Music and Creativity

I've recently begun to make music again. By recent I mean just now. Sat at the computer I pondered my process and the sounds that might be generated by my approach, and I began to loathe everything that I had made before today. This loathing excited me, because as always it heralds fresh ideas. My boredom and short attention span propelling me to a new creative location.

I began by detesting music itself, hearing hum drum melodies and riffs borne out of routine - detritus bearing these hallmarks constitutes so much that is consumed by humans for leisure. Its easy to imagine how it happens, people tinkle on on the keyboard or strum the guitar and magnetise to the same old chord structures like a blue bottle feasting off an ancient cow pat. No effort to expand the repertoire, complicate the sequence, or do the opposite of what seems natural.

The challenge - to make easy listening music without reverting to the same old shit. I believe people do avoid the same old shit by making an effort to forget what comes naturally, so the creator must avoid what has been hammered in by convention. Perhaps by choosing to focus on the fertile plane of instrumentation known as Signal Processing musicians can be more free of convention because less convention exists, and the conventions laid down are not so much musical in nature.

By being analytical of creative process and by looking into the causes/patterns of creative ideas it is possibly to identify why that hungry bluebottle hovers the way he does. Enthusiasm for different sounds and approaches will be more likely to generate an exciting result, and consciously or unconsciously this requires the creator to avoid the "classic" routes within the process.

It is possible to see advancements of musical sound in history by charting a crude evolution: over the past 2000 years it can be seen that pitch variations became more and more volatile, utilising greater and greater changes in pitch to create melody which increased with each passing century. This continued into the Renaissance and Romantic periods where the far reaches of 12 tone harmony were explored and mastered, demonstrating greater musical complexity than the music written prior.

The use of non instrumental sound for music was at first realised and then some time later popularised by forward thinking composers, also music using more and more "bent notes" and pitch slides, then the electric revolution. A new world of sound was opened up, and with it signal processing - the age of the synthesiser. Now we have digital, and its time for artists to discover the evolutionary steps of sonic creativity that may lead to future classic sounds.

I think that the artists like Does It Offend You Yeah and M.I.A are trying to go beyond what has gone before without restricting the upbeat and anthemic quality of pop music, and I like it. I urge artists to try and make something new, don't ignore your instinct, but challenge it! I"m sure its worked for people in the past.

An Off The Cuff Ramble on Sound (#002)

Is it not amazing how little people think about sound? As a race we deploy sound at a prolific rate, but has the density of human made sound drowned out any messages that may have been intended?

What got me thinking about this was a blog entry by Harun Morrison about a sound effect used in Hollywood films as an in-joke amongst sound designers (link to Harun's blog). In a nut shell, a scream sound called "The Wilhelm" was found to have been used repeatedly in different productions during the 50's and subsequently a fraternity of sound people decided to insert The Wilhelm into films they worked on. Its quite a delightful story, but in order for this practice of Wilhelm'ing to have been possible without detection (and surely it must have gone undetected from directors) there must have been an artistic culture where the audience was considered dumb, and that sonic gestures need not be well articulated. I suspect that culture still exists. While I celebrate the disguise of a sound to give it a new meaning, I also bemoan the meaninglessness of it all. Not the Wilhelmers, they are but an undeserving point of focus for undue blame, but all sound merchants peddling crap should face consequences for their lack of respect for the audience. 

Film sound designers painting a picture they hope you wont take much notice of, painful sirens bouncing through concrete canyons, machinery rattling away relieving workers of their long terms hearing prospects - does no one give a shit about what they hear? One of the most infuriating "innovations" is voice overs on public transport. Constantly we are bombarded by messages informing us that products can be purchased and to advise us on how not to look like a terrorist. This experience of constant noise makes my journey very unpleasant and I am jealous of halcyon images of the past in which a journey on the train is actually serene provided you've already paid for a ticket. Now the journey is anything but serene, the voice overs last longer and longer and are getting louder and louder (not to mention the demands more intrusive). Anyone in doubt of what I'm writing about should go on a Ryan Air flight and listen to the happy hardcore mix of The Birdy Song with voice over reminding the customers that there is a bar service on the plane.

And now comes the crux of my rant: all this inconsiderate sonic flatus has desensitised our minds and brought forth a culture of deafness. Think I'm wrong? What do you do if you hear a burglar alarm go off? Most the time people don't react, and one of the reasons why is because burglar alarms are heard all the time and mean nothing - its a false alarm, no one is in distress, its a waste of time. "Wolf" has been cried so many times that we will not take notice and not react. I've seen people on transport services ignore messages like "this service has been cancelled, all passengers must get off the train". There is too much noise in our society, and we will not realise it on a collective scale until a generation ends up deaf. But its not just loud sound, its meaningless sound too which deafens our brain which is in many ways a worse fate. And I haven't even mention muzak...

Keep your ears open and strive to keep your brain alert - wankers will pour foul advertising and propaganda into your senses, so make sure you filter out the crap but don't switch off!

