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.