This spring the Media Lab class had the great privilege to work closely with three local composers/experimental musicians: Bevin Kelley, Geoff Mullen, and Vic Rawlings. Their work together culminated in a final performance in May at the Knight Memorial Library. The whole experience was a great opportunity for the kids to be exposed to music that they might have not played or heard otherwise.

Over two months each visiting artist came and worked with the class, each focusing on different aspects of electronic music. Vic Rawlings carefully guided them through the use of extended techniques and preparations on their amplified instruments. Bevin Kelley focused on having the kids play their instruments along with live and pre-recorded electronic sounds and video projection and Geoff Mullen explored ideas behind field recordings and creative uses of space.

The final concert also gave the opportunity for us to feature the work of one of CMW’s students, Malachy Hopkins, who created two pieces specifically for the concert.

Collateral Damage (live and prerecorded/manipulated cello)

2013-06-01CmwKnightLibrary_03_HopkinsMalachy_Collateral Damage

Green Zone

2013-06-01CmwKnightLibrary_05_HopkinsMalachy_GreenZone

Today we were visited by Erik Carlson, who performs as “Area C.”

Erik is a Providence musician who works with various pedals and other electronic hardware to make his music.

He showed us the equipment he works with, how he sets it up, and what each piece of hardware does. He performed for us, let us control his equipment, and even let us play!

We are hopefully going to have access to some similar equipment soon, and we can’t wait to make more of our own music with it!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

More about Erik:

Erik Carlson is a composer, media artist and architect based in Providence. His work examines sound as an evocative presence, often acting as a marker, in the physical and mental spaces we inhabit. Since 2002 he has been recording and performing under the name AREA C, whose compositions work with timbre, texture and live loops, exploring cyclical relationships and the details of their decay over time. Improvisation plays an important part in both recordings and live performances, encompassing extended explorations of minimal rhythm and melody, drawing on remnants of other times and places, outdated and untested technologies, signals sent out but never received

In 2009, Carlson received the MacColl-Johnson Fellowship in music composition and he is currently working on new commissions for the NASA RI Space Grant Consortium and the LEF Foundation. In 2010 he composed the score for the Emmy-nominated documentary, “Witness: Katrina,” which premiered on the National Geographic Channel. His permanent sound installation (“Low Rez/Hi Fi,” a collaboration with architect Meejin Yoon) can be viewed at 1110 Vermont Avenue in Washington DC.

AREA C’s sixth full-length CD, titled “Map of Circular Thought,” was released in January 2011 on Preservation Records (Australia). Previous releases include “The Planetarium Project” on Sedimental (a double CD of four live collaborative performances at the Cormack Planetarium in Providence, RI), and full-length albums on Students of Decay, Sloow Tapes, and Last Visible Dog.

Learn more at: http://www.areacmusic.com/

 

 

This semester’s Media Lab photography class is working in the ArtPlace triangle to create images that will be used in one of the ArtPlace performance installations next semester. As an exercise to work on our photo skills and camera use, we most recently captured patterns from the neighborhood to contribute to The People to Come, a participatory performance project featuring music by Laura Cetilia and Production Managed by new CMW Managing Director Kimberly Young.

Learn more here:

http://thepeopletocome.org/

And see some of our photos here:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

This fall’s electronic music class is off to a great start! We’re using Logic to remix Bach cello suites for the upcoming Bach Festival.

Final remixes will be posted in a few weeks! Stay tuned.

The concert was a success! Despite having only a few short rehearsals, CMW students, alumni, teachers, and visiting musicians performed the four pieces beautifully to a sizable crowd. Listen/watch/read about them below.

PHOTOS (rehearsal and performance)

 

MUSIC

C.L. (Sakiko Mori, 2012)

This is music I wrote mostly in my head, hoping to make a scenery of sounds that’s there to live, being what they are and doing what they do, neither more nor less. Thank you to the performers for taking this music out of my head and giving it a life, helping it to grow.

