Improvisation, Two Variations on a Watermelon, and a New Timeline for Piano Phase

2019 ◽  
pp. 217-238
Author(s):  
David Chapman
Keyword(s):  
Potential Model ◽  
Phase Shifting ◽  
Critical Reading ◽  
Live Performance ◽  
Audio Recording ◽  
Creative Practice ◽  
Steve Reich ◽  
Left Behind ◽  
Piano Phase

Steve Reich’s Piano Phase (1967) represents a pivotal moment in the composer’s creative practice. With this keyboard duet, the composer felt that he had successfully translated his phase-shifting process to live performance and had left behind earlier improvisatory practices. Documents held in the Steve Reich Collection at the Paul Sacher Stiftung complicate this picture: in the months before its composition and premiere, Reich first revived Music for Two or More Pianos or Piano and Tape (1964) as a potential model for live performance, and in Improvisations on a Watermelons (1966) he explored concepts now firmly associated with Piano Phase. An archival audio recording of the Piano Phase premiere also documents a brief improvisation performed by Reich and Arthur Murphy. This chapter argues for a more critical reading of the composer’s autobiographical statements—such as, “we were not improvising”—and offers a newly detailed timeline for the origins of Piano Phase.

Donohue+: Developing performer-specific electronic improvisatory accompaniment for instrumental improvisation

2021 ◽  
Vol 26 (1) ◽  
pp. 129-139
Author(s):  
Sam Gillies ◽  
Maria Sappho Donohue
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Electronic System ◽  
Instrument Design ◽  
Electronic Systems ◽  
Musical Language ◽  
Live Performance ◽  
Collaborative Process ◽  
Creative Practice ◽  
Free Improvisation ◽  
Music Making

Electronic systems designed to improvise with a live instrumental performer are a constant mediation of musical language and artificial decision-making. Often these systems are designed to elicit a reaction in a very broad way, relying on segmenting and playing back audio material according to a fixed or mobile set of rules or analysis. As a result, such systems can produce an outcome that sounds generic across different improvisers, or restrict meaningful electroacoustic improvisation to those performers with a matching capacity for designing improvisatory electroacoustic processing. This article documents the development of an improvisatory electroacoustic instrument for pianist Maria Donohue as a collaborative process for music-making. The Donohue+ program is a bespoke electroacoustic improvisatory system designed to augment the performance capabilities of Maria, enabling her to achieve new possibilities in live performance. Through the process of development, Maria’s performative style, within the broader context of free improvisation, was analysed and used to design an interactive electronic system. The end result of this process is a meaningful augmentation of the piano in accordance with Maria’s creative practice, differing significantly from other improvising electroacoustic instruments she has previously experimented with. Through the process of development, Donohue+ identifies a practice for instrument design that engages not only with a performer’s musical materials but also with a broader free improvisation aesthetic.

The epic “Künnü körgen Kün Köök” in self-recording and audio recording

2021 ◽  
pp. 51-64
Author(s):  
L. N. Arbachakova ◽  
Keyword(s):  
The Self ◽  
The Sun ◽  
Live Performance ◽  
Audio Recording ◽  
Physical Effort ◽  
Heroic Epic ◽  
Audio Recordings ◽  
Small Period

The paper compares the variants of the Shor heroic epic “Künnü körgen Kün Köök” (“Kün Köök that saw the Sun”) recorded in 1999 with an interval of two months in the narrator’s self-recording (written in January 1999) and in audio recording (recorded in March 1999 by L. Arbachakova from V. E. Tannagashev (1932–2007). The version in the audio recording was performed by the Kai narrator accompanied by komus in the performer’s apartment in Myski city. V. E. Tannagashev learned this epic from his teacher P. N. Amzorov. The small period between the recordings resulted in insignificant discrepancies in the versions that were complementary and hardly influenced the qualitative content of the legend. The Kai narrator’s memory did not let him down, with the plots almost coinciding and different epic formulas used only in some fragments of typical places, or there were some permutations or omissions of lines. Sometimes the narrator uses synonymous words, or there are repetitions and reservations. However, there are practically no such flaws in the self-recordings. The typical points used by the kaichi, sometimes expanded and colorful, sometimes compressed, probably depended on his mood, as well as on different ways of fixing the epic (in the kaichi’s selfrecording and audio recordings). Live performance is influenced by the mood, health of the narrator, and other factors. Self-recordings made by hand are the most time-consuming since they require physical effort, perseverance, attention. It is perhaps for this reason that the recording turned out to be more shortened.