An Off The Cuff Ramble on Sound (#001)

Sound marvelous sound, where did it come from? The answer you see lies in the fabric of material existence: sound is the movement of molecule back and forth at a specific loudness and pitch that humans can hear. If a movement of molecules was outside of our range of hearing then it is still the same occurrence in principal, just that our perception is different. The same movements and patterns occur through out the material existence so if you were to change the range of parameters, similar things happen just on a different scale. If you zoom in and the focus is no longer on molecules but particles of molecule, then the movements and vibrations become smaller sized too meaning a higher pitch (frequency). Names for these 'sounds' are x-rays and gamma rays, which are given the distinction of being part of the electromagnetic spectrum (simply meaning that the medium is sub atomic particles that do no operate on the same plane as the molecular spectrum that we are used to). Further still, the particles are made from smaller pigments which are at the cusp of current scientific knowledge. These building blocks are thought to be responsible for the fundamental behavior of matter and energy, which at this plane of existence are often considered to be interchangeable. Even though this plane of existence seems very theoretical the rules and laws that govern it are almost no different to music, obeying resonances and harmonies that dictate the fate of interaction between these building blocks that will in turn govern atomic configuration and rotation, which in turn causes chemical reaction such as photosynthesis and breathing. Zoom out and the circadian rhythms of life, orbiting planets and swirling galaxies exist on a massive scale but with comparable orbits to the moon, the birds and the electrons. I think many people are tuned into this universal order, but some fail to recognise its omnipotence. Celebrate it, in whatever form you can, and realise that music can be perceived in every facet of our existence.

Apologies for any scientific simplifications, oversights or romanticisms. Please help to inform me rather than keeping your wisdom to yourself!

The Media Modulators are coming!

What the hell am I on about? What happen when you fuse music performance, interactive design, and enough audio visual geekery to make Pink Floyd plop themselves?

I've no idea, but we'll find out soon.

London International Festival of Theatre

I'm facilitating the creation of a public archive of this great event, London International Festival of Theatre. The aim of the festival is to celebrate and bring together different cultures, and share good times (and food). The archive (called Millipede) is about the public creating a record of the festival in any format they wish: photos, video, sound, text, pictures, a dance, anything!

Links are:

http://www.liftfest.org.uk

http://www.liftfest.org.uk/stratford-events_1296.aspx

http://www.liftfest.org.uk/southbank-centre_1336.aspx

NESTA Innovate08

Today I went to conference hosted by the National Endowment for Science Technology and The Arts. Speaking at this event was Bob Geldof, Gordon Brown and a host of creative/political cronies.

It was a good event on the whole: some good speakers, others not so good. Gordon Brown was surprisingly uplifting and dynamic considering the bas press he gets (he obviously doesn't have a special relationship with Murdoch unlike PM Blair did). For those that didnt know, Geldof has genuine gravitas and charisma which is backed up by thorough thought - he was not over the top, and made some really good responses to questions he was posed. I particularly liked the bit about education in this country, and the importance of allowing creativity within our populace at all levels, including school - there was a hint of blame towards current 'box ticking' pedagogy pushed by the government, and I think 99% of those active within education would agree with what Bob and the others said.

The organisation NESTA funds research and business start-ups into innovative applications of technology, and there was plenty on show today. I saw revolutionary real-time wifi video broadcast, bursaries for budding science film makers, and many other cutting edge products developed with the guidance and gold of the organisation.

The one thing that was appallingly un-innovative was the production of the event, which had hammy vision mixing and the most terribly cliched motivational music. It was a good job the food was good otherwise I may have screamed when "We Are The Champions" came on for the fourth time.

Keep an eye on NESTA if you are developing science/technology/art!!

Laurie Anderson - Homeland

I went to see Laurie Anderson last friday, it was incredible (I would have wrote before, but I had a busy weekend archiving a historical performance lecture about Sylvia Townsend Warner at St Annes College Oxford). 

Enough about my own endeavors, on to the magnificent Anderson: The performance was fantastic. It mixed compelling music with sharp humour, and made subtle use of equally sharp and compelling sonic technology. Anderson nourished my ears, brain and conscience with a skill and passion that I personally have never experienced before in such abundance. It features songs and sounds about the current state of world power, how the strategies of world power impact upon society, and how utter ridiculous it is to believe anything 100% (at least that was my interpretation, Laurie Anderson may well be appalled by my views).

With the regard to the sound, I am pleased to say there was interesting stuff going on! First and foremost there was the excellent musicianship of Anderson her crew of three (Eyvind Kang, Peter Scherer and Skuli Sverrisson). The music was a mixture of meandering structures and actual songs, ranging from anthemic sing alongs to ambient textures. In terms of technology I heard vocoding and harmonisers, percussion that fused africanesque rhythms with technoesque sounds, and some clever subtle use of triggered gates and effects. It was so well placed that I likely could not identify much of what was happening, but to be sure that there was enough going on from a listening perspective. Kudos must go out to Charlie Cambell and Jody Elff who are cited as being sonic architects for this show.

Brilliantly, for the encore after an enormous ovation,  Anderson came back on stage to treat us to a solo violin performance that was backed by an affected version of what she played (delayed and pitch shifted alternately higher and lower, but always sounding beautiful). I can conclusively claim this to be a great show to see - Laurie Anderson is a true star.