Presentation week

This week's class we had presentations, unfortunately I did not calculate that I would need an adapter for the projector in order for my computer to hook up to the projector, so my partner and I didn't get to present ours this week. This fact kind of sucked because I had gotten myself all psyched up for it just to not present...oh well. Anyways, there were only four groups that were able to present, so at least my partner and I won't be the only ones going up on Monday.  The only real thing I think I am worried about, is the fact that we have a lot of media in ours and most of the groups that presented, so far, haven't had much media in theirs; however, the only real way somebody can understand our topic is by listening to clips of it, so that means a lot of video clips.  Well, here are some of the notes I took on Monday from the groups presentations:

Cody's and Bernie's presentation- MIDI: A History and Understanding

• the music industry's standard for communication ideas of composition
• communication protocol because its compact
• limitless potential
• versatile
• Intuitively follows a visually pleasing format of a desired instrument, such as a keyboard
• MIDI interface designed with 2 applications:
• Connecting and controlling synths.
• Linking computers to synths
• Dave Smith
• audio engineer who founded Sequential Circuits Ind.
• 1981 he came up with the idea for MIDI
• 1983 he proposed the idea
• 1984 MIDI is first introduced
• 1991 General MIDI (GM1) is realeased

Don and Dave's presentation- Roots and Fruits of Electronic Music

• 1951, GRM is founded.  It is the first studio dedicated entirely to electronic music.
• Pierre Schaeffer releases Symphony for a Man Alone, with Eroica being one of its movements
• Stockhausen's Song of the Youths (Gesang der Junglinge) (1955-1956)
• John Cage
• considered the Giant of the Genre
• learned from Shoenberg at UCLA
• StressedDesserts
• SquarePusher (Tom Jenkinson)
• Born in England in 1975
• Transistorized bass
• reel-to-reel

William and Dan- Piezo Pickup

• Piezoelectrical phenomenon was discovered by Pierre and Jacque Curie in 1880
• Further development of piezoelectrical phenomenon was stopped due to the popularity of electromagnetism
• Piezoelectrics became viable again do to the improved capacitors
• the improvement of the capacitors lead to small, sensitive microphones
• Development of of the piezo pickup for musical instrument use in the late 60s was significant, because prior to the pickup, amplified acoustic musicians had to stay in one place on the stage.

Nick and Cynthia- Magnetic Tape

• Made of a plastic base with iron oxide
• Ampex was founded in 1944 by Alexander Poniatoff
• Problems with magnetic tape
• Longevity
• Can become de magnetized

Friday, November 12, 2010- John Vanderslice Lecture

John Vanderslice is a singer, songwriter, musician, and owner of Tiny Telephone Studios in San Francisco.  Today, he came in and talked about what it's like owning a studio and how to succeed in keeping the studio going when there is competition. I found John to be a really nice guy who really loves what he does.  I definitely plan on doing a tour of his studio.  Being someone that wants to own my own studio in the future, I definitely found his advise about "when you run a studio, you will either be a songwriter or an engineer" to be very helpful. This was something I never really thought about. Some personal notes that I found helpful for owning a studio:

• You will need two separate sources of income for running a studio
• for him, at the beginning, it was waiting tables and the studio income. Then, once the studio really started to kick off, it became touring and the studio
• finding the niche that keeps the studio going
• for him it was holding onto analog equipment and not really using digital equipment and providing free tapes
• Always be transparent on your charges, don't have hidden extra costs
• Don't fight with clients
• Form a friendship/bond with companies
• Making sure you combine the right engineer with the bands/musicians.  If there isn't really a chemistry, then it could make it harder for both the engineer and band, maybe even making it a bad experience for both (something you definitely don't want).
• Contact is very important. If someone emails or calls you, make sure to respond within at least 30 minutes.
• Giving tours of the studio can also be key.
• Paranoia definitely doesn't hurt
• If you plan on owning a studio in San Francisco, there is no rent control, meaning you could get kicked out at any time.

chapter 6 and Chapter 7

I apologize ahead of time if my notes don't make that much sense, I'm sick and it's a little hard trying to say exactly what I mean.

Chapter 6: Early Synthesizers and Experimenters:

Transistors- take the place of vacuum tubes because of:

1. Their small size
2. Their minimal weight.  
3. The process for making them is very cheap because they're completely automated.  
4. There is also no warm up time 
5. They take less power and more efficient, 
6. They have a longer life than vacuum tubes, 
7. And they are insensitive to shock.