Listen:

[audio:http://www.communitymusicworks.org/medialab/wp-content/uploads/2012/06/Sakiko.mp3|titles=SakikoCL]

Watch:

Shutter (Liam Hopkins, 2012)

This was a piece I originally composed mostly in the music program Logic. It was based on the idea of looping a recorded sound to create rhythmic texture. I recorded the sound of film camera’s shutter release and eventually added the violin/viola part you will hear.

In this live performance, the film camera is replaced by a digital camera, more capable of the fast shutter speeds used for this piece, and all the string parts are played by real performers and not looped by a computer.

Listen:

[audio:http://www.communitymusicworks.org/medialab/wp-content/uploads/2012/06/Shutter.mp3|titles=LiamShutter]

Watch:

Scratch (Liam Hopkins, 2012)

Scratch is a composition for string orchestra and field recordings. The strings section is in C major and based on a melody first exposed in the viola section. Underlying the strings part, there is texture of sounds recorded at a string restoration workshop. The piece is largely in sonata form with an interlude in the middle that could most accurately be described as a solo by the operator of the cassette tape players, which contain the recorded sounds from the field recordings.

Big thanks to Gus from Zachary S. Martin, Luthier Contrabass & Cello workshop in Pawtucket, for having us record sounds in the workshop.

Listen:

[audio:http://www.communitymusicworks.org/medialab/wp-content/uploads/2012/06/LiamScratch.mp3|titles=LiamScratch]

Watch:

Creatures of the Night, for string orchestra and recorded sound (Forrest Larson, 2012)

Creatures of the Night, was inspired by a life-long fascination with sounds of the night. Sometimes the source of the sounds are known, but others have mysterious origins. Surely the critters who lived under my childhood bed made sounds. Maybe a few of them are in this piece. Thanks to Sakiko Mori and Community Musicworks for commissioning this piece, and the opportunity to work with some of the students. It has also been a joy to have participants from Institute for Musicianship and Public Service filling out the orchestra.

Listen:

[audio:http://www.communitymusicworks.org/medialab/wp-content/uploads/2012/06/ForrestCreatures.mp3|titles=ForrestCreatures]

Watch:

Rehearsal Recording:

MUSICIANS

About the composers

Forrest Larson

Composer, violist and electronic musician Forrest Larson has composed both

instrumental and electronic music. His work includes both strictly composed music and live improvised electronic music. Instrumental works include music for string orchestra, wind ensemble as well as pieces for unaccompanied violin, viola and cello.

He has had a life-long love of old pre-digital analog electronic instruments, and of collecting “found sounds” from both natural as well as urban landscapes. Analog devices such as oscillators, stomp box filters and shortwave radios are of particular interest.

Some of his works combine electronic sounds and live acoustic instruments. Other work includes electronic scores for abstract films and for solo dancer. His music has been performed locally at various venues in the Providence and Boston area such as the Pixilerations Festival, AS220, Firehouse 13, Mobius, Outpost 186, MIT, Brandeis University, and at the experimental music series CTRL+ALT+REPEAT in Providence, RI. Other performances have been at Carnegie-Mellon University, Washington and Jefferson University (PA), Mansfield University (PA), Southern Oregon University, in Ithaca NY and in Iceland. As a violist, he has played in the New England Philharmonic, Boston Chamber Ensemble, and other chamber groups. He also played violin in the Commonwealth Vintage Dance Orchestra, performed traditional Scottish fiddle music and was the musician for the Middlesex Morris Dancers.

Currently he plays analog electronic instruments with the quartet Sonic Sandbox.

Sakiko Mori 

Sakiko Mori is a musician and a piano tuner currently living in Providence. She mainly plays piano, keyboard instruments, and drums. Sakiko has collaborated with film makers, animation artists, and dancers, as well as performed and recorded music with many individuals and groups.  She co-runs the Experimental Music Lab at Community MusicWorks with Jori Ketten, CMW Media Lab Director.

