Fiddle FunkFiddle Funk: [audio:http://www.communitymusicworks.org/medialab/wp-content/uploads/2012/01/Fiddle-Funk-2012-amplified-mp33.mp3|titles=Fiddle Funk 2012 amplified mp3]Improv Track: [audio:http://www.communitymusicworks.org/medialab/wp-content/uploads/2012/01/Fiddle-Funk-Back-track1.mp3|titles=Fiddle Funk Back track]
Lyrid’s Fiddle Funk E minor page
Fiddle Funk: [audio:http://www.communitymusicworks.org/medialab/wp-content/uploads/2012/01/Fiddle-Funk-2012-amplified-mp3.mp3|titles=Fiddle Funk 2012 amplified mp3]Lyrid Part: [audio:http://www.communitymusicworks.org/medialab/wp-content/uploads/2012/01/Lyrids-Fiddle-Funk-E-minor-Page.mp3|titles=Lyrid’s Fiddle Funk E minor Page]Improv Track: [audio:http://www.communitymusicworks.org/medialab/wp-content/uploads/2012/01/Fiddle-Funk-Back-track.mp3|titles=Fiddle Funk Back track]
Day 8: Vocal and Instrument Improvisation with Chrissy WolpertToday we had a class of vocal & instrument improvisation with a local composer/musician, also a leader of the women’s choir group Assembly of Light Choir, Chrissy Wolpert. Chrissy started the class with voice warm up. “As loud as possible”
Then we sang a round: “Ah Poor Bird”
After the warm up, Chrissy took us into the Media Lab where she set up microphones with effect pedals. Each of us got a microphone, and experimented with vocals (singing, talking, whispering, making funny and unrecognizable sounds) with different effect pedals such as distortion, octave, reverb, echo. We also tried to sing “Ah Poor Bird” again through the pedals.
Then Chrissy introduced us to a loop pedal. Everyone separately recorded 3 seconds of vocals and ended up with layers of vocal loop recording. We did this a couple of times – one of them turned out to be all speaking words (which sounded like a poetry reading battle), and another one turned out to be a tower of complex harmonies. After that, we were introduced to contact microphones. We each got one homemade contact microphone, which we first taped to our throats and then taped to our instruments. Contact microphones are much more sensitive than regular microphones because they directly attach to the sound-making object and delicately pick up all the vibrations made.
What a class! Possibilities of finding different ways of sound making, even on the same instrument, seems to be limitless. Our experiment with sounds and music making never ends. Big big thanks to Chrissy!
Listen to some samples of what we made here: [audio:http://www.communitymusicworks.org/medialab/wp-content/uploads/2012/01/1_9_12-634-PM-Voice-Memo.mp3|titles=1] Irish Tune MedleyFor our January 21st Performance Party! Swallowtail Jig: [audio:http://www.communitymusicworks.org/medialab/wp-content/uploads/2011/10/Swallowtail-Jig-Fast.mp3|titles=Swallowtail Jig Fast]Kesh Jig: [audio:http://www.communitymusicworks.org/medialab/wp-content/uploads/2011/10/Kesh-Jig.mp3|titles=Kesh Jig]Ash Grove [audio:http://www.communitymusicworks.org/medialab/wp-content/uploads/2011/10/Ash-Grove.mp3|titles=Ash Grove]Lyrid’s Irish Fiddle Tunes (updated)
[audio:http://www.communitymusicworks.org/medialab/wp-content/uploads/2012/01/Lyrids-Irish-Tunes-2011_1.mp3|titles=Lyrid’s Irish Tunes 2011_1]
Holiday Tourhttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cr7lUw-X5UE Bartok-inspired RemixesIn the fall of 2011 six students studied Bela Bartok and created short pieces inspired by Bartok’s work. We watched Latcho Drom, a 1993 French documentary about the Romani people’s music-laden journey from north-west India to Spain, and talked about Bartok’s journeys collecting recordings of folk music in Hungary. The class took a field trip to William D’Abate Elementary School to record CMW families’s folk songs, but were challenged by peoples’ reluctance to sing into our recorders! Similarly, we approached strangers in a neighborhood park and were met with some hesitation. We did end up with a few recordings and, after learning different techniques for remixing and layering sounds in Logic, created a few new versions of folks songs that were shared with us. The original project idea evolved and resulted in experimental pieces that combined our field recordings with discordant modern electronic music samples. Day 5-7: Chance Music