RCA Electronic Music Synthesizer

• Was used as a means for pre-programming the basic properties of tone, pitch, amplitude, envelope, timbre, glide, frequency, filtering, and reverb
• all of these parameters were pre-programmed by using a punch card
• Mark I- output direct to loudspeaker and turntable lathe
• Mark II- was 3 tons, 7ft tall, 20ft long and had 1700 vacuum tubes

Chapter 7

Helmholtz determined that a single musical note contains a fundamental or base tone accompanied by related harmonics above.  Harmonics of a tone are responsible for creating timbre or tone color.

Cage tried to emancipate the concept of music from the Western theory.

Determined 5 components of sound:

1. Frequency- audible in electronic music based on how fast needle moves. Measured in Hz
2. Amplitude- measured in Db
3. Timbre- how we perceive a waveform's complexity
4. Duration- acoustic instruments have a limited ability to sustain sound, electronic instruments sustain indefinitely making duration the key element.
5. Envelope- Attack, Decay, Sustain, Release

Partials, overtones, and harmonics are basically synonymous.

Waveforms-

• Sine wave- pure signal no harmonics
• Square wave- contains only odd harmonics
• Triangle wave- also contain only odd harmonics
• Sawtooth wave- contains both odd and even harmonics
• White noise- random signals

Electroacoustic music- refers to music that integrates sounds from the natural world with audio processing as well as synth. sounds.

• music created using electronic and acoustic sound sources
• synth. techniques both analog and digital

Microphones and Audio Feedback

• Dynamic
• Condensor
• Contact
• Ribbon

The first use of feedback on a rock record that was actually used as part of the song, was in The Beatles' 'I Feel Fine'.

Robert Ashley (b. 1930)- The Wolfman (1964) manipulates feedback using a speaker, mic, amplifier, and recorder.

Alex Vittum Lecture:

Alex Vittum is a technician for Don Buchla, an innovator in synthesizers.  He came in today and gave a lecture/presentation of some of the work he has been doing in Electroacoustic music and trying to use it for percussion instruments. The presentation was really awesome to watch because he showed a program that, to me, was new and how the program works and some of its features.  The first piece he played was really interesting because he used a saw blade in it, which played a sound that I never knew a saw blade could play; this piece was played using a combination of frequency shifter (I believe) and reverb. The other two pieces Vittum performed were using granular synthesis and tap delay.  For both the granular synthesis and tap delay, Vittum took 1 signal and split it into 4 different voices, each containing different pitch volume, length, and rates of playback; the granular piece also contained an 8 second buffer. The piece I found the most interesting was the tap delay because after a while, it just sounded like one continuous sound with no breaks in between.  The sound ended up being really intense and it made me wonder what it must have been like for Alex, since he had two speakers directly behind him.

Chapter 3-early electronic music in the U.S.

Monday, we had our second assessment for the course. For this assessment there were five question, of which we got to chose three and focus on those questions. First question I chose was on the Mellotron, which I believe I did a fairly good job answering that question, although I ended up spending so much time talking about the Mellotron that I didn't have enough sufficient time to answer the other two questions in enough detail; so, overall, unfortunately, I don't believe I'm going to end up with a good grade for this assessment.  I seriously need to invest in a watch and limit myself on equal time for each question. That would be a good idea.  Then, for this upcoming Monday, my partner and I have to have come up with a proposal as to what we are going to do our presentation on; this is something I'm a little nervous about, because I still have no idea what to present on. But it's okay, we'll figure something out by Monday.

Anyways, this past week are on some notes that I took about John Cage (1912-92) and early electronic music in the United States.  John Cage also happened to be on of the other questions I chose for the assessment, and I know that if I had given myself more time, I would have done an awesome job on that question.  Instead of writing out my notes, however, I decided to scan and attach my notes into the blog (because there are 9 pages worth of notes from this chapter, making it a little hard to copy). It seems the blog won't let me attach my notes onto this site, so I ended up just putting the scans of my notes onto a website here

The Mellotron

Mechanically, how did this work?

         The Mellotron is an electro-magnetic keyboard that contained pre-recorded magnetic tapes.  These tapes would contain the sounds of various instruments that had been record from actual instruments and players.  When a key was pressed on the keyboard. it would play the sounds.  The Mellotron was actually a predecessor to the Chamberlin, which was originally invented by Henry Chamberlin in the late 40s/early 50s.  The Mellotron was developed in the 60s by the Bradley brothers (Frank, Norman, and Les) in London, England.

Why the master tapes were so important? And why the acquisition of these was crucial?

         The master tapes were crucial because they were the only way the Mellotron could work.  One of the nice things about the Mellotron was that people could go and purchase different master tapes  with different sounds and interchange them.

Who were the key players: the inventor, the significant users of this instrument. 

