Yoiking in Exeter

The autumn's been a bit weird with dates at Exeter Phoenix. My initial perferences on 15 dates have withered away, through various reasons - double bookings, performer illness, and other cancellations - almost nothing. Indeed the booking for last night's CMN tour by Norwegians Adjagas and the Icelandic Lay Low has been on (on monitors), off, back on (still monitors) and then changed to baby-sittting FOH with the touring engineer, Eivind Steinholm.

When they arrive over an hour earlier than we expected them, I'm still in the process of connecting up FOH, and although the monitors are in situ and plugged up, and nothing has been tested. Eivind is rather happy with this, as the mic plot is different from the advance info we've received (this is more common than you'd think). And he brought his own mics - helps the vocalist avoid colds and other infections. Lawra and Inga from Adjagas use Shure SM58, and Lovisa Sigrunadottir from Lay Low has her own Beyer M88 (not seen one of these for many, many years). Indeed, we have long discussions about how these are now normally seen as kick drum mics rather than put to use on vocals. I reminisce about how I remember Phil Collins being an endorsee in the days when the mic was new!

He also brings Sennheiser E906 for guitar and bass cabs, and an Audix D6 for the kick drum. I haven't actually heard one of these in action, but have read good press reports and have seen them specified by engineers and bands I admire. It gives a great sound that sits well in the context of world music. No major thumps or clicks, so beloved of rock engineers. Must investigate further, as it sounds as if it would suit the styles of music I like to work on.

Eivand is a skilled engineer and seems able to get the sounds he needs quickly and efficiently. No long thumps on the drums, he seems to know how to get what he wants as the musicians play their instruments. Its woth noting that Adjagas' drummer has replaced the top cymbal of the hi-hat set-up with an African shaker and has a tambourine frame set as a second snare. The glockspiel is miked from underneath.

First on is Lay Low, "sometimes a person, sometimes a band". After a solo number, Lovisa is joined by a band - playing drums, various keyboards and a banjo. Her voice reminds me of someone - Regina Spektor? Emiliana Torrini? can't quite put my finger on it.

After an interval (where the band help with the change) it's over the Adjagas to yoik away the evening. The stunning chants of the Sami people from the area in Norway inside the Arctic Circle are accompanied by guitar, bass, drums, trumpet (with effects including the KAOSS 3 pad) and yet another banjo.

The sound is fabulous, probably the best I've heard at the Phoenix over the past 3 years - everything clear, with lots of definition and not too loud.

The highlight for me was when there was a problem with the banjo - the swopping around the band had damaged the pickup. The solution involved getting Lay low's which was already de-tuned ready for travelling so lead yoikist Lawra Somby produced some traditional unaccompanied yoiks - exhilarating and beautiful...

"I am sitting in a room"...with Alvin Lucier

I have just spent the week commuting to Dartington College of Arts. The reason was to attend a series of events promoted as a celebration of the work of American composer, Alvin Lucier.

I first became aware of his work when I went to Boston, MA to be a participant with Frances M Lynch in the BEAMS Electronic Music Marathon organised by Eric Chasalow at Brandeis University in 2001.

In 2004, he was a performer in the Contemporary Music Network tour Feedback: Order from Noise organised by Knut Aufermann.

To prove that there is no such thing as a free lunch, in return for awarding Mr. Lucier an honorary degree, the payback is the 3-day festival of concerts, exhibitions installations and a seminar.

On Monday, in a concert promoted by Dartington Arts, the Barton Workshop performed in the Great Hall, a splendid 14th century hammer-beamed scheduled Ancient Monument.

Many of the pieces performed explored the relationship of solo instruments (cello, clarinet) playing microtones alongside the slow sweep of recorded pure sign waves generated by an oscillator. As the instrumentalist sustains tuned long tones against the tones, audible beats are created at speeds determined by the distances between the instruments notes and those of the pure waves. The farther apart the frequencies, the faster the beating. At unison no beating occurs. By bending the pitch by few cycles per second, the beating patterns are heard to slow down and speed up. This scientific description of the phenomenon barely touches on the beauty of the resultant pieces. Hear an example for yourself, in the piece Music for piano with slow sweep pure wave oscillators (although not credited on the download site I believe the recording is by Marilyn Nonken from the CD Still Lives Lovely Music LCD 5012).

