Tags: ConDiS Timeline (TM)

20.03.18. Working on instruction pages for each instrument. Looking through every movement cutting and pasting. At the same time analyzing the outcome or the performance from the Nordic Tour. Not sure if all the little details are audible in the final performance. Have to meet with each player and make sure how he/she did interpret the written score. During rehearsal, there were some changes that I did not put into the score. Also, have to draw an illustration of the various concert halls that we did perform and analyze how they did affect the performance especially the performance in context to the location of the loudspeakers and the duration of the piece according to acoustic of various halls.

NB! Make a video from 2nd. movement where the conductor does tempo changes.

In the Harpa, concert loudspeakers were hanging down from the ceiling about 4 – 5 meters above the ground. Front speakers were in front of stage and stage was about 1. meter up from audience who sat on a level floor. Back speakers were located to the back of audience c.a. 15 meters from the stage —> the conductor had difficulties to hear the electronics and how it responded to her conducting gestures. There was no monitoring because of a fear of feedback. The same was also for the performers that did not hear the electronics clearly and described their feeling as they only heard their own playing and no connection the electronic part.

The outcome was therefore that the volume of the electronics was more than at later performances where the conductor could hear more of the electronics. It was also difficult for the performers since they did not hear the electronics respond to their playing.

Thorshavn performance – The stage is located on a ground level with the audience seated in a half circle on an escalating platform, like an amphitheater. Front speakers located to the side c.a. 2.5 meter above the stage and back speakers at the back of audience c.a. 2 meters from the upper floor and 5 m. above the stage. The distance between front and back speakers roughly 8 meters.

 

There is no diary.

No dairy written

08.12.17. Reflections on the first performance of Kuuki no Sukima at the Dokkghuset 27.11.17.

Write about practical matters. What the conductor has to do

1. In preparation for beginning the performance.
2. During performance

Make few questions for Halldis.

1. Preparation too complicated
2. Accidental volume changes —> Volume control turned on accidentally: Problem solving —-> timer.
3. Jump forward has to be 100% reliable. There were one or two instances that it was not getting the message: Problem-solving?
4. Change finger click button function. 2 button changes from being metronome to function as start/stop button.

12.11.17. Got my sound card and preamp last week. Tested on Friday and worked fine after some troubles at the beginning. Bad connection in the Optical input with very loud white noise plus, plus,… Spent three days downloading a Video of perf. interview. Did some editing and watched YouTube tutorials on Multi-Camera editing. Still a huge work ahead. Worked on 1 + 3 movement, doing cleanup and pan poss (3.mov) Had a meeting with Ina the Violin player at the TSi.

15.11.17. Meeting with Wayne. Yesterday meeting with Rik vent well hardly any changes except Clarinet —> Bass Clarinet in 3rd. movement. Almost finished 3rd. movement. Have to write all information into the score for strings and send —> look at videos and perhaps cut out little examples. Write in all automation in the 3rd. movement. Test electronic equipment + make a final setup in Ableton Live.

15.11.17. Finish up the notation of 68-69 scale. Make rhythmic version. Do the extended rhythmic plan and probably make it 21. minute long. These are the main entrance points and have to be orchestrated to all the instruments accordingly to the instrumental table.

1. Do I need 2 x microphones for each instrument?
2. What if using clip-on mics.
3. Ask Trine + Rick about instr. mics.
4. Ask others.

16.11.17. Met with Wayne and got a positive response from him. Suggestion from him regarding the Pan patch. Looked at some Random functions that I might look closer later today. Might have to simplify Pan to work with all tracks instead of three —-> all Pan tracks into one.

Finishing up the score with performance instructions. Have to finish up today and send. Also, have to write start and stop + electronics for 3rd. movement.

 

03.10.17. Had a skype meeting with Halldis Rønning the conductor of Kuuki no Sukima. We had a very good meeting talking through the score with me explaining the ConDiS system and how she would be able to conduct the electronics. Although I surely would have started my work with Halldis a year earlier the positive perspective is that this collaboration was much closer to musical reality. Actually a lot better because usually, the time for cooperation is much shorter. During that meeting, I started to realize that from the beginning I had been on a slightly wrong track. My expectations of having the conductor “grabbing” the sound throw it into the air and making live sonic modulations were not real. Although possible as I had proved, it was not the job of the conductor to do all the things. Therefore after the skype meeting with Halldis, I went back to the drawing board and throw out both the Pan control and Fx control units of the interface.

