Group Charter

Group charter - Ayal, Kate, Nick

Our performance will consist of us live scoring some silent film, with a combination of pre-composed and improvised music. We plan on using Max to control the lights in Davis.

We will be communicating via group text, checked daily. We will be meeting weekly, right before class from 4:30-6 in Davis. Our roles are flexible and will become better defined as we develop our performance. We know now that Kate will be on bass, Ayal on percussion/guitar, and Nick on keys. We all will be working to compose music and edit video.

Timeline:

2/20 - We plan on having the visuals ready, and a rough idea of a score to go along with it.

3/27 - We plan on having the score composed by this point so that we can spend the rest of the class meetings running the performance and figuring out the lights.

4/17 - We will have the Max patch for the lights figured out and the rest of the performance ready to go.

Three Videos - Ryan Cox

Jacob and I were really interested in incorporating multiple visual aspects to our project. We thought it would be interesting to incorporate some interactive visuals via Processing or something of that nature, but we also thought it might be interesting to layer on some old footage, and maybe even alter in like in Spencer Haney's "War Dance". One of my favorites Ann Arbor bands, Bonzo, has used some footage from the Prelinger Archives to create their music videos, and I think using some of these videos would be really effective.



 

Jacob and I did a little listening session on Friday, and checked out a few different artists, in particular, Beach House, and their album, Bloom. I went back and listened to a lot of their music, and other music sort of along those lines, like Sigur Ros. I really like their simplicity and the dreamyness of it all. Through browsing some related artists, I found Nils Frahm, a multi-instrumentalist that combines elements of classical music with post-rock/electronic music. I really enjoy the textures he creates, and his live performances seem really interesting.




Finally, Jacob introduced me to this group he discovered through a Xiu Xiu concert called Quicksails. Not only is their music really interesting and sort of unstructured, but the visuals they use live are really interesting. I really enjoy how these lights don't seem to fit with the music, but they also don't seem to be completely random.

3 Videos Blog Post #3

This First video shows how to make and attach a contact mic to a surface. This will come in handy for our project when we would like to amplify the sound created from found objects (like a block of wood or a bowl full of water).


This second video shows someone going through the process of programming a DMX system to synchronize lighting with music. We hope to learn how to operate the lights in the Davis studio using a similar setup.


This last video takes a look at foley art as a means of sound design. Although we may not end up doing any sort of live-scoring to accompany a film, we do plan on using found objects to create sounds that place the listener in a particular environment.

Three Videos - Oren Levin

This first video explains the process of making a piezo contact microphone. Our presentation plans to  contain these types of microphones in order to capture close material sound from out instruments. I am excited to make them and experiment with their capabilities.



The second video below features samples and audio manipulations from nature such as hitting a log. I am interested in placing a contact mic on a log and using it as an instrument. This video presents a method that results in entirely different results than the original sound source.



My final video simply explains the basics of DMX lighting. For out presentation we may use the lighting rigs in the Davis studio as out visuals.  DMX light would be a great tool to learn to further the presentation of a performance.

Group Charter Everett/Levin/Balas

- In-Class Presentation #1: February 20th

-Draft of Audio portion: (Have the project conceptually finished and storyboarded) connect the Piezo mics and prove they work.

- In-Class Presentation #2: March 13th

-Refined Audio portion and rough video portion: Have all the physical parts of it (music written but not fully rehearsed)

- In-Class Presentation #3: March 27th

- Music rehearsed and ready to present.

- Final Project Outcome April 17th

Team Charter:

We will be mainly communicating via Group text message, checked every day at least. We plan on having weekly Sunday meetings (that will become rehearsals after our music is written). As far as our specific roles, we plan to have them more solidified by the first presentation date. We are more loose with meeting times during planning meetings, but will be punctual during rehearsals.  We shalt not have unruly bad communication betwixt the other subjects without our compound.

Three Videos

We are interested in a kind of musical representation of a forest, and although this installation has a different goal, I really like how the sparse, minimalist structure still manages to evoke the shapes of trees with its vertical focus.

There are a lot of ambient nature videos on youtube, and of course none of them are a replacement for the real thing. However I think it will be worth taking some time to actually listen to what a forest actually sounds like before trying to create a representation of it.

This is someone's art project where the viewer can manipulate trees' growths by changing the input variables. I think it is helpful to see someone else's take on the same subject and to start thinking about visuals for the project.

Three videos

Kate, Nick and I are thinking about doing some live scoring of films and VJing. Some discussion was had about using obscure, strange footage. These videos are pretty wild if you strip away the sound. It might also be cool to shoot our own footage for a film and create a live score for that.

Cox/Rogers Group Charter

Group Charter

As a group, we decided that we were both okay with soft (ish) start times, and that we would communicate over text. Given that we are a two person group, coordination becomes significantly easier, which allows us to be less formal with our communication. Definition of roles within  the project will be loosely defined, but as both members will be contributing to all components of the project, this will happen naturally as the piece develops.

Timeline

2/20 - Our group aims on presenting a draft of the audio portion of our project. While this might not reflect the level of detail that will go into the finished project, our goal is a formal sketch for purposes of pacing and structure.

3/13 - For the second presentation, we will have a more refined rendition of the audio, clarifying more detail and filling in the structure. Along with this we will have a rough sketch of the video components, and attempt to run them together.

3/27 - The final presentation will have a more developed version of our video components, trying to synchronize the two mediums rather than just running them next to each other.

Blog post 3

Ayal, Nick, and I are going to do a live score to a silent film. We may do it over an entire film, or compile some footage to create our own narrative. We are going to experiment with weird video editing and VJing. Nick is going to play piano/synth, Ayal on drums, and me on bass. This Boards of Canada video is good inspiration. I hope we can find a really weird video like this one to use. I would be down to make some Boards of Canada inspired music as well.

I found this film from 1903, which might be worth playing around with. I really like the look of the technicolor video. 

I found this video of a live electronic score. I would like to do something like this. I want to create music that is actually engaging and has listeners tapping their toes rather than just standing with their arms crossed. This music is nice, but I definitely want to take it a step further to make it really in your face.

Blog Week 3 Assignment

You now have a team and a bit of an idea of where you are headed.  Search out at least three examples of work you didn't know about before that relates to the direction your team is headed. Feel free to take suggestions from your teammates in your search.  Post the example with some substantive comment. Please don't just repeat something that your teammates posted in week 1. Consider this not just an exercise, but part of the essential process of researching your project.

Due January 30, before class.