Channel

Wait – Left Surround Channel

Wait – Right Channel

Wait – Right Surround Channel

Last day in Providence

I turned on the television as I was eating breakfast this morning and one of favorites, the Departed, was on. I had been listening to a Providence accent all week and I might thought, when I first arrived, that their accents (Providence and Boston) were pretty much identical.

They’re definitely not. I had been listening to people talk like Peter Griffen, calling their neighbors ‘Mass-holes’ and ‘Connecti-dicks’. The smallest state in the Union has to has its distinction.

But there are peculiar similarities. Not in the way they chop the end of words, drop R’s, or either speak so fast you thought there were inventing German-like composites or so slow it sounds like they’re about to break out in tears.

While on the shuttle to the airport, i overheard a conversation on driver’s radioband between a speed talker and slow talker:

Driver1 (Jack): Gah, I have ta pick up [unintelliglble].
Driver2: Whassa mattah wit thah?
Driver1: Yahwell… She juss gabs n gabs thah hole time. 45 minutes, thah hole ride.
Driver2: Jack, you call me every three minutes. Juss tah talk.
Driver1: Eh, whatevah.

Driver3: I couldn’t get in [on the radio]. I gotta ride tah Bristol.

Providence, Rhode Island Visit

I’ve spent the week in Providence, Rhode Island for the Pixilerations Festival. The experience as a whole has been great, exciting, and as always, a huge learning experience.

Social Structure [ Construction no. 1] had the huge privilege of getting the largest space in brand new Granoff Center at Brown University. It was up as an interactive installation for a few days and then we held a performance the last day. The attendance and feedback were good. Pixilerations Festival as a whole is a good one. They had three centers: two for installations (Granoff Center, Brown and Sol Koffler, Rhode Island School of Design) and the concert in the Grant Building, Brown. It is difficult to coordinate a multi-center, cross-town festival, but Pixilerations is a good event.

I’m now sitting in College Hill Cafe across the street from the Granoff. My other two collaborators have left (for Boulder, Co and Baton Rouge).

The culture and student bodies (Brown and RISD) are so different than LSU and Baton Rouge. There is no obvious sartorial branding for anything, than perhaps black plastic-rimmed glasses. There’s a large hill (half mile? at a moderate grade) with Brown atop and RISD in the middle, so everyone here looks far more beautiful and in shape. The entire “hill area” seems to be filled with artistry and community. Thayer street is full of places to eat and shop. One of the biggest downfalls of the area LSU is there is no walkable food/shop area except for the Chimes Street, which compared to the last two campuses I’ve visited (Stanford and Brown/RISD), pales in its selection and price.

Providence holds an event, called FireWater, along a waterway where they light floating torches, give gondola rides, hold lightsaber fights, organize flash mobs, offer free dance lessons and yoga classes, and sponsors like Mohegan Sun hold table games in the middle of Downtown.

My goal was to hit a couple of the galleries and museums in the area today before I left, but many are closed on Mondays.