“Machine Fantasies into Human Events”

2019 ◽  
pp. 323-344
Author(s):  
Kerry O’Brien
Keyword(s):  
Assembly Line ◽  
The Body ◽  
Phase Shifting ◽  
Electronic Technology ◽  
Mechanical Control ◽  
Steve Reich ◽  
German Word ◽  
The Future ◽  
History Of ◽  
Compositional Control

For most of 1968 and early 1969, Steve Reich devised and constructed his Phase Shifting Pulse Gate, a machine he designed along with an engineer. However, after only two performances Reich abandoned the machine and renounced the future use of electronic technology in his music, save amplification. Despite this compositional move, various critics of the early 1970s continued to describe Reich’s works in technological or mechanical terms, calling his music “controlling” or akin to the German word “Fließband” (assembly line). Rather than mechanical control, Reich claimed to seek bodily control and often compared his musical practice to yoga, a practice he had maintained for nearly a decade, which markedly informed his notions of musical time, compositional control, and performer freedoms. Drawing from unpublished essays and unreleased recordings, this chapter situates Reich’s music of the 1970s—from Drumming to Music for 18 Musicians—within a broader history of technologies of the body and mind.

scholarly journals Audio recording of the epic and its translation: textological notes

2020 ◽  
pp. 45-54
Author(s):  
L. N. Arbachakova ◽  
E. N. Kuzmina
Keyword(s):  
Native Speakers ◽  
Primary Source ◽  
Main Principle ◽  
Live Performance ◽  
Audio Recording ◽  
Research Material ◽  
The Earth ◽  
The Common ◽  
The Creation

The article presents a textological analysis of the epic “Meret-oolak” performed by D. K. Turushpanov. The decod- ing of “Meret-oolak” audio recording was made by different native speakers − I. Y. Arbachakov and L. N. Arbacha- kova. When working with the archival audio recording of the epic under study as the primary source, the authors followed the main principle of practical textology − the authenticity of the research material. In this study, a com- parison was made of the tirade from “Meret-oolak” (published and translated into Russian in 119 lines) with “Meret sar attyg Meret Oolaқ” (154 lines, respectively), decoded by the authors. The textological analysis revealed that in the version of I. Arbachakov, there are omissions of words, phrases, lines, some epic formulas, and the common place “The Creation of the Earth.” In addition to omissions, typos in the text and inaccuracies in translation into Russian were found. Also, the Russisms with affixes of Shor cases, the phrases adapted in Shor, as well as pure Russisms and Russian vernaculars, were identified. Siberian folklorists engaged in audio decoding of heroic epics noticed the slips of language, repetitions, variorum, and mistakes that are natural in the live performance of the epic. Using the available audio recording of the analyzed text, we were able to repeated- ly listen to it and compare it with the published text. As a result, the authors have identified some words in typical places and restored the epic formulas and one “common place”.

scholarly journals Conversations of Flux and Threshold: Generating an architectural language of art and adaptability.

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
◽  
Jasmin Soedjasa
Keyword(s):  
Rapid Development ◽  
Creative Practice ◽  
Left Behind ◽  
Adaptive Structure ◽  
Fast Pace ◽  
Architectural Language ◽  
Design Proposal ◽  
The Village ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Community Space

<p><b>This thesis investigates two architectural interests of mine, creative practice and the architectural threshold. The research unfolds as the relationship between these two interests develop into a dialogue that explores an adaptive architectural language.</b></p> <p>This research is situated in the context of Mana, Porirua. Porirua’s rapid development into a city has left behind villages such as Mana, that have not kept up with the fast pace of society. With an expectation for growth, this research proposes a framework for adaptable community space at the centre of the village. The framework aims to densify and activate the suburb and alleviate the car-centric pressures on the pedestrian experience.</p> <p>What kind of architectural language is produced through challenging the static nature of the architectural threshold and how might this be impacted by my own creative practices?</p> <p>Following a design-led research structure, my findings through exploratory creative practice work led the research towards the architectural proposal. I developed the relationship between thresholds and creative practices through extensive drawing and model making. By analysing and critically reflecting on this work, an architectural language was revealed. The design proposal was conceived through investigating my interests in creative practice and thresholds through the site in Mana. The result is an adaptive structure that references ideas found in assembly temporality represented through my creative lens.</p>

The Effect of Temperature on the Etch Rate and Roughness of Surfaces Etched With XEF2

2010 ◽  
Author(s):  
Joseph Butner ◽  
Zayd C. Leseman
Keyword(s):  
Etch Rate ◽  
Phase Shifting ◽  
Effect Of Temperature ◽  
Temperature Range ◽  
Left Behind ◽  
Experimental Apparatus ◽  
Temperature Ranges ◽  
Etch Rates ◽  
Etching System

In this work we present results from a pulsed etching system with XeF2 for an expanded temperature range while at the same time determining the roughness of the substrate left behind. The experimental apparatus used for the work presented in this paper is capable of temperature ranges from approximately 100 to 800 K. Data was taken at a constant etching pressure of 1.2 Torr so the effect of temperature on roughness and etch rate could be studied. Etch rates and surface roughnesses were characterized using a vertical scanning and phase shifting interferometer, respectively.

