Square Waves Take the Stage - Pulsewave (NYC)

Every month something special happens in the bowels of New York City - an event where hipsters and geeks come together and forget their differences to unite as one under gameboy God.

Pulsewave is a monthly event held at The Tank in NYC which features "lo-bit" music, or chiptunes - music created entirely through the use of a Gameboy, Nintendo, or other device limited in some manner. Most articles that you'll come across about this technique of composition (and mind you, it's not a genre) immediately make a comparison to video game soundtracks, and use the words "bleep," "bloop," and "mario" in some sort of degrading fashion that makes nobody happy.

Being centered in Ohio, I rarely get to attend anything quite like this. The 8-bit scene flourishes primarily in New York City and San Francisco or at conventions where these musicians often meet (MAGFest, being one such example). I was lucky enough to see my friend Zen Albatross perform a live set that absolutely blew me away, and of the three featured artists I found his music most engaging. Also performing was a vivacious musician named Minusbaby, who managed to blow the sound system, and another Active Knowledge, who did some exciting covers that resonated with my internal love for pop music (Lady GaGa, Of Montreal).

I'm no expert on the artform, but seeing what other musicians are doing around the country is extremely exciting, especially when its done in a way that presents my childhood in a burning flame of nostalgic discharge and hurls it at my face. If you're interested in checking out Chiptunes, a good start might be Shael Riley and the Double Ice Backfire, which combines chip and pop, or if you like your hiphop roots go for A_Rival from San Francisco. If you want to jump right in, I can only recommend Zen Albatross. Also, start googling Jake Kaufman (virt), Minusbaby, Nullsleep, Bit-shifter, Inverse Phase, ....... (zzz). The genres expressed are limitless, find your own preferences and begin leveling up. Ico Bukvic will start rolling around with stomach aches.

LEGO Sequencer

Here's something I found:



The TechEBlog follows it here.

The Linux Laptop Orchestra

Though I realize the article to which I'm referring:

http://createdigitalmusic.com/2009/12/21/an-orchestra-of-linux-laptops-and-how-to-make-your-own-laptop-instrument/#more-8773

is a bit old, nevertheless it warrants some conversation. In recent years, there has been an absolute boom in laptop performance, with orchestras sprouting out as far as Montana, modeled in many ways after the PLOrk/SLOrk phenomena. Dr. Ivica Ico Bukvic will be returning to CCM for a live performance with his Linux Laptop Orchestra (L2Ork), which has for the most part focused on creating music using the Linux OS and finding new ways to build speakers for less money. Trust me, I just completed my third trip to IKEA for our own salad bowls, building speakers off of Ico's design. (IKEA must be wondering why their salad bowls are becoming so popular with the computer music community. Then again, maybe not.) Soon, CCM will be presenting our own laptop orchestra, name TBD, but we are equipped with speakers and Wii-motes, another necessity.

All of these implements (IKEA bowls, Wii-motes) are becoming a relative necessity in the laptop orchestra community. I am researching the topic of aesthetics in laptop performance for an independent study next quarter, but I think the article on cdm and the conversations it provoked are very interesting. Coming from Milwaukee, I played for two years in MiLO (Milwaukee Laptop Orchestra), a group founded by Dr. Christopher Burns. We, however, didn't utilize the same spatial elements of PLOrk, etc. (individual speaker pods), nor Wii-mote movement, instead focusing our performances around collective improvisation often utilizing real-time video processing and guest instrumentalists. In short, I'm finding all of these trends to be very interesting to study. I can't help but ask myself: Are we nearing a point of a normative performing aesthetic in the realm of laptop performance? Will the laptop orchestra one day be as prevalent as the symphony orchestra?

RTcmix standalone

At a recent visit to CCM and the computer music studios, RTcmix contributor Brad Garton provided us with a demonstration of RTcmix programming and new applications for the iPhone. A new piece of information was especially exciting to to hear: The creation of an RTcmix standalone application for Mac and Windows. Users of RTcmix are most likely to interact with the application via the Mac OS terminal or as the [rtcmix~] object in Max/MSP. However, the new standalone allows the user to create RTcmix scores, see working audio in a buffer, edit, save, and record sound output all without the need of any UNIX commands or owning Max. The application can be found at Brad's website: http://music.columbia.edu/~brad/rtcmix-standalone/

Another exciting piece of news for Pure Data users: Miller Puckette will be teaching at Columbia next year, working with Brad on a number of projects, including an [rtcmix~] object for Pd. As a loyal Pd user, I can't wait.

Sounds of CCM^2 past...

Earlier this year we wrote about a compilation album featuring many of CCM's own composers, including Danny Clay, T.R. Beery, and myself. The album, Songs for the Cure '10 was released today with music from several CCM students, but one of particular interest is the piece by CCM^2 alumnus Inez S. deDeugd-McComas.

Inez's piece, "Chop, Chop (Julie's Story)" is a unique piece in Inez's signature story-telling style that effectively captures the many immersive features of the Amazon jungle using rich soundscapes and captivating narrative.

Also included on the album is composer Danny Clay's "In The Morning," as performed by pianist Dan Sato and soprano Tara Morrow, and T.R. Beery's "7 Breaths". I think both Danny and T.R. would better appreciate their music to speak on their own behalf, so without further ado...