05.10.17. Buttons for ConGlove.

Start/stop = 1. click

Start from beginning = 2 click

 

 

 

Jump forward and play

 

 

Press fast few times to jump back to the beginning

 

 

Problem: If I press button 3 to stop then it stops. Then I press button 4 to jump to next and continue play => next time when press button 3 I have to double-click to stop playing since the last message to button 3 was a stop message. Therefore I have to:

continue from 05.11.17. Bought a RME soundcard and pre amp. FF800 + OctaMic. Used but hopefully usable. Have to start deciding the setup, mics. etc. Draw a blueprint and ask Trond for assistance.

1. Do I need 2 x microphones for each instrument?
2. What if using clip-on mics.
3. Ask Trine + Rick about instr. mics.
4. Ask others.

 

 

 

20.09.17. This coming Saturday I will be using my conducting glove to control and play with a trumpet player Erik Kimestad. It is going to be very interesting and I will post some examples and “deep” thoughts after the concert.

Spent the day today working on ways to contact and control various elements of reverb, like decay time plus sweeping filter with the rotation of my hand. Had to repair the conducting glove and will have an upgraded version of it tomorrow.

24.09.17. The concert in Kristiansand with trumpet player Erik Kimestad went very well, not flawless but that was expected since this was a total experiment and very little time for preparation or rehearsing together. There I proofed that the ConDiS system can be used for other kinds of performances than conducting control. There I was able to literally “grab” the sound of the trumpet throw it into the air, move it around, change its sonority and volume values. All these things that I originally mentioned in my application for the Norwegian Artistic Research Program.

28.09.17. Afhandlingssemingar. Remember to draw a clear picture of the main aspects of the research.

1. technology
2. conducting
3. composition
4. performance
5. reflections
6. Try to have a context in headlines

Music analysis – interview – methods – headlines.

What is conducting? (headline)

Avoid headlines with only one sentence  – Headlines may be exciting.

Think about chapters – Chapter 1. etc.

Put short intro into each chapter and even to each headline.

Think about transition as some kind of a conversation where the person listens and puts itself into it based on what has been said.

A large transition that points – a length of a sentence – one argument per sentence – Visual.

29.09.17. When writing about technology I have to be clear why I choose what I use. Why not use more gesture recognition?

1. Not 100% accuracy. Conducting gestures are complex and not totally repetitive (see Guy Garnett research).
2. Too risky, accidental gestures – Back to basics – analog – MIDI.

NB. find out if possible to get Sandy and Tone for the Forskningskonsert.

 

August 1^st

Worked on a demo video for the ConGlove to be added to my paper for Kristiansand class Music Technology and Production. Also, had to clean and update programs and other stuff on my computer at the office. Have to work more on my MTP paper and hopefully finish it tomorrow or the day after.

Spent a little time on my composition, printed out a score for 1^stand 3^rdmovement and started to do some detailed changes of notes and cues in the score. Plan to work few hours per day until finished with paper then more time on the composition

To do:

Finish adding video to paper.

Finish paper

Work on Kuki no Sukima, make decisions on what material to use.

Probably put more of KunoSu into Ableton

Do some soldering for the ConGlove. The ring finger button is not working properly due to some connection failure.

Must come up with a solution how to sew the buttons to the glove.

Get in touch with Arveng technology about further developing my ConDiS for their glove.

 

Things to think about.

How do I write sections for the conductor to use the glove?

What about writing a passage with long-held chords and pointillistic notes from various instruments. That way the conductor can pick up the pointillistic notes and move them around the hall while others are moving according to automatic drawings in Live.

 

Also, should think about a passage where the conductor can control the volume of the electronic so the volume goes up while instruments get softer and vice versa.

 

During my summer vacation, I did work a bit on video recording for my paper and future thesis as well as my composition. Other than that I tried my best to concentrate on relaxed things.

 

August 2^nd

Spend most of the day trying to find out how to make a PDF with live video images. Tried to transfer my essay for Kristiansand from Word file to PDF but unfortunately, the attached videos did not transfer over to Acrobat Pro. Looked everywhere on the net to find out solutions but did not find any. In the end, I did kind of give up and found a way to do it in Acrobat. This means I have to do the whole layout in Word and when done send it over to Acrobat converting the file to PDF. Then when in Acrobat look for Tools and then choose Rich Media. Once inside rich media and ask for Video. Then select a place on the document to place the video (draw a square over the image) and place video there. You can then choose whether you want to have the video playing from the document or plop up on a separate screen.

