Journal

Concert at Box Hill Institute May 9 2013

Warren — Mon, 13 May 2013 08:02:11 +0000

Last Thursday, as part of the Performance Seminar Series at Box Hill Institute, I performed 3 pieces, two solo and one duet with Craig Schneider. I had the presence of mind to get them videoed, and enough spare memory cells to remember to bring the camera (!) so we got them recorded. Here they are for you listening and viewing pleasure, complete with the notes to them I put on YouTube.

LETTRIST FANTASY

A live performance for alphabet beads, iPhone and iPad, both with Jorg Piringer's abcedefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz app, voice, and small loudspeakers mounted on my belt. I draw random letters from the alphabeads, then load those into the iOS devices, and use that as a score for an improvisation with letter sounds to accompany the electronic (German) phonemes. I first performed this piece at La Mama Theatre in Carlton, Melbourne in March 2013. This performance was given as part of the Performance Seminar Series at Box Hill Institute on May 9, 2013.

MORNING ON PRINCES PIER

A live electronic performance. With my left hand, I'm performing an iPad with the app SoundSquares by Mark Verstraete. My right hand is performing an Alesis Air F/X, an effects unit with uses hand motion to change the settings of the selected effect. There are four sections to the piece. In each section I'm performing notes from 6 different 7-note scales derived from Ervin Wilson's "Mt. Meru" scales. (www.anaphoria.com/wilson.html‎) With this piece, I'm trying to get beyond the notion of live electronic music performance happening behind a laptop or a keyboard, and make the performance more physical, and body-based. Looking at the video, it's clear that I probably need both a director, to make me stand up straighter, and some refresher Alexander Technique lessons, to get me moving with more ease. Losing 10 kilos wouldn't hurt either. Then again, this performance is a start in a direction I want to go further with. Performed as part of the Performance Seminar Series at Box Hill Institute on Thursday, May 9, 2013 by Warren Burt. Camera by Tim Opie, and many thanks to Tim for doing that. And if you're in Melbourne, do take a trip to Princes Pier in Port Melbourne - it's a very unique and really beautiful environment.

WITHOUT GLUE

Warren Burt: computer programming and live electronics; Craig Schneider, piano. A performance where Craig responds to a score generated by a computer in real time, while Warren plays a computer program that delays and modifies the piano sound live. The score program, for the piano, is written with ArtWonk by John Dunn. It generates a series of jazz changes. The pianist sees instructions such as "Bb min9 13 seconds" or "C Lydian 5 seconds" and improvises with that harmony or scale for the given duration. What the next change will be is not predictable by the pianist, so while working with their improvisational skills, they also have to be truly spontaneous and respond to the unpredictable score on the spot. Meanwhile, the electronics player changes the effects the piano is processed through and changes the settings of the effect live. In this performance, Craig and I achieved a real sense of interplay, throwing aspects of the music back and forth at each other. This was unexpected, but a delight to us both. Given what might be seen as a dystopic situation - having to follow a score out of our control - we not only managed to create beauty with it, but actually have fun. The sound modification used an ASUS netbook computer running AudioMulch (by Ross Bencina) (and note - I'm also premiering my AudioMulch T-Shirt (!) during this performance), and the Glitch 2 plugin (by Kieran Foster). This is controlled by a Korg NanoKontrol processed by John Dunn's ArtWonk. The audio interface is a Roland UA4. This performance took place as part of the Performance Seminar Series at Box Hill Institute, Melbourne, on May 9, 2013. Video camera by Tim Opie - many thanks Tim!

Radio broadcast on 3MBS Melbourne Tuesday 14 May

Warren — Sun, 12 May 2013 01:31:09 +0000

This is rather late notice, but those of you near a radio or an internet stream on Tuesday night, May 14, 2013 at 8pm, can tune into radio station 3MBS-FM 103.5, or on the web at www.3mbs.org.au, where I'll be the guest of Tony Thomas on his Contemporary Visions radio program. We'll be playing a variety of pieces for both acoustic and electronic instruments, older pieces (from the 1980s) and work from the past couple of years. It should be a fun show, so tune in and enjoy!