scholarly journals Listening to Improvisation

2019 ◽  
Vol 13 (1-2) ◽  
pp. 2
Author(s):  
Clément Canonne
Keyword(s):  
Aesthetic Experience ◽  
Live Performance ◽  
Audio Recording ◽  
Evaluative Judgments ◽  
The Core ◽  
Knowing That ◽  
Improvised Music ◽  
Listening Experience ◽  
The Aesthetic ◽  
Relational Process

Is there something peculiar in our appreciation of improvised music? How does knowing that the music we are listening to is improvised affect our experience? As a first step in answering these questions, I have conducted an experiment in which an audio recording of the very same piece of music – a saxophone/clarinet freely improvised duet – was presented to 16 listeners, either as an improvisation ("IMPRO" condition), or as the live performance of a composition for saxophone and clarinet ("COMPO" condition). Listeners were encouraged both to reflect on their listening experience and to describe in their own words the music they heard. First, evaluative judgments were strongly different in the two listening conditions: listeners approached the piece with specific sets of values in mind, by relying on different features or different kinds of criteria (aesthetic ones in the COMPO condition vs ethical ones in the IMPRO condition) to ground their appreciative judgments. Second, and maybe more importantly, listening experiences were quite different in the two conditions: in the COMPO condition, the piece was more commonly experienced as a sonic product, with listeners paying great attention to the various acoustical effects achieved by the musicians and to the overall structure (or lack thereof); in the IMPRO condition, the music was often described as a kind of communicational or relational process, with descriptions that largely interweaved music-specific terms and more broadly social terms. Overall, this experiment shows that our listening experience can be dramatically affected by modal considerations, i.e., by how we think the music was produced. More specifically, it sheds some light on what constitutes the core of the aesthetic experience of improvisation by exhibiting what is centrally at play (and what is not) when we listen to collectively improvised music.

scholarly journals Conversations of Flux and Threshold: Generating an architectural language of art and adaptability.

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
◽  
Jasmin Soedjasa
Keyword(s):  
Rapid Development ◽  
Creative Practice ◽  
Left Behind ◽  
Adaptive Structure ◽  
Fast Pace ◽  
Architectural Language ◽  
Design Proposal ◽  
The Village ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Community Space

<p><b>This thesis investigates two architectural interests of mine, creative practice and the architectural threshold. The research unfolds as the relationship between these two interests develop into a dialogue that explores an adaptive architectural language.</b></p> <p>This research is situated in the context of Mana, Porirua. Porirua’s rapid development into a city has left behind villages such as Mana, that have not kept up with the fast pace of society. With an expectation for growth, this research proposes a framework for adaptable community space at the centre of the village. The framework aims to densify and activate the suburb and alleviate the car-centric pressures on the pedestrian experience.</p> <p>What kind of architectural language is produced through challenging the static nature of the architectural threshold and how might this be impacted by my own creative practices?</p> <p>Following a design-led research structure, my findings through exploratory creative practice work led the research towards the architectural proposal. I developed the relationship between thresholds and creative practices through extensive drawing and model making. By analysing and critically reflecting on this work, an architectural language was revealed. The design proposal was conceived through investigating my interests in creative practice and thresholds through the site in Mana. The result is an adaptive structure that references ideas found in assembly temporality represented through my creative lens.</p>

‘Did You Watch the Man or Did You Watch the Goose?’ Children's Responses to Puppets in Live Theatre

2008 ◽  
Vol 24 (4) ◽  
pp. 337-354 ◽  
Author(s):  
Matthew Reason
Keyword(s):  
Visual Arts ◽  
Full Length ◽  
Audience Research ◽  
Live Performance ◽  
Question Asking ◽  
Senior Lecturer ◽  
Young Audiences ◽  
Children's Theatre ◽  
Creative Practice

Puppets are inanimate objects that, when watched by an audience, are invested with life and motion and character. This is particularly the case, we imagine, with children's theatre, where there is a cultural assumption that young audiences engage with the illusion and imaginative experience. In this article Matthew Reason uses innovative visual arts-based audience research to explore this question, asking how children respond to puppets in live theatre. In doing so he engages with questions of reality, illusion, belief, and disbelief in the theatre, as well as with questions about the respect and sophistication of young audiences. Matthew Reason is a Senior Lecturer in Theatre and Head of Programme for MA Studies in Creative Practice at York St John University. In 2006 he published Documentation, Disappearance, and the Representation of Live Performance (Palgrave), and a full-length exploration of children's experiences of live theatre, The Young Audience, will be published by Trentham Books in 2010.

A Close Look at No Child Left Behind

ASHA Leader ◽  
2004 ◽  
Vol 9 (17) ◽  
pp. 1-29
Author(s):  
Susan Boswell
Keyword(s):  
No Child Left Behind ◽  
Left Behind
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