 

August 3^rd

Worked on my paper mostly filling in some gaps and correcting grammar. Also worked quite a bit on the layout since obviously, I am getting a bit rusty. EndNote and Word took me a while to put all my references into the paper and had to do some of the papers I am referring to manually in EndNote and then transferring to Word. Learned a lot about EndNote and Word as well as how to find sources to use or read in correlation to my writings. Good exercise for future writings. I hope J

 

August 4^th

Continue working on my paper, clean up and final layout adjustments. Had to watch several YouTube videos to find out and decide what kind of layout I am going to use. Had it all done before leaving the office around 14:00. Decided to take a break from it over the weekend and have a final look (read over) on Monday.

 

August 7

Took a final look at my paper did proofreading and then sent it over to Kristiansand. Quite a relieve to have it done and out.

Next thing to do to look back at my composition and start to work it out in more details. Went through first 70 measures of the 3^rdmovement (as it is for now) and did some decision making whether wind instrument should play tones, wind sounds or key-clap sounds. Also did a minor change in the way to write but still not sure if these are the best way to do. Have to think it over for a week or so. Also tried to listen to a fake playback in Live but had no success since most of my instrumental sounds were missing.

 

August 8

Worked on my composition, got Live to work, found out that all the sounds were on the hard drive that I brought home with me over summer vacation and therefore hand to connect the drive again and everything was back in action.

Did write out scales for all the instruments i.e. slightly different scales based on same pitches but moved or transposed in the playing range of each instrument. After doing that I did transcribe rhythm and pitches over to Flute, Clarinet, and Horn according to a magic square that I have decided to use. It gives me a good pitch or motive material to use in the composition. Have to work it out further for the remaining instruments, Percussion, Piano, and Strings. Also played the movement several times to keep some thought in the back of my head now when I leave office and head back home. Have been walking to and from work from start on August 1^stas a promise to myself to get me into better shape. Still going strong.

No diary due to summer vacation

06.06.17. Back to the ConGlove. Made on/ off switches for triggering various events.

1. Tap tempo – set the right tempo (MM). Can be adjusted to various average clicks, for example, a) = calculates the time between clicks. b)  calculates average time between 2 clicks, c) calculates the average time between 3 clicks, d) calculates the average time between 4 clicks.
2. Index finger – Stop/start. Middle finger – start and stop playback
3. Start from the beginning without start playing
4. Jump to next cue and start playing. Need to put a timer to jump back and forth.

07.06.17. Meeting with Magnus at Arving Inc. talking about collaboration. Find ways to intergrade the glove to his (theirs) glove. Meeting again next Friday. Did some practice with ConDrum (Perc.). Worked on the glove, did some tape job to make it more bulletproof.

08.07.17. Delivering of Reisereigning for Kristiansand. Managed to import audio to Live for TSi work. Have been organizing sounds for the first 7 min. of the piece and seems to be progressing fine i.e. using prerecorded sounds and placing them in time and space. Also worked on the Mix setup for the piece Grouping instruments, Fx and Pan. Have to continue doing that and make a diagram of ins and outs. To solve problems with pan, preselect when conductor should take over. That way pan should be off in auto pan where the conductor takes control.

12.06.17 Worked on planning for a recording session with Espen the percussionist. Contracted Trond Engum for getting an assist for the recording of ConPerc.  on the 15th of June. He recommended using Jack to play live from Max and Live and record to Logic. Have to meet him early Thursday to do the setup for ConPerc.

13.06.17. Worked on KnoS. Recorded Clarinet clicks and other external sounds. Did ad them to the Live file and then to Sibelius. Did try out some effects to use with them.

NB. 3 movements 8 -5 – 8 – slow – fast – slow w. conducting impro.

The third movement more choral-like with long sung notes in all instruments. Also, use the singing technique from Berio. Choral brakes up once in a whistle with short note patterns.

Can use some of the notation from Circles. Check out double stops, multiphonics, flageolets etc.

14.06.17. Some thoughts about the main page.