gresponse1/gresponse2/gresponse3/gresponse4/gresponse5
hardware:
Apple PowerBook G4/OSX
software:
RTcmix,
max/msp ([rtcmix~])
Digital Performer 4
Out of the blue, my friend
Gregory Taylor
started sending me CDs containing long, wonderful improvisations
he had been doing. I really enjoyed his music, and instead of
writing a dopey e-mail message saying hey Gregory I really enjoyed
your music I thought I might better express my appreciation by
APPROPRIATING THAT MUSIC and using it as if it were my own.
So there, you Gregory Taylor you!
After sending Gregory the first "response", he sent me back another
CD. I began to think of these as being part of a very time-extended
jam, where 'trading fours' took place over the course of four months
or so. The exchange gives me a chance to try out new signal-processing
tricks, etc. by having a set of sonic materials already present to work
upon. The exchange is a little asymmetrical in that Gregory's pieces
tend to be about 40-60 minutes in length, where mine average about 7 minutes.
I guess I've become one of those fast-talking East Coast Nyoo Yahkuhs now.
Here are a few comments on the individual pieces:
gresponse1
Believe it or not, there's actually an unfolding harmonic scheme
to this piece built around an expanding set of dyads.
Whoooooooo!!!!!!!!
I pushed the DP4 time-stretching algo to the point where it really
broke down. There is the sound of a book at the beginning. I like
boooks; so does Gregory.
gresponse2
There was a really nice section with a snazzy "groove" to it, so I built
the piece around that tiny segment. The percussion is a set of toy instruments
of my son's, rhythms generated algorhythmically of course (I'm not a good
funkmeister on my own).
gresponse3
I was fairly blitzed this summer (2004). Jonathan Kramer died, and Lian was
leaving. I sat upstairs and recorded myself sitting upstairs one
afternoon. This is that segment. Jill thinks it's pretty self-indulgent,
and she is correct.
gresponse4
I felt like filtering some big ole sounds. Exploring drawing filter
curves in DP4. Christmas present for Gregory! This was fun; only took
about a day.
gresponse5
I spent about a month in Japan working with Akira Takaoka at Tamagawa
University. It seemed appropriate to weave some location recordings I
had made from Akira's house in Machida (suburb of Tokya) and outside his
family 'cabin' in the mountains of Nagano Prefecture because Greg and I
had talked about Japan quite a bit. The piece investigates different ways
of modulating between the world of Gregory's
amalgam_2: copper/mercury music and the sounds of Japan in
June. I also wanted to preserve the ebb and flow of Gregory's original
piece, so instead of excerpting small portions as in previous 'gresponses',
I compressed the entire piece by taking 10-second chunks and mixing
them into each other spaced at 1 second intervals.