WAAPA Music : Composition : WAAPA Musicians Blog

This work performed by ECUatorial memebers AJ Teo and Jayce
luciersnareedit.mp3

ECUatorial students Jo Mansell, Sean Bernard and Casey Chan perform this work, here in part. Lucier_NothingIsReal

I was sitting at home and wanted to just sit in the quiet. It had been a big couple days of working and sitting still the quiet was something I had been craving. It was my time for quiet time … or so i thought. The longer I sat there, my ears were tuning themselves into sounds around me. I could hear the dogs running around outside defending the universe, cars driving past, the faint laughter of the neighbours, but most of all, I left the computer on. While trying to tune out the noises coming from outside, the constant hum of the computer was getting more and more intense. Logically, the computer tower wasn’t getting louder. My ears were just tuning into the hum more and more each second that went by. It reminded me of the projector in the midi lab, when everything is quiet and all you can hear is the hum of the projector getting louder. Similar situation, except it didn’t matter which room i went and sat in, the computer hum was getting progressively louder the longer I sat still in one position. Coming to waapa has definitely retuned my ears, so much that I find myself hearing other people’s conversations from the other side of the room, whereas before, I wouldn’t have even thought about what they were saying because all i’d hear was mumbling. It’s amazing how unquiet places actually are, and how many different sounds your ears tune themselves to when all you want is a bit of quiet time.

output-1-2.mp3

Coming home from the city on the bus the other day gave my idea for my acousmatic recording. I was sitting on the bus in a half dazed state, not feeling particularly well, when my ears started to hone in on the sounds and noises the bus was making. It was one of the newer diesel engined buses and these engines provided some very interesting sounds. As the bus accelerated and decelerated, I noticed that the engine was making long glissandi or portamento like noises. The engine would rev up to a certain speed and a musical drone could be heard, a definitive pitch would be audible, and as the bus accelerated the noise would make a slow up wards glissandi to another pitch before disappearing as the bus changed gears. The same occurred as the bus decelerated expect that the glissandi went in a downwards direction. Sometimes at a certain engine speed a drone could be heard, sustained at one pitch until a change in road conditions or driving speed made it disappear.

Bus Noise

Field Report (7/4/08)

This is not really a field report but I think it is worthy enough. This particular field report is of a certain cricket that somehow managed to find its way into my house. I had just come back from eneksis rehearsal and as I headed towards the bathroom, I noticed a loud, unique chirping sound coming from behind the washing machine. I realized that it was a cricket, but it had to be a male cricket, because only the male ones have wings with ridges that act like a “comb and file” instrument. The sound was hard to describe, sort of like a repetitive clicking sound except with a pitched note. Crickets have two different cricket songs. A calling song and a courting song. The calling song is loud and it attracts females and repels other males, and the courting song is used when a female is near and is a lot softer. In this case it was the calling song, as it was fairly loud, so I was quick to get a recording of it. I actually made two recordings and the sample below is the second one. I was lucky to have the opportunity to record the cricket, because after I went to put the recording on my computer, I heard the sound of someone using bug spray which was a good indicator that the singing insect had been felled…

Cricket FR2

This performance of ALvin Lucier’s GENTLE FIRE is by members of the ECUtorial ensemble, 7_4_08.Gentle Fire by ALvin Lucier

I decided to do my next field report recording on a very small fountain out the back of my place. The fountain creates the obvious sound of running water, and a fairly moderate frequency electronic buzzing sound, which is the sound of the pump running the water. As i recorded the sound of the fountain, i slowly moved the recording device around the bowl of the fountain in a circular motion while fluctuating in height. So if you listen closely you can hear the electronic buzzing gradually increase in volume and then decrease again as the recording device orbits around the fountain.
The sound of the water flowing on to the small pebbles alters slightly aswell as i move the recording device around, not only in volume, but ever so slightly in texture. Depending on which side of the fountain i was recording from and whether or not that side was more directly in line of sight of the device and how the pebbles were angled and positioned to the point of recording.

Well it seems that people enjoy the sound of computers (eg Megalab) so i thought id chime in on the action, although i focused on simply analysing the sound of only one computer, as opposed to several dozen. I recorded the sound, then opened it in a wave editor, and went from there.

First glances at the sound itself, made it very obvious there was a distinct wave pattern. The click of the mouse was interesting, there was a higher pitched click down, then an immediate, slightly lower, click up. The PC hum itself did sound as if it had a strong wave structure to it, it had a very strong frequency, and above that had intermitent high frequency buzzes. The central hum seemed to fluctuate a large amount, in terms of its amplitude. The hum had all these frequencies constantly in its hum, but some of them only showed themselves every now and then, and it did seem to create a constant pattern (as i can see from the waveform image). The hum had a variety of waveforms contained in it (yes thats obvious) but these were ones that could be heard distinctively, and were different from just a typical sinewave. Amongst the central frequency, there was a similar frequency, but it seemed as though it was phasing much faster than the central frequency. This sub frequency made almost exactly the same pitch, but its amplitude wavered at a different rate, a much faster rate, and is almost inaudible unless you listen to the white noise very closely.

The typing on the keyboard was the same as the mouse clicks, only they lasted slightly longer and where slightly lower pitched. They were both distant sounding, although that can be reasoned because of the microphone placement.

PC Hum

Last week, I was sitting outside my mates house, and everyone was talking about a funeral that we had to attend on the Friday. When talking about things like that, it makes you sit back and value who/what you’ve got and what you have around you. Behind me I could hear my mates bird chirping behind me. So happy, not a care in the world, breathing in the fresh air and taking in the sunshine. It made me realise that we take so much for granted. This bird is locked up in a cage, he was whistling away like he was so happy, yet we have all have the freedom in the world to fly and live the way we want to. The way I see it, we seem to be constantly struggling to get through situations that we mostly cause ourselves. It sounds stupid, but just listening to this bird made me realise a lot of things about life and what we take for granted. Wouldn’t it be nice if we could be as happy as this bird locked in a cage?

Bird Whitsle

The MegaLab, supposedly a place of work and study. However, sitting here actually doing work, listening to the room and the atmosphere within, it is clear that many in here are just here to get out of the rain and keep warm. Of course, some are also doing work and they contribute thier noises as well.

Casual conversations, sometimes just two people at a time, and at other times many different conversation around the room. The words are mostly unintelligible, with the occasional coherent word or sentence fragment rising to the surface of this atmospheric melting pot.

The predominat noise is that clacky IBM keyboards as people type away. It is a two part sound. A down *clack* and up *pop*. With so many people typing (including myself), there often seems to be some bizarre, unchoreographed percussionistic piece going on around me.

Barely, barely, audible is a background hum of computers, like a whisper, only there if you are really concerntrating on it.

MegaLab 310308