Drawn from Sound - Perth (better late than never)

Warren — Tue, 07 May 2013 07:06:25 +0000

This is a bit late, but between March 28 and April 12, 2013, my work Gravel was part of an exhibition of graphic music in Australia called Drawn from Sound. It was curated by Cat Hope at the Spectrum Project Space at Edith Cowan University in Mt Lawley, WA. For those of you who missed the show, the website is still up (and will continue to be so), it contains a wealth of information, and is a delight. Just go to drawnfromsound.com and you can read all about the show, and watch a series of videos from performances and presentations at the show. Still want more? There's a 30 minute mp3 of an audiotour of the show at the website. And more? The CATALOGUE is available for $20, also on the website. So even if you didn't experience the show in the flesh, you can still do some virtual attending in the wonderful world of cyberspace.

Intercontinental Radio Improvisation for/with Pauline Oliveros for her 80th birth year.

Warren — Sun, 28 Apr 2013 01:51:13 +0000

On March 25, 2013, at public radio station 3MBS in Melbourne, and at Pauline Oliveros's house in Kingston, New York, we did an intercontinental radio linkup improvisation to celebrate Pauline's 80th birth year - now swiftly merging into her 81st! The project was originated by Vineta Lagzdina, and we worked for a number of months to work out the best technology, venue and way to do this. Radio 3MBS producer Penny Manwaring was very enthusiastic about the project, Pauline suggested Google Hangout as the linkup software (which worked wonderfully) and after a few technical rehearsals, and some virtuoso technical figuring out by 3MBS technical director Cameron Paine and engineer Terry McDermott, the setup was finally worked out. Pauline and Vineta performed on voice, percussion and wind instruments, I performed on electronics, including the John Cage Prepared Piano Android/iOS app. After the performance, Pauline, Vineta and I did an interview where we discussed improvisation and technological linkups in general. I am currently in the process of transcribing that interview, but for now, here are two photographs and the mp3 of the improv itself.

The crew at 3MBS, March 25. L to R top: Warren Burt, Penny Manwaring, producer, Vineta Lagzdina, Terry McDermott, engineer. L bottom, Vineta Lagzdina in the recording studio. R bottom, Warren Burt in the control room. Photos by 3MBS.

Catherine Schieve, Pauline Oliveros and Warren Burt at the Ricketts Point Tea Room, Beaumaris, in 2007 when Pauline visited here. Photo by Ione.

If you like the improv, you can download it here. I hope you enjoy listening to this improvisation as much as we enjoyed playing in it. If you like the improv, you can download it here. And I'm delighted to say that with Google Hangout, there finally is a way for people to intercontinentally improvise in a way that is technologically easy, has low (ish) latency, and is a lot of fun. Hopefully, we'll be doing a lot more of this in the future. Thanks so much to Pauline, Vineta, Penny, Terry, Cameron and everyone else who helped with this project. Enjoy!

Samples II (1987) and Artificial Languages (1981) in MixTape 1980s at the National Gallery of Victoria

Warren — Fri, 12 Apr 2013 12:23:42 +0000

My piece "Samples II: Ravel Homage - That Which is Neither a Deconstruction nor an Appropriation, Neither Bricollage nor Post-Modern" (1987) is on display as part of

Mix Tape 1980s

Appropriation, Subculture, Critical Style

which is on at The Ian Potter Centre: NGV Australia at Federation Square from 11 Apr – 01 Sep 2013.

While mostly a show of visual works, there are four iPads attached to the walls of the exhibition, each with a playlist faceplate (that looks like a blown-up, hand-written cassette label) and a pair of headphones attached to them. Each iPad has a different playlist on it, chosen by a different person. My piece is on the iPad in the right-hand room of the exhibit, on the right-hand wall, about half-way into the room. The playlist was chosen by Peter Tyndall, to whom I give many thanks for including me. Also on his playlist is "Artificial Languages" (1981) a collaboration between Chris Mann and myself, which was performed by the Astra Choir, John McCaughey directing. The show is well worth seeing - for me, at any rate, there was a lot of nostalgia in seeing works I'd seen many years ago. And especially worth seeing, from a new music historical point of view, is a large wall-full of posters, record jackets and other objects from the Clifton Hill Community Music Centre and Innocent Records, designed by Philip Brophy. So if you're in Melbourne in the Federation Square area, drop in.