Liam Hopkins

CMW student Liam Hopkins is a rising high school junior and enjoys playing the viola, composing music, and taking photographs.

 

Performers

Participants in the Institute for Musicianship and Public Service

Eve Boltax, Brianna DeWitt, Isabel Escalante, Joshua Burgos Gonzalez, Mari Lee, Taylor Morris, Lauren Nelson, Maggie Schenk, Jaunter Sears, Andrea Sisco, Jared Snyder, Bryan Susma

CMW Teachers and Mentors

Carole Bestvater, Jesse Holstein, Robin Gilbert, Laura Cetilia, David Lee, Sakiko Mori

CMW Alumni

Joshua Rodriguez, Sidney Argueta

CMW Phase II and Media Lab Students

Heather Argueta, AlexisMarie Nelson, Jose Baez, Angie Descollines, Liam Hopkins, Andrew Oung, August Packard, Paola Pena, Alana Perez, Matthew Ricci, Alondra Rivera, Ian Rosales, Natasha Rosario, Jaxine Wolfe, Jesse Woodbury, Emily Cabreja, Aiden Sullivan, Malachy Hopkins

 

 

We have been hard at work preparing for our June 2 concert at Knight Memorial Library. Featuring new pieces by local composer Forrest Larson, our teacher and composer/performer Sakiko Mori, and two pieces by CMW student Liam Hopkins, this is a concert not to be missed!

 

Whew! The last 6 weeks are a blur. In this short time, we came up with an idea for a movie, created characters, wrote out scenes individually, and combined them into a script. We talked about the mood of each scene and created (and recorded) music on our instruments to score the scenes. Then we filmed the scenes, revised our script a little, created some new music to fit the revisions, and put it all together into our final movie… the Pillow Monster!!!! Enjoy.

Today we went on a field trip to Zachary S. Martin, Luthier Restorations in Pawtucket.This is a workshop specializing in repair & restoration of contrabass and cello, by Zachary. (He is also known  as Gus, so we’ll call him Gus!) Gus showed us the workshop and gave us a basic but thorough explanation of how string instruments are made and repaired. He showed us all the different stages of the whole process.

Today marked the beginning of an epic adventure.

David, Juan (Jay), Gaby (Gabrielle), Anthony, Sienna, Jori, and Laura have devised a truly incredible movie treatment involving pillow monsters, snow, and (of course), music.

Backing up, class started with a conversation about the Media Lab for those who were new to the space. We looked at the Media Lab website, and checked out current and past Media Lab student projects, including work from the Experimental Music class and the Different Trains classes.

From there we started talking about narrative, and elements of narrative including:

– setting
– plot
– conflict
– characters
– point of view

We next watched some music videos, including Black Leaf’s The Cave Singers and Math the Band’s Four to Six. We talked about narrative (and a lot of other things) relevant to these videos, and then looked up some music on the Free Music Archive to see how the videos looked with music that had a different feel than the original soundtracks. We also looked at a simple home movie, Friday I’m in Love, as a way to talk about something that was shot almost exclusively in one location yet still held our interest.

We also checked out this awesome video, Birds on the Wires, which helped us think a little abstractly, and then the more literal Peter and the Wolf, in which we saw different instruments and sounds representing specific characters in a narrative.

After that we collectively wrote a kind of secret and very awesome plot for a movie we’ll be making – and scoring – as a class. Stay tuned to see how the project progresses!

 

After many weeks of rehearsal, the Cage Centennial Concert at the Arsenal finally arrived.

In the words of one concert-goer:

“I’ve never attended a show of this type of music, or sound art, or whatever it is referred to as. It mostly had the same effect on me as meditating – forcing me to confront uncomfortable thoughts or acute self-consciousness. It was very different than listening to it recorded. I was really effected by the one with four or five percussionist around room, and the one with the guy reading cage writings and kids eating carrots and cereal and people playing checkers. Those kids were cool.”

Thanks to Laura and Mark Cetilia for organizing the show!