         When it comes the Mellotron, the inventors are the three Bradley Brothers, Frank, Norman, and Lesley Bradley who were based in London, England.  The Chamberlin was developed by Henry Chamberlin from Ohio.  Over the past four decades, there have been numerous musicians and bands that have used the Mellotron and the Chamberlin:

• Mike Pinder of the Moody Blues
• Rod Argent of The Zombies
• Rick Nielsen of Cheap Trick
• Tony Banks of Genesis
• Al Kooper, producer for Lynyrd Skynyrd. Convinced Lynyrd Skynyrd to use Mellotron in their album
• Steve Wonder
• David Bowie
• Patrick Moraz
• Tony Iommi of Black Sabbath
• Jesse Carmichael
• Aerosmith
• B-52s
• The Beatles
• Brian Wilson of the Beach Boys
• Paul McCartney on his solo albums
• Pink Floyd
• Red Hot Chili Peppers
• and many, many more

*side note: to see a list of musicians that have used Mellotron in their works, go to http://www.mellotron.com/mellolis.htm)

Where did the original sounds come from?

        The original sounds for the master tapes came from instrumentalists who were part of the Musician’s Union.  An instrumentalist would be hired to play a chord that would be played continuously for 8 seconds; this was how long the Mellotron would play that chord for when using it.

Theories as to why the instrument didn’t receive widespread use. And how is this similar to the Theremin?

         One of the theories and explanations as to why the Mellotron was not received worldwide was due to the fact that the tapes were not as good of a quality as the Chamberlin’s master tapes.  The Mellotron was also known for breaking down very easily, and could not be used immediately because it need to warm up.  This made it hard for musicians that wanted to use the Mellotron onstage in their concerts, because they would need to wait for it to warm up.  The tapes were also known to stick and get destroyed.  Some concerts were known for having to be cancelled because the musician’s Mellotron would break down, and it was not easy to repair or to rent. 

This instrument introduced/preceded what significant recording technology?

           The Chamberlin and Mellotron preceded sampling, which is a significant recording technology that is used in the present.  Sampling holds the same premise that the Chamberlin and Mellotron used, taking samples of an instrument or sound and re-creating them later in a song.  The Chamberlin and Mellotron were really the beginning of this idea.

General timeline, geography and business drama. 

• 1948- Upland, CA: development of the first Chamberlin model, the Chamberlin 100
• 1951- Upland, CA: Chamberlin 200 developed
• 1956- Chamberlin Co. founded
• 1959- Ontario, CA: Chamberlin 300/350 model developed
• 1961- Ontario, CA: Chamberlin 400 and 500
• 1962- London, England: Bill Fransen, a saleman hired by Chamberlin to go around the U.S. and sell the Chamberlin, leaves for England with 2 Chamberlin 600 models and advertises for someone to manufacture the Chamberlins. He had been saying that the idea for the Chamberlin, which he had renamed the Fransen, was his own and he was looking for someone to manufacture them for him.  He finds the Bradley bros. who had their own company, Bradmatic, Ltd.
• 1963- Ontario, CA: Chamberlin 600
• 1963- London, England: Mollotronics, Co. is founded and the Mellotron MK1 is first developed, based off of the Chamberlin 600
• 1963-1964- Anaheim, California: Bradley brothers attended NAMM, the National Association of Music Merchants, to show off their new invention; Henry Chamberlin also attended NAMM. This is where the brothers discover that they have actually ‘stolen’ their model for the Mellotron off of the already patented Chamberlin, something they did not know when Bill Fransen gave them the idea to manufacture it.  A stipulation was agreed between the Bradleys and Chamberlin, the Mellotron would be sold in the U.K. and the Chamberlin would be sold in the U.S.
• 1964- London, England: Bradmatic, Ltd. is renamed Streetly Electronics. Mellotron MK2 developed.
• 1970- Mellotron comes out with the M400 and Chamberlin comes out with the M1.
• 1975- Chamberlin M2
• 1975-1980- Chmberlin M4
• 1980- David Kean purchases Mellotronics USA and founds Chamberlin Archives
• 1981- Chamberlin Co. shuts down business due to poor interest in the device
• 1986- Streetly Electronics shuts down
• 1992- Markus Resch becomes David Kean’s partner for Chamberlin Archives.
• 1999- Streetly Electronics, which is now run by John Bradley (son of Les Bradley) and martin Smith,  releases the Mellotron MK VI
• 2009- Mellotron MK 4000 released
• 2010- Streetly Electronics just recently released a digital M3000 HD, available for the Apple iPad
• 
  

Discuss Mellotron vs the Chamberlin- many differences.