Photos from Sound Poetry Performance at La Mama, 18 March 2013

Warren — Fri, 12 Apr 2013 12:05:52 +0000

Here are some photos from a performance I gave as part of La Mama Poetica, on March 18. The performance was organized by Sjaak de Jong, and featured Jaap Blonk, Santo Cassati, jeltje, Sjaak, Mark Lewis, and Peter Fraser as well as myself. A good time was had by all. I was performing on an iPhone (not visible in these pix), an iPad, and voice. My performing material consisted of letters on alphabet beads I drew at random from a small box. I sang/intoned these letters, and also entered them into the iDevices for use in the program abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz, running on both. The captions of the photos (taken by Catherine Schieve) are the phonemes I was performing at the time, according to Catherine.

eeeee

iiiooiiiiooooiiioooiii

Ooooooo

Rrrrrrrrr

Sssssss

Cellular Etudes - A New CD length piece, free for downloading

Warren — Sat, 30 Mar 2013 10:13:25 +0000

From about July 2012 until March 2013, I worked on a series of 12 computer music etudes, each one lasting 5 minutes, called Cellular Etudes. Following on from my earlier Nightshade Etudes, I used a single technique to generate musical information for the piece. In this case, it was the mathematical technique of Cellular Automata. Complete notes for the piece can be downloaded HERE. And you can download mp3 versions of all 12 etudes HERE.

Here are two of the etudes as a sample of the others:

No. 4: A Bureaucrat Tells the Truth

No. 11: Non-Pythagorean Dance for Felix

(which is dedicated to the memory of my dear friend Felix Werder 1922-2012)

I hope you enjoy listening to these two pieces, and if you download the whole thing, I hope you enjoy all of them.

A Blast from the Past - 1995 concert tour video!

Warren — Sat, 02 Feb 2013 00:07:20 +0000

Back in 1995, I was invited by Dan Senn, then of Tacoma, Washington to be part of a new music festival he was putting on called Six Exquisites. The participants were Dan, myself, Jaap Blonk, Johannes S. Sistermanns, Jim Staley and Trimpin. As part of the festival, we toured the show out to Spokane, Washington to the Interplayers Theatre, and Dan videoed part of the performance. Now, years later, he's made an edited version of the show, and put it up on the web at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YHMoUfZl-BA&feature=youtu.be. It's a very nice video. There are brief excerpts from three pieces of mine: "Tuning the Furniture of Chaos," "Werribee Mitsubishi Minnesota Bonsai," (in a duet version with Jaap Blonk), and "Artists are the Roadkill of the Information Superhighway." The real delight of this edit though, are extended takes of spectacular performances by Jaap Blonk and Johannes Sistermanns. A good time was had by all, including the audience, as you'll see. Enjoy!

Two New Articles On Line

Warren — Wed, 02 Jan 2013 09:40:27 +0000

In October I published a review of AudioMulch 2.2.1 (it's now up to 2.2.3) in Wusik Sound Magazine, then in December, I published an article, "Extreme Distortion" in the December issue. The distortion one deals with the idea of using sound modification software to change source sounds to the point where their origin is almost or totally obscured. I mention plugins such as Sonic Charge's Bitspeek and Permut8, and dBlue's Glitch, among others. Here's the link for accessing the magazines: http://www.wusik.com/ww/products/wusik-magazine. The AudioMulch review is on Page 43 of the October 2012 issue, and "Extreme Distortion is on P29 of the December issue. Enjoy.

Moths and Mathematics - Dance piece by Tess de Quincey and Peter Fraser - Music by Warren Burt

Warren — Fri, 28 Dec 2012 09:06:28 +0000

In November, I had the great good fortune to travel up to Sydney and work with Tess de Quincey, Peter Fraser, Boris Morris Boris Baggatini, Martin Fox, Sian James-Holland and the other wonderful members of the production Moths and Mathematics. This is a dance - music - computer graphics - lighting piece that deals with the intersections of science and movement. This week was a creative development week, and at the end of it, a 23 minute performance was given to a select audience. An in-progress video was made, and you can see a provisional edit of the video HERE. I hope you enjoy it, and I hope that work will continue on with the piece, so that we can bring you the full length production (ca. 40 minutes) sometime in early 2014.

Peter Fraser and Tess de Quincey in Moths and Mathematics, November 2012