Saturday, August 04, 2007

North-South (international composition project)

Update

I just uploaded my sounds to Notam server for North-South project. There are 13 fresh soundscape recordings from Helsinki, capital of Finland. I created three categories for the sounds: city, coast, forest.
North-South is an international composition project, 9 South-American composers and 9 Scandinavian composers will compose an electronic work from the environmental sounds which we have recorded for the project. My plan is to compose a work based on South-American bird sounds. Below the tracklist of my sounds for South-American composers.

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HELSINKI CITY
rec. July 30, 2007 (tr. 1-2), July 27, 2007 (tr. 3), July 28, 2007 (tr. 4)

01. Tram (number 4)
- inside crowded tram number 4, at city centre, late afternoon
(4:05pm), people standing close together, Mannerheim street

02. Helsinki Railway Station
- ambience of station hall, people wandering and hanging around, late
afternoon (3:55pm), train announcement from the speakers

03. City buss (number 14)
- squeaky and trembling city buss on rocky street to Eira quarter of
Helsinki city

04. Construction machine
- construction, man at work, a noisy machine, Eira quarter of Helsinki city


HELSINKI COAST
rec. July 27, 2007 (tr. 5-6), July 28, 2007 (tr. 7-9)

05. Harbour - mast
- harbour, a boat mast in wind, Merisatama quarter of Helsinki city

06. Harbour - quay
- harbour, squeaking quay, Merisatama quarter of Helsinki city

07. Seaside - gooses
- group of gooses, Ursulanranta quarter of Helsinki city

08. Seaside - flock
- a young flock peeping in grass, flying flocks, Eira quarter of Helsinki city

09. Seaside - boat
- harbour, passing small boat, flocks, distant people, Eira quarter of
Helsinki city


HELSINKI FOREST
rec. July 15, 2007 (tr. 10-12)

10. Forest - ambience
- forest ambience, birds, strong wind, Old City Bay quarter of Helsinki city

11. Forest - two trees
- forest ambience, two trees touching against each other and squeaking
in strong wind, Lammassaari island in Helsinki

12. Forest - silence
- forest ambience, birds, Old City Bay quarter of Helsinki city


PEOPLE
rec. July 23, 2007 (tr. 13)

13. People and machine
- the moment when I took my new recording machine out from the bag,
put it on the table, and the people around the table thought it was
electroshock weapon. Languages are French, Finnish and English.


Petri Kuljuntausta
August 1st, 2007
Helsinki
Finland

Exhibition Music (DVD) - fall 2007

EXHIBITION / VIDEO MUSIC (DVD)

Phase Two

(English)

I have made source recordings with my old vinyl player, it is from the
1950s and I purchased it some two years ago for this kind of projects.
I have looped old vinyl records and created nicely sounding
noise-tracks. I think this is good material for the work -- it
works well with the video!

These looped tracks create timeless atmosphere, it is stable but at
the same time there is that "eternal rhythm" of locked-grooves --
which is interesting in my opinion. In my record-player system, the
needle dives deeper and deeper inside the vinyl surface when repeating
the same groove segment and thus the surface noise get stronger and
stronger during the process. So it is not just one looped sound which
is heard, instead the sound is changing as the scratching noise gets
stronger.

The room situations on the video are intense and also fragile somehow,
I don't want to brake that silent atmosphere as the video itself tells
so much. The soundtrack should support the story, and create suitable
atmosphere for the situations -- there is no reason to make big
climaxes, use massive sounds or dense layers. This is why I turned to
locked-grooves (and choosed its silent noises, 33 1/3 rhythm, slow
progress...) (I also made some contact-mike recordings, attached the
mike on the top of record-player, but these recordings didn't worked
-- electronic disturbances just didn't worked well in this context, so
I gave up with that material.)

I have looped music as well as silences, like the beginning of a
record (before the music starts), silence tracks between the pieces
and end tracks (before the player stops).

The original music on the records is not the main thing, and in most
cases you can't identify the source music, but because of the context
I think it is important to select 'right' records. I am using Alban Berg's
Lulu (opera), ballett music, perhaps a Thomas Tompkins record --
all these are old vinyl records. The records will damage when
locked & looped this way, but it is not a big thing....

Only think that might be a problem is that sometimes I think that the
pulse of 33 1/3 rpm is too fast for the video. I must think about this
more with the material. But if this pulse is too fast, I could
slow-down the records just a little bit... I have already tested it,
it works, and as a side-effect it creates nice full sound.

EXHIBITION MUSIC

Phase One

(Finnish)


Musiikin pohjaksi valitsin levyhyllystäni vanhan klassisen lp-levyn,
kuten tein aiemmin eräässä Äänen extreme-dvd:n biisissä vuodelta
2005. Tällä kertaa pohjana oleva sävellys on Bela Bartokin The
Three Cornered Hat -balettimusiikki. Valintaan oli syynsä:
- musiikillisesti hän teki siinä aikoinaan uutta ja radikaalia, mutta
kierrätti myös vanhaa (käytti lainateemoja).
- tematiikassa viitataan kolminaisuuteen (kuten myös näyttelyn
tematiikassa)
- ja kolmas syy oli se, että halusin äänimateriaaliksi vinyylilevyn ja
halusin tutkailla sen rahisevia ulottuvuuksia

Sinänsä lähdemateriaalilla ei ole paljoa merkitystä, sillä lähdeteos
ei ole tunnistettavissa, mutta koska levylautaselle jokin äänite
pitää valita, niin päätin ottaa tällä kerralla tuon. Tämän lähtökohdan
voi nähdä nostalgisena valintana, mutta se miten äänitettä käytän
tuskin on sitä. Kukaan ei osta äänitettä -- vaikkapa tuota Bartokia --
kuunnellakseen sen häiriöäänien ulottuvuuksia.

