Transcripts are now available for Radio MACBA’s Composing with Process: Perspectives on Generative Systems Music (the podcast series by Mark Fell and Joe Gilmore on generative approaches to composition and performance):

Transcript episode #1.1. Continue :: Transcript episode #2.1. Systems :: Transcript episode #3.1. Determinacy and indeterminacy :: Transcript episode #4.1. Time :: Transcript episode #51. Duration

Generative music is a term used to describe music which has been composed using a set of rules or system. Continue reading

“Machines” is an intersection of sculpture, music, and performance. Large metal machines powered by motors, solenoids, pneumatics, and hydraulics, built from the waste of post industrialism. Booming percussives, low frequency vibrations, and howling pipes – all operated to create sounds by musicians poised at control panels.

Kris Perry will start each sculpture from an industrial machine that has been taken out of use. I will travel to scrap yards, auctions, and industrial suppliers to seek out machines that have a combination of visual appeal and functionality. Grinders, shakers, lathes, presses, mills, compressors, saws, and specialized machinery will be the starting point for my works

You can help support his project here.

Oterp is a mobile phone game project using a GPS sensor to manipulate music in real time, depending on the player’s position on Earth. It generates new melodies when travelling. The objective of Oterp is to mix the reality of our everyday environment with a video game. This is a new way to imagine our movements in a society increasingly on the move and dependent on mobile interfaces.

Freewaves and Kaleidoscope of Pacific Standard Time announce the Los Angeles presentation of RE:COMPOSITION, a thematic program of four new performances dedicated to the liberating spirit of California-native John Cage’s centenary in 2012. :: January 27-28, 2012; 8:00 pm :: Southern California Institute of Architecture (SciArc), 960 E. 3rd Street + Parking Lot: 350 Merrick Street between Traction and 4th, Los Angeles, CA + live stream via http://dublab.com.

Conceived and produced by independent curator Julie Lazar, RE:COMPOSITION considers how current compositional practices are enabling artists in a variety of disciplines to re-conceive or reconstitute aspects of their art production. Continue reading

The New Sound of Music is a fascinating BBC historical documentary from the year 1979. It charts the development of recorded music from the first barrel organs, pianolas, the phonograph, the magnetic tape recorder and onto the concepts of musique concrete and electronic music development with voltage-controlled oscillators making up the analogue synthesizers of the day. EMS Synthesizers and equipment are a heavily featured technology resource in this film, with the show’s host, Michael Rodd, demonstrating the EMS VCS3 synthesizer and it’s waveform output.

Bartholomäus Traubeck’s artwork Years is a converted record player that can play cross-sectional slices taken from a tree trunk. [via]

Composing with Process: Perspectives on Generative and Systems Music #5.1: Duration (97′ 56”) by Mark Fell and Joe Gilmore. Narrated by Connie Treanor.

The fifth episode in the series continues to explore the idea of time in music practice, particularly in relation to duration. The show looks at how music is measured in terms of both micro and macroscopic intervals: through granular synthesis, where sound is constructed from microscopic sonic ‘grains’, to extended works whose duration is measured not in minutes and seconds, but years. Bringing together ideas and theories of the engineer Denis Gabor and composers Iannis Xenakis and Curtis Roads, this episode examines early tape and computer music works using granular and pulsar synthesis. The show closes with a focus on two recent treatments of time in music by the German artist Hanne Darboven and media producer Terre Thaemlitz.

VersuS On RaiTunes, Musical Voyage On The Emotions Of The Planet: Travel through 6 cities, in Italy, Europe and the United States. A live performance capturing in real time the emotions of cities, in an open dialogue with music. Continue reading

New Flesh Network is a musical performance for choir - controlled by The Musical Turk :: by Olle Cornéer and Martin Lübcke ::

New Flesh Network from Olle Corneer on Vimeo.

Every person in the choir wears a pair of ear muffs cancelling out all sounds, making them hear only the instructions that they individually receive in their in-ear headphones. The music is improvised and reflects the network it is a part of. Every person executes a simple task, but the result is complex and organic. Continue reading

Technology Review is running an article on the emerging art of algorithmic music. Continue reading