Week 3 - lecture by Dr. Pauline Minevich and workshop by Rebecca Caines (zoome recorder and bloom generative ipod app)
In the third week of class, we explored music's place in creative technology, the innovative technologies present in music's history, and current technologies that are are used in music and sound art. Our reading for the week was an article on Stanford's iPhone Orchestra and an accompanying video of an orchestral performance. The iPhone Orchestra demonstrates a meeting of new technology and traditional music practice, which I think demonstrated the themes of that week's lecture and discussions very clearly.
Monday's lecture by Dr. Pauline Minevich began with a 1626 quotation by Francis Bacon that is said to have predicted technologies in the field of music far before their time. In thinking of the concepts of technology and new media, it is common to think only of the past 15-20 years, but what is considered "new technology" is relevant to the time period in which they are developed. Almost 400 years ago, Bacon spoke about technology in music in a similar way to how we would talk about it now, and in the last 200 years there have been numerous new inventions that have played an important role in music and sound art. While many musicians and artists were discussed in Dr. Minevich's lecture, a few in particular stood out to me as especially interesting. In 1909, Arnold Schoenburg wrote his Five Orchestral Pieces, one of which was just called Sounds. These pieces were not melodic, and instead tried to reference paintings through layers of sounds, the way colours and textures would be layered. Another artist of interest to me is Alvin Lucier, who's 1969 piece I Am Sitting in a Room is considered one of the first applications of generative sound.
On the Wednesday, we broke into two groups and, alternating, had a to chance to use two different technologies intended for exploring sound art. For the first half go the class I paired with a classmate and used the Zoom recorder to record different sounds around the university. We were encouraged to think about the characteristics of different noises, such as liquid and solid, human and artificial, and loud and soft. A few of the sounds we recorded included a toilet flushing, foot steps in a stairwell, and the beeping of an elevator. I had never used a Zoom recorder before, and although I was only able to use it for a short period of time it seemed pretty user friendly and accessible.
In the second part of the class, we were given an iPad with the Bloom application on it. Bloom in a generative sound app for iPhones and iPads, and I think using the iPad gave a lot more freedom for interaction given the larger screen. The app was fun to play around with, but it raised a few questions. The one that stood out most for me was the question of ownership: if I create music on a sound app such as Bloom, is that music mine or does it belong to the creators of the generative sound software. While not an art-making tool, such iPhone/iPad apps are still fun and interesting to interact with.