Today we started our experiment with chance music. In chance music (also called aleatory/aleatoric music), some element of the composition and/or the performance of the piece is left to chance. For a starting piece, we made a simple system which is a list of musical notes that are picked based on our birth months. There are 12 different notes in a chromatic scale and 12 months in a year, so we numbered the 12 notes then picked everyone’s birth month number notes. Then the performers (2 people this time) played their instruments using this list of notes. The performers were composing a piece as they played together, only using those picked notes, and all the rest of elements of music including rhythms, range of the notes, duration of the notes, space between notes, dynamics, mood of the music.. etc. were completely up to the performers. Then we each made a graphic music score (a graphic score is a score that’s not only written in modern musical notation). There was no rules or directions to make these scores, except they were made on a piece of paper, and they were for musical pieces. Things we used to make graphic scores included drawings, words, numbers, maps, and scraps of pictures from a magazine.
 Rolling dice to pick notes
Then we had a curious performance of the pieces we just made. “For Imitated Banjo & Viola, created by voices” by Aiden S.
Performed by: Liam & Malachy H. [audio:http://www.communitymusicworks.org/medialab/wp-content/uploads/2011/12/aidens.mp3|titles=aiden’s] 2nd performance of the same piece was attempted by Aiden, Brandon, Liam, Malachy, Sofie, David, Jori and Sakiko. This time we played the piece as “For Imitated Banjo, Viola, Piano & Percussion created by voices”.
[audio:http://www.communitymusicworks.org/medialab/wp-content/uploads/2011/12/aidens-21.mp3|titles=aiden’s 2]
“A map for a conversation of 2 people” by David Lee watch?v=HK-H10nx0u0&feature=youtu.be Also as inspirations we watched “Aleatoric Water Music” video, listened to “Erratum Musical”, a chance operated piece made by Marcel Duchamp in 1913.
Sakiko also brought in a 4-track recorder, and we took turns recording ourselves (creating multi-track compositions). Here’s a photo of us working together on a track:
While people made individual pieces, the rest of us watched a documentary called RIP: A Remix Manifesto and talked about remixing and sampling and freedom in the digital age (see also FreeBieber.org) We also talked about a project Jori had recently seen in New Orleans called “The Music Box” (aka A Shantytown Sound Library, or Phase 1 of Dithyrambalina). What an amazing few days!
Bach Arioso
[audio:http://www.communitymusicworks.org/medialab/wp-content/uploads/2011/11/07-Arioso.mp3|titles=07 Arioso]
Day 4We have been working on our music individually in the last 4 classes, using our field recordings from Day 1. Here is what we did in our fourth class: 1. Went outside to get field recordings The results are here! Aiden S [audio:http://www.communitymusicworks.org/medialab/wp-content/uploads/2011/11/Aiden2.mp3|titles=Aiden S] Brandon L [audio:http://www.communitymusicworks.org/medialab/wp-content/uploads/2011/11/Brandon.mp3|titles=Brandon L] Gabriel V [audio:http://www.communitymusicworks.org/medialab/wp-content/uploads/2011/11/Gabriel1.mp3|titles=Gabriel] Malachy H [audio:http://www.communitymusicworks.org/medialab/wp-content/uploads/2011/11/MalachyField.mp3|titles=Malachy H] Sofie L [audio:http://www.communitymusicworks.org/medialab/wp-content/uploads/2011/11/Sophie.mp3|titles=Sofie L]
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