Watching

glass ants talking

Sometimes the programmatic urge is so strong, there is no option other than to bow to it. I imagine movement one as baby ant sculptures having a chat. Movement two would be working ants on their smoko. Movement 3 is the voice of the queen ant. All of them are teeny little sculptures made of coloured glass. And they are on a glass shelf in the sun, someone is imagining their dialogue ergh.... 

I don't know, these are all sounds I kinda just want to hear anyway. For those who aren't a fan of the programmatic (90% of me?) this piece can just be called 'little sounds.'

And I wouldn't mind a collection of intricate glass ant sculptures either.

Ants Talking

First miniature movement of tomorrow's cello piece.

Time Took My Backy

https://soundcloud.com/toby-graham-music/cello-riff/s-FnM96

Off topic post - Vrksasana excerpt

Today's piece is going to take me much longer than a day SO
Like Christine, I'm taking an electronic music class - this is the first two minutes of my piece Vrksasana, for live cello and four speakers.

gLISSando

Dust Dance (it’ll be ok)

Dust Dance (it’ll be ok)

the mythtery of the Normal People

smiling as a currency

I was born two inches deep in dust

I learnt to walk in it

learnt to lift my feet extra high

and breathe minimally

I thought it was normal

at some point I started noticing people noticing

i was extra quiet coz of the minimal breathing thing

maybe people seemed uncomfortable

and they would laugh sometimes when i walked

some people seemed to like it though

they would seek me out to be in my quiet

without me asking or anything

and seemed happy

there was no dust at school 

so I would sometimes breathe loudly just to see

people smiled at me when they saw it was a choice

they saw i was in control, powerful

like a Normal Person

only I wasn’t really

minimal breathing and excess breathing weren’t equal

excess breathing was an exception

a thrilling, unsustainable departure from the norm

regardless, my confidence grew

I started to like the way I walked

people smiled at me when I smiled when I walked

I lifted my feet high

I was proud of the way I walked

and we had pride in common

I was proud of not conforming and

they were proud of conforming and

together we conformed to the norm of pride

I'm not sure it's finished. 

Mirrors

The cello is still detuned from the previous movement, forgot to mention that.

Dance again

Prelude: Mirrors

Current mood : Marlene Dietrich

www.youtube.com/watch?v=4pDjmBy03z8&t=30s

Dance

Had lots of fun today - looking forward to exploring further ways to mess with this on Max.

The Gay Mortician

have a liss

I basically wrote this entire song so that I could rhyme something with 'Breitkopf Edition'

Tomorrow's piece will be ⁿᶦᶜᵉ ᵃⁿᵈ ˢʰᵒʳᵗ

Big Man Hold Me

 

Inspired by my friend Clancy Baxter, who is a fantastic perfumer and musician who makes electronic music under the name Clamore.  He is big and holds me well.  This track in particular:
https://soundcloud.com/clancybaxter/earth-wp

A Vision

I know most of you are doing one of these too! Here's mine.

With an optional 2nd part:

A very quickly-recorded demo:

Intermezzo: The Gay Mortician

This one follows directly on from the story of 'Margery.' The title doesn't really have much to do with this piece, but it's a lead in for tomorrow's (and the final) cabaret song, The Gay Mortician. 

chuck a liss - there's no soprano part, so you'll have to speak along.

Horse Shoes

These words came out very quickly and didn't seem to need much editing but I'm really not sure what I think of them. By the end it feels silly.  Maybe it should be chopped in half. The music is an unrelated fun messy snippet of goof.  

Horse Shoes

Things I smelt and saw

I work the past into fine articles

horse shoes and chain mail

protection worn in other times

and while i work, I smell and see

not just my tools, the pen and paper of now

but duh the bits of the past i am working

the articles i wish to transform 

and as the day passes, I see them in a new light

and a new light, and another

forevery light of day is new

and i start to see the object-to-be

and to know it better than any other friend

you cannot know a person like a horse shoe

predict every surface and lump

but even a horse shoe may surprise you

the way it glints or sounds when dropped in a certain way

on a certain surface

you cannot know the world like you know a horse-shoe

it is just too big

you can try to predict its movements

and sometimes you will be right

it is the same with people

people are worlds

worlds are enormous

people are enormous

they just don’t fill much space

some take up more in the hope of proving their invisible bigness, absorbing houses and SUV’s

even a horse-shoe can keep whispering to you for weeks and years

“remember who made me? 

how hard I was to pay for? 

how stubbornly i refused to become what i am now?”

a song contains words, lessons:

“This is how it feels to be lonely; 

this is how it feels to find yourself on the ground and not know how you got there; 

this is how it feels to be unalone and inspired!”

It is no surprise, then,

that people, who make words, meaning, whispers, lessons constantly 

and live long, re-regenerated lives 

are impossible to know the way you know a horse-shoe  

But it is also no surprise that they are such fun to try to know:

to learn with through failure and play

appeteaser

These are some of the melodic ideas I plan to use in tomorrow's piece. This is just... as far as I've got.
Score in C.

what dis

I'm so sorry, I'm in such a fuckery mood these last couple of days

there are things in here I want to expand into larger work but I was too blaALHLHGHhh to do them today

MoM Guest: Christine Elise Chen

Andrew here: I definitely need a day off, and my friend in NY Christine is working on a super interesting project at the moment. I asked if she'd share what it's all about and she went and made a video! (below the text) Anyone who likes max patches/female empowerment should get a kick out of this.

- - -

So basically this video is just a video of my max patch running (not the most interesting thing in the world to watch if you’re not trying to learn max).

Here’s a pic of the sensors that I’m using to trigger files at random from three separate banks of sound files:

                                                                                                                                              

And a stupid-grainy close up of my Arduino:

Each sensor is attached to a different object—a Barbie (with flex sensor), a Bible (with motion sensor), and a Vanity (with motion sensor). The overlap of sounds that you hear in the patch video is actually not totally representative of the sound design of the piece. In the final version of this piece there will be a performative element—I have a narrative of gestures/actions/events that I will perform. These include cutting Barbie’s hair, reading from the bible, putting on makeup, and cutting my own hair (if I have the balls!) As I move from station to station, the sounds that will be heard will be only sounds attached to that individual station.

There will also be a projected video component—a four channel surveillance-style live feed with close video of each object station and one wide angle camera.

Basically this piece is about girlhood and how fucked up it is. My basic thesis is that through commercials, toys marketed toward girls, and religion, we as a society actively groom girls to be pleasing objects for men. And this piece couldn’t exist without Freud, that fucker. The way girls are encouraged to interact with their fathers provides a nice fucked up model of how they’ll be encouraged to interact with their sexual partners later in life. The “good girl,” obedient, slender, pleasant to look at and hear, feminine, innocent yet sexual, normative, a pleasing object in appearance, personality, interests, etc. is a commodity and narrative that was actively marketed to me throughout my childhood. The big question then is this: do I actually want to be a “good girl” and do I even have any choice in the matter?

Nice cheerful thoughts for your day.

Christine's website

the heck

the actual heck

Watching

Just a poem today. Written for Andrew.

Watching

As a little girl, in my little-girl room

I had two mirrors.

One for my face, one for my body

The first, large and wide 

At my dressing table

The second, long and slender

On a swinging door

I would pull the door until they showed each other

but they were never face to face

And I would watch myself, with her head turned away

Watching herself, with her head turned away

Watching me

Watch her watch her watch me

None of us could catch the one who watched her watching her.