The Third Rail played a very nice improv gig at Lebowski's, a lovely venue in Moreland, on Sunday night, April 26. The lineup for the evening was Warren Burt, iPad and iPhone, Gary Butler, guitar and things, Houston Dunleavy, clarinet, Margaret Dunleavy making a most impressive improv debut on vocals, Adam Simmons on winds (including English Horn!), and Ren Walters on guitar and things. A lovely time was had by all, and many thanks to the crew at Lebowski's for making it happen. Catherine Schieve filmed a section of the improv using my Sony Experia phone/camera, and the results came out very well. Here's 12:48 of the proceedings, which was about 1/4 of the gig. Enjoy!
Our neighbour, David Bromley, got a number of these wooden shipping containers for use in his art gallery, which is right next to Catherine's Ozkiva Shop/Studio. Lots of people have been thinking of uses for them, but for me, of course, they looked like portable performance spaces. Which, of course.....I guess it's just an example of learning to think, and perform, INSIDE the box.....the software is Saucillator, running on my Sony Experia Android Phone, on a cold and rainy autumn morning. Video by Catherine Schieve.
My good friend Le Tuan Hung, who runs the Sonic Gallery, his "Exhibition Space for Experimental and Cross-Cultural Music" has put my piece "Perfect Harmony for David Dunn, up on his website. Take a click over there and have a look at the website - he has lots of interesting things up there. In addition to my piece, some recent entries are "Quan Ho Singing in Bac Ninh Region, Vietnam," a long and very interesting paper, "Composing for Japanese Instruments, by Marty Regan," and Le's own "A Song for SKy Bells." Thanks Le! It's great to be in such good company! Here's the link: http://sonicgallery.org/2015/03/29/perfect-harmony-for-david-dunn/
I just had published, in Soundbytes magazine (soundbytesmag.net) my review of 2CAudio's new and wonderful program Kaleidoscope. http://soundbytesmag.net/wcaudiokaleidoscope/ Kaleidoscope, as you'll see, is an amazing new take on the idea of graphic synthesis, as well as offering tuning resources not before available with that technique. I also conducted an interview with Andrew Souter, the developer of Kaleidosope, and a lovely guy he is too. Here's a link to that interview, in the same issue: http://soundbytesmag.net/andrewsouterinterview/.
Here's a look at the GUI of Kaleidoscope - which is explained in detail in the article.
And here's a 24 minute long piece I just finished with Kaleidoscope. This is about 6 different patterns made with Kaleidoscope and mixed, using about 4 or 5 different tunings. It's called "Kaleidoscope Mix Nr 2," although I know I could do better than that for a title.
From the Netherlands comes the sad news of the passing of Paul Panhuysen, visual artist, sound artist, composer, ornithologist, curator, writer, and so much more. As well as doing his own work, Paul, together with his wife Helene, ran Het Apollohuis, an amazing venue for visual and sound arts, in their hometown of Eindhoven. I remember a wonderful time staying with them in 2000, in which Paul and I made a piece together. We also walked across Eindhoven to a music shop to pick up 4 Alesis AirF/X units, a walk that took about an hour each way. It was quite a lovely walk, and we talked about many interesting things that afternoon. Paul was a wonderful gentleman and a phenomenal artist, very clear in his structuralist aims and realizations. He will be much missed. For more information on Paul and his work, go here.
Here's a picture of Paul and Helene:
As a small memorial to Paul, I wrote this piece, "Three Movements in Memoriam Paul Panhuysen." Like much of Paul's work, there is a structural idea underlying the piece. In this case, each movement consists of a playing through of a series of all 131 dyads which exist between the 12 members of a 12-note microtonal scale. In the first movement, there is just one version of the scale playing. The second movement has 2 simultaneous orderings of all the dyads, and the third movement has 3 orders of the dyads. A different 12-note microtonal scale (from my Triangle Scales Catalog, based on Erv Wilson's Mt Meru scales) is used for each movement. The structure is realized with John Dunn's ArtWonk, and the piano sounds are made with the Garritan Personal Orchestra Steinway Piano samples, tuned by files made in Manuel op de Coul's Scala. Each of the three movements is approximately the same duration,and is played in the same tempo. The thickening of the texture in each movement gives the work a feeling of slight acceleration.
Warren Burt: Three Movements in Memoriam Paul Panhuysen, Movement 1
Warren Burt: Three Movemens in Memoriam Paul Panhuysen, Movement 2
Warren Burt: Three Movements in Memoriam Paul Panhuysen, Movement 3
Wednesday, May 6, 2015 at 9:27PM 