            Mellotron

• The master tapes were interchangeable. People could go and buy different tapes and change them in the Mellotron. 
• The quality of the tapes were not as superior as the Chamberlins
• Had a push-button mechanism
• Main focus of the Bradleys was to sell musical instruments

           Chamberlin

• Fixed sounds, no interchangeable tapes
• Chamberlin tapes were more superior because they were recorded with the high quality microphones and recording equipment of the time
• Had a lever mechanism
• Main focus was to make musical instruments for families to enjoy in their home

Discuss the issues with the musician’s union.

           The issue that started to arise with the musician’s union was the fact that the musicians decided that they should be compensated for their recordings that were being used on the master tapes.  After the popularity of the Mellotron started to rise, the musicians determined that, for every instrument used on the master tapes, those musicians should be payed some sort of amount; this was not limited to just the musicians that were used to record the instrument, but to every musician that was a member of the musician’s union who used that particular instrument; meaning every flutist or violinist or cellist in the union...that’s a lot of musicians.

John Cage

This week we watched a video on John Cage (1912-1992), a famous composer in electronic music, who was known for using aleatory, or chance, in his compositions.  The video was actually based on 10 different documentaries based around a 10 day, 9 evening, performance in New York City.  The performance ran between October 13-October 23 in 1966.  We only watched the John Cage performance, called Variations 7.  I found the documentary on his performance to be very interesting, because it consisted of various household appliances, such as blenders, fans, 10 telephone lines which were placed throughout the city, radios, and juicers, just to name a few of the 'instruments' involved.  Cage also told his 'performers', if you will, to bring whatever gear and appliances that could bring to use.  The reason I put quotations around the words instruments and performers, is because one thing that this performance did, was bring about the discussion as to whether these could really be thought of as a performance, instruments, or performers; a discussion which we did have in the class:

• Could Cage be considered a composer or a performer or both? 

I believe that Cage could definitely be considered a performer, because a performer is considered someone "who entertains an audience" (the definition of "performer" OxfordDictionary.com), and Cage definitely entertained his audience (at least that's what it looked like by the end of the performance in this documentary) and opened their minds with his 'unconventional' performances.  I believe that one job a performer, as well as a composer, has to do is to open up their audiences' minds to sounds and feelings that are conveyed when they hear these sounds.  After looking up on Cage and some of his known performances, I looked up on his 4'33" which consists of 4 minutes and 33 seconds of entire silence; it was meant to be a way for people to hear everything that surrounds them and how they interpret these sounds.  I watched a video of this performance that was done in Britain, and the thing I found entertaining, was how the audience was trying to stay silent the entire time and the only time they would make a sound is between the movements, when the composer and performers would turn the page, at which point the audience would cough, shift, sneeze, and clear their throats; the reason I found this entertaining is because (from what I watched in the documentary), I think Cage would have used the audiences' noise as part of the performance itself.

• Could the instruments that were used really be considered instruments (I mean, they were mostly household appliances)? 

It depends on the way in which the instruments are used. They may be used as normal appliances at home, but in this case, I do believe that they were instruments, because they were meant to be used as such.  As I said before, one of Cage's purposes in his performances was to open up people's minds to things beings utilized in ways that we were not, and still are not, used to them being utilized.  A blending being used as a musical instrument? Who would ever think that the noises that a blender makes, as being musical? In this case, Cage did. Who would ever think that attaching some strings to an oddly formed block of wood and then plucking those strings would ever make a good sound? Apparently enough people did, because we now have guitars.

• Can Variations 7 be a piece? What makes a piece a piece?

This is one question that I honestly don't know how to answer because I'm not really sure I can, for sure, what a piece is.  I know that one of the definitions talked about in class, is that a piece is something that has a beginning and an end, and Variations had a beginning and an end; so, technically this is a piece.  I consider a piece because it something that was performed by performers and had instruments in it, as unconventional as they may have seemed.  Based on other pieces that I've listened to, also have movements, a middle, where the story changes. And I honestly could not find a middle or movement in this piece, but then does that not make it a piece? I don't know.

• How was the performance more than just a sound performance? 

The performance was more than just a sound performance in that it was a visual performance because Cage used the shadows that were being made from the photoelectric cell lights as part of his performance; at one point, his pants were catching on fire, and he somehow found a way of using that as part of his performance. It was also an interactive performance because he used the audience as a part of it; the audience was only supposed to sit and watch, but they soon decided to go up in order to get a closer look, and he used that as all a part of it.  When it came to Cage, it was all about chance, nothing was determined.