The following day saw me attending a research seminar where Mr Lucier discussed his recent work and methods of composing. A fascinating insight to a deep and interesting composer.

This was followed by a realisation of one of Lucier’s installation pieces, Music on a Long Thin Wire. It really is that: a long thin wire was stretched diagonally above us in Studio 3 and made to vibrate. To quote from the CD, “A 50-foot length of taut wire passes through the poles of a large magnet and is driven by an oscillator; the vibrations of the wire are miked at either end, amplified and broadcast in stereo. The thin wire is set vibrating four times at four different frequencies; what results is not the low drone one might expect from a long, vibrating wire, but a complexity of evocative, ethereal chords.” An example of what it sounds like can be found here.

The culmination of the 3 days was a performance of Mr Lucier’s seminal I am sitting in a room. This is music, poetry, sound art and scientific investigation all rolled into one. The initial premise is that the performer (in this case, Mr Lucier himself) sits in a room, in front of a mike, reads a short passage of text which is then played back into the room, and then this is recorded, played back, recorded again, again, and again, and again…up to 32 times. The result is that the room resonances affect each subsequent recording such that the text becomes a musical oscillation within the space.

Initially created with 2 tape recorders, this realisation was by sound artist and senior lecturer in music, David Prior. His initial though was to make a Max/MSP patch that alternately looked after playback and recording. However, such is the skill of Mr Lucier to pace his rendition of the original text, all that was needed was a Max/MSP patch to create a 70 second delay. The original text was picked up by an Audio-Techica mike (an A-T 4033, I think) and the output was played into the space by a single Genelec 8020 on a stand. Just to give a little geography of the room – studio 6 is a long thin room, approx 30m long and 10m wide. The reader was place halfway down the room, with his back about 1.5m from the wall, the mic about 05m from his mouth and the speaker pointing at the rear of the mic, Mr Lucier and the wall.

Several people were surprised that the resultant resonant frequencies were not as bass heavy as they were expecting, the room having a length that would suggest the presence of interesting low frequencies. Is this a function of the recording and playback arrangement as much as the influences of the room.? I’m still considering that question.

Six Grand Pianos

Missed out on Bonfire Night celebrations as I was flying to Rome with the 6 members of pianocircus. That said, we did see the odd firework in the skies over Heathrow.

We were in Rome for a concert on Tuesday at the prestigious IUC at the University of Rome, using 6 grand pianos - all Steinways (3x Model D full grands and 3x Model Bs). I was asked by organiser how we wanted them arranged. Sent diagram alternating them DBDBDB in the usual pianocircus circle, and then they came back and asked which serial number we wanted where. May now become a Steinway spotter and collect serial numbers - beats train spotting and collecting names from Eddie Stobart trucks!

Early start to position the pianos and then away to explore Rome whilst the piano tuner spent the next 5 (yes FIVE) hours tuning. Note for future - the Italians appear to use A442 rather than the A440 we usually have in the UK. Thankfully the sound crew were very patience and quiet setting up around him.

The concert was fab - especially Steve Reich's "Six Pianos". Sounds even better on real grands. The phasing of the piece creates interesting beating - audibly giving the psycho-acoustic image of a trumpet. I'm sure the audience must think I'm running a backing track. Anyway, thought I identified that David's entry was the one that created the impression...until he stopped playing and the phenomenon continued.

Why are TV crews so intrusive? They think that the concert is there purely for them to film. The 2 crew members spent lots of time moving (noisily) around the auditorium - all for a maximum of 3 minutes airtime. It was gladdening to discover that they are also the same around the world. 15 minutes before the start of the concert, I saw them setting up next to the mixer. They wanted a feed (in fact both cameramen wanted separate feeds!), so provided a mono mix form the stereo masters. The audience were already coming into the auditorium, so the only test feed I could give them was the sound of the pianos being tuned (again...) which (surprise, surprise) wasn't loud enough for them. Neither of the camera operators had headphones, all they were looking for was line level input at 0dB. The reality is that once all 6 pianos get going together it is "quite" loud and they would have got their recordings at an acceptable level. Not good enough for them, so they then started asking the sound crew for microphones! In the end, they settled for using the mics attached to their cameras.