Teknisen toteutuksen suhteen, käytin jälleen vanhaa 50-luvun Collaro
3RC-531 -levysoitintani luuppaamaan vinyylilevyn aiheita, tästä
käytetään nimitystä locked-groove -tekniikka. Etsin levyn musiikista
kohtia jotka sopivat tähän yhteyteen -- kohdat eivät saaneet olla
liian voimakkaita, tai liian orkestraalisia, sillä tuhti musiikki
ei mielestäni sopisi soundillisesti näyttelyyn. Kun löysin sopivan
kohdan, laitoin äänityksen päälle ja äänivarren levylle, ja hetken
aikaa musiikin soitua kone jumitti uran. Käytin myös kohtia levyuran
alusta ja lopusta, sekä musiikin osien välistä, jolloin varsinainen
musiikki ei soinut ja lukitsin soimaan -- 'locked-groovasin' -- näitä
"hiljaisuuksia".

Aloitin neulalla joka on tehty 33 1/3 / rpm albumien soittoa varten,
mutta parin äänityksen jälkeen vaihdoin neulan ja tein useimmat
äänitykset 78/rpm levyille tarkoitetulla neulalla.

Ajoin äänitettävän signaalin Zoom H4 -tallentimelle,
äänitysformaatti oli 48kHz / 24bittiä. Ennen kuin signaali
meni Zoom-tallentimelle, se kulki putkilaitteen läpi, joka toi
soundiin aavistuksen verran harmonista säröä mukaan ja pehmensi
soundia. Siirsin matskut tietokoneelle. Valitsin sopivimmat
nauhoitukset ja hioin niitä tietokoneen ääniohjelmalla lopulliseen
muotoon ja poltin cd-levyille.

Biisien lopullisen soimiseen vaikuttaa paljon myös akustiikka.
Galleriat ja museotilat ovat yleensä aika kovia soundiltaan, mutta
mielessäni voin kuulla kuinka tämä materiaali sopii hyvin galleriaankin.

Huomio erilaisista esitystiloista:
Tilanteen (tilan, kontekstin) mukaan musiikkikokonaisuudesta voi valita
näyttelymusiikiksi ne raidat jotka toimivat parhaiten. Näyttelyn musiikiksi
voi valita yhden raidan, tai useamman, tai vaikka kaikki seitsemän.
Niitä voi pyörittää satunnaisessa järjestyksessäkin: cd-soittimissa ja
playereissä on randomplay / shuffle -toiminto, jolla voi toteuttaa tämän
-- jos niin haluaa.

Nightingale composition (premiere in 2008)

A Project plan for a festival in 2008

My Nightingale digital composition will be ca. 10-15 min long,
it is a new composition, so the work will be premiered at
the festival. The work will be based on sounds of
nightingales, real (natural) and digitally alienated. The second layer
of the work is live electronic part. At the concert I will complete
the texture of the work by playing live with my digital instruments
and sound processors: on the stage I'll manipulate the bird sounds in
real-time, sample the sounds live and play the bird fragments back in
alienated form. I'll create contradicting lines as well as imitate the
birds and create conversations with them by using similar kind of
sound colours and noises as nightingales. I'll mainly recycle the bird
sounds, so my live sounds are mostly based, one way or the other, on
the sounds of nightingales.

My concert performance is solo performance.
Concerning my equipments, I already have all my personal digital
instruments and stage mixer, so there is no need to arrange or rent
anything special for me. Perhaps this info is not needed yet, but
concerning my stage set-up and sound, I'll need 4 lines (2 x stereo)
from the main mixer, and on the stage there should be chair for me and
table for my digital equipments. So my set-up is very easy to arrange.
Good monitoring on the stage would be nice, as well as at least 0.5
hour long soundcheck time with sound man of the concert, and I prefer
dim light in the hall during my performance.

BUT, here comes my second idea, Plan no 2:
- if there is possibility to do something more, I could collaborate
with Finnish video artist Sami van Ingen and he could visualize my
music and create nightingale video work on my composition. Then we
could perform music and video together at the concert. In this case
we'll also need video projector and screen (perhaps some cultural
organization could borrow these?). My solo is fine, but
if we like to add this kind of extra dimension in the nightingale
project, we could do it easily. I have done many concerts with Sami,
so technically and socially it is nothing new for us. But if
the video screening will make our life too problematic at the concert
and the equipments (projector+screen) are too difficult to arrange, I
could always make solo performance and stay on sound...

Also: I am ready to participate if there is any kind of collective
performance arranged at the end of this concert or during the
festival. Perhaps Sonera or Elisa or Saunalahti mobile phone /
Internet company could transfer live sound from a forest to the
concert stage, where we improvise together and could play
with the real-time sounds of that forest and its birds... who knows,
perhaps some of the companies will like the idea...!!