Something I really learned from this class and some of the readings, so far, about Cage and Varese and Theremin, is that items we see as being conventional items shouldn't always be used in conventional ways. You never know what kind of other uses you could get out of them.

Second round on our first test...

This week I guess quite a few of us did not do so well on our tests in class so we got to have a second round on them.  It was not a re-do on the test, though; just a second go. I feel that I did definitely do better on this rewrite, partly because it became an at home assignment where I felt more comfortable, for sure.

Pierre Schaeffer's 4 delimitations (all used in non-traditional manners):

1. Living elements
2. Noises
3. Modified and prepared instruments
4. Conventional

His 7 values:

1. Mass- organizations of sound in spectral dimensions (placing on frequency level)
2. Dynamic- measureable value
3. Tone quality and timbre
4. Melodic profile- temporal evolution of the total spectrum of sound
5. Profile of Mass
6. Grain- analysis of irregularities of surface of the sound
7. Pace- analysis of the amplified dynamics of the sound (when does become loud/soft)

Harmonic plan- 20---------20K
Dynamic plan- ADSR (envelope of sound)
Melodic plan- pitch + tune over time

Hard semester so far

Well it's Monday, September 20th and so far it has been a horrible beginning to another horrible week of school.  In MPA 334, we had a test on the first chapter of our book and the beginnings of electronic music....failed miserably.  I hate it when I know what the answers to the questions are, but my brain shuts off and I can't answer it. So I ended up with blank answers for all of the questions, except the 2nd question, which was about Theremin, his life, and his electronic instrument... except I spelled Theremin's name wrong as well. Been talking about the man for two weeks and making notes on him, but I get his name wrong today. Then to make it worse, I actually forgot to write out my blog for last week as to the life of Leon Theremin and how he invented the Theremin instrument, as well as some of his other inventions.

So back to the class and the notes from both class and book, here you are:
Chapter 2- Early Electronic Music in Europe

Recording before the Tape Recorder, there were:

• Disks, which was more popular than the other two, partly due to the fact that disk recordings were "less expensive, widely available, and more amenable to a trial and error process". Some of the disadvantages, however, were that the playback time for disc recordings were limited to a few minutes at a speed of 78 rpm, and there was no sound editing or mixing capability.
• Wire Recorders
• Phonofilm, also known as the De Forest Process, named after its inventor, Lee de Forest who was known for also coming up with the Audiom vacuum tube.

The De Forest process:

• First introduced 1919
• It worked by converting audio signals to electrical waveforms and photographically recorded on the edge of motion picture film:
• "Soundtracks were made audible by using a photoelectric call to convert the track during the playback of the motion picture"

Turntablism- the idea of exploiting a device and using it the way its not supposed to be used.
Turntables were often used onstage as part of the performances at this time; however Paul Hindemith (1895-1963) and Ernst Toch (1887-1964), who were both (inspired by the common gramophone), were able to find other applications for the turntable.  They decided to experiment with record players as an instrument rather than using them to record the performance.

• Grammophonmusik
• The roots of turntablism
• Originalwerke fur Schallplatten
• Hindemith's and Toch's short program consisting of 5 works that lasted only a few minutes each
• Hindemith's 2 works were titled Trickaufnahmen ("trick recordings")
• Toch's 3 works were titled Gesprochene Music ("spoken music")
• For all 5 records, the men exploited the effects of using pre-recording and playing them back at the wrong speed.

Musique Concrete:

Pierre Schaeffer (1910-1995)- a radio engineer, broadcaster, writer, and biographer.

Pierre Henry (b. 1927)- a classically trained composer.

Schaeffer and Henry decided to collaborate together to form what would later come Musique Concrete, a term originally coined by Schaeffer in 1948. Their compositions referred to real world sounds or audibles or other naturally occurring sounds that didn't include instruments or human interface.  Musique Concrete embodied new sensibilities of music expression and re-conceptualized the abstraction of notation.  Schaeffer's first idea was to use any and all sounds except traditional instruments.

Listening: Etudes de Bruits ("studies of noise") (1948) used:

• A disc-cutting lathe
• 4 turntables
• 4 channel mixers
• Microphone
• Audio filters
• Reverb chamber
• Previously recorded sounds.

Side note: Schaeffer also found a way to repeat sounds in his Etudes by creating lock grooves, or endless loops, with the disc cutter.

Four principles that the second era of electronic music rest on are:

1. Composing through technology means dealing with actual sounds
2. Sounds organic coming from mon musical sources
3. Replayed identically each time using mechanical means
4. Presentation of the work did not require human performers

This is what I have so far, but I plan on updating this when I gather more notes on Karlheinz Stockhausen (1928-2007).