Re: [-empyre-] [extreme] voice root of 12-tone scale?

["tobias c. van Veen" <tobias@rhizome.org>]

hi Alan,

Perhaps you could explain a little more what you mean by "'live'
playing [and] the imminent relation to the body?"

This might lead to some interesting places, as the topic of the "live" is
one that has been hashed out in various venues surrounding contemporary
electronic music, microsound, laptop performance before, but with a wild
range of results and ideas.

I tend to find that everything is "of the body," it's just that laptop
performance with a mouse is involving the body in a way which is certainly
less excessive, different, and possibly even deconstructive, than, say, the
guitar-sweat of Led Zeppelin. When Plant was up there swanking the guitar,
it was originally rebellion; but now one has to ask what role the body is
playing--is it "of the body," or now, of the ego, of the phallus, of the
body-as-desire-object [to be sold / commodified]? I tend to agree with a
certain angle of Cascone's critique of "pop live music production" in the
way it has perhaps set the rules for the "live" today -- the '60s music
heritage still dominating all aspects of the game (we see this particularily
with the RIAA -- ).

Also, coming from rave culture -- dancing was always of the body, but it was
always to a DJ, which took close to thirty years for various institutions
and perhaps the presiding majority of the population to accept as a
performer in and of herself. [Yes some DJs are terrible, nothing better than
glorified jukeboxes, but the same can be said for many singers, guitar
players, drummers, and so on that make up a surprising majority of bands
popular and otherwise]. In North America the DJ is still not accepted (the
differences between the EU and NA cannot be overemphasized in this regard,
in terms of the musical disparity that is continually widening).

Which leads me to curiously inquire as to your second concern -- the
physical labor -- fill me in here, I'm not sure exactly what the link is, or
how physical labour would lessen or increase with certain music production
[for example, computer music often requires hours collecting, generating,
and processing sound before performance, whereas a guitar note only has to
be remembered as a finger position]. But maybe you are trying to make a
slightly different claim... in any case, I'm curious to hear. Open ears.

In any case, some of the more interesting work going on right now is with
radical MIDI and USB interfaces for programs like Max/MSP where any input
can practically be arranged into any output, with random processes built
into the system. Check out the Surface One:

http://www.midiman.net/products/midiman/surfaceone.php

Ben Nevile, a minimal house producer, is finishing his MA designing a
standalong electronic instrument that can be physically played, and he has
programmed a gravity-weighted joystick to play his work live from the laptop
-- when he plays it looks like he is flying a flight simulator. Some of the
new MIDI interfaces on the market are touch-sensitive, pad-oriented, and
extremely versatile, all of which is beginning to really open up the ways in
which we transact with the machine. Then there's Peter Blasser, who has
created electronic circuit boards (like stripping off the covers from a
synth) that can be played directly:

"On a grant from the Daniel Langlois Foundation
(www.fondation-langlois.org), I am designing three instruments which I
call shinths (shit+synthesizer).  These instruments will have no
outer-surface, no knobs, not even an input or output jack. They are
simply a circuit board of extraordinary size, filled with twittering
electronic machines. Some parts are digital, some are analog, all are
wired to each other in a big web. It is an experiment; I want to create
a surface on which a circuit bender can play around intuitively, shoving
wires and "listening" in any place."


Check it out: http://www.blasser.com/shinth


 And in more traditional ways, computers/laptops are being brought into a
performance situation as just another instrument (particularily in various
jams around Montréal -- I already mentioned Mitchell Akiyama, but Tim
Hecker/Jetone also toured with Pan American & often jams with various bands)
or for use on recordings -- the most classic being Tortoise's _Millions Now
Living Will Never Die_, the post-rock kickstarter...


best, tobias

> 
> 
> I want to thank you greatly for this. I'd be interested in see what is
> occurring with acoustic instruments in particular. One thing with 'live'
> playing is the imminent relation to the body - a second and related
> concern is that of physical labor in relation to sound production and
> organization, which conceivably brings marxist and critical-theory
> aesthetics into play.
> 
> Alan, going to listen
> 
> 
> http://www.asondheim.org/ http://www.asondheim.org/portal/
> http://www.anu.edu.au/english/internet_txt
> Trace projects http://trace.ntu.ac.uk/writers/sondheim/index.htm
> finger sondheim@panix.com
> _______________________________________________
> empyre forum
> empyre@lists.cofa.unsw.edu.au
> http://www.subtle.net/empyre



tobias c. van Veen -----------
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http://www.thisistheonlyart.com
------------- tobias@rhizome.org
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