150 Years of Music Technology - Competition

We have listened to the first sound ever recorded this week, and today, april 9th 2010 it is exactly 150 years ago this sound was recorded. For some, like the people from First Sounds, a good moment for a celebration! 

This year from the 1st till the 4th of May the Linux Audio Conference 2010 (LAC) takes place in Utrecht, the Netherlands, and one of the special events on this conference will be a composition competition, in collaboration with First Sounds. 

Here is a description from the LAC newsletter:

The original 150-year old “Au Claire de la Lune” sample, found here can be used as a starting point. There is also a free Tonehammer sample package which can be used.

For the composition process, the use of Linux and/or open source applications is strongly encouraged and appreciated. The composition must be accompanied by a (short) description of the work and the use of software and technology.

Submissions can be sent to lac [at] linuxaudio [dot] org, before the 26th of April. Or you can hand in your submission on the first day of the festival. 

I am happy to announce that I will be part of the jury for this competition. I am looking forward to hearing all creative contributions! Read more about the Linux Audio conference on the LAC website: lac.linuxaudio.org/2010/

BOT makes Music with Machines

Tonight I visited my friend Tomas Postema, and he showed me this video of BOT, an amazing new act he is part of. They play together with crazy noise making machines engineered by Geert Jonkers, and together with third band member Job van Gorkum this results in an energetic musical experience. 

If you want to see BOT play live, you will have to come to one of the theater festivals in the Netherlands this summer. They do not have their own website yet, but for all our Dutch readers who want to stay up to date, you can become a fan on Facebook.

Five Sound Questions to Zimoun

Does Zimoun need an introduction? Many of you probably have seen some of his work before, and if not, please watch the overview video on top of this post and be amazed by all the wonderful installations this Swiss artist created. I am very happy to include him in the Five Sound Questions series!

To learn more about Zimoun and his work please visit his website: www.zimoun.ch

1. What sound from your childhood made the most impression on you? 

I was very often playing around with an old analog radio and was very intrigued by the somehow cosmic sounds in between the channels.

2. How do you listen to the world around you?

Sometimes I listen very careful, and sometimes I don’t listen at all.

I like a good balance between both. And both is very refreshing somehow. 

3. Which place in the world do you favor for its sound?

Well… there might be many places and situations… but sitting in the middle of a desert and listening to this amazing silence is one of the most beautiful listening experiences I’ve ever made.

4. How could we make sound improve our lives?

To pay attention to what we hear (and not hear) might be the right start I think…

5. What sound would you like to wake up to?

I enjoy a lot the very tiny click sounds which our very old heating system is producing when the radiator is getting warm. Very beautiful and always different.

Also read the answers of other artists in the Five Sound Questions section.

The Wave Organ in San Francisco

This is probably a familiar place for the locals, but believe it or not, I had never heard of the Wave Organ in San Francisco before. The concept of this acoustic sculpture was developed by Peter Richards, and installed in collaboration with George Gonzales. 

The construction of the Wave Organ was completed in 1986 and treats visitors to sonic surprises ever since. As the water moves in and out of the pipes as the waves hit, wonderful sounds are generated. It is not loud, and to fully enjoy it visitors need to listen actively. 

I think an installation like the Wave Organ demonstrates a great way of creating a sonically pleasant environment by helping nature just a little bit. It subtly adds a sparkle to the sounds of the wind and the waves, which are already beautiful by themselves. 

The First Recording Ever Made

The phonautograph invented by Edouard-Léon Scott de Martinville

Have you ever heard the first recording ever made? Today you can. It was French inventor Edouard-Léon Scott de Martinville who created a machine called the phonautograph, which made it possible to capture sound waves. 

The phonautograph transcribed sound rather than recording it. A hog’s bristle was used to inscribe a sound’s waveform on lamp-blackened glass and later on paper. The sound waves were focused using a barrel like the one shown on the picture above. 

The first recording of sound which was actually directly playable was done on Thomas Edison’s phonograph, the predecessor of the gramophone, the device we have been listening music on until the late 1980’s

Click to read more ...

Works For Turntable by Stephen Cornford

After his great answers to the Five Sound Questions I would like to share Stephen Cornford’s Works For Turntable with you. A very nice composition for kinetic sculptures on ‘prepared turntables’. 

The strength of the work lies in the combination of the different sounds, and by adding and removing layers the repetition of the individual parts never becomes boring.

It is also the mechanical nature of the looping sounds that keeps them interesting to listen to. Unlike a lot of contemporary electronic loop-based music with the same sounds copy-pasted over and over again, in these Works For Turntable the looping sound is never exactly the same, there are slight variations in every turn.

Best of One Year of Everyday Listening

Today it is exactly one year ago since the first post on Everyday Listening. Oh, how time flies! 132 posts later it feels like I am only just getting into this. I would like to thank all the people who visited, subscribed, came back, commented, sent me tips and collaborated. Here’s to an inspiring sonic future! 

To celebrate the first birthday of Everyday Listening I selected some of my favorite posts of the last year. As you might have noticed I like to serve a mix of inspiring links and movies, interviews, some longer articles and news. Some great new collaborations are in the pipeline, stay tuned and keep visiting the site! :)

1. Soundwalkers
   A great documentary on we use sound to navigate our way through the world.


2. Soundclusters 2
   Fascinating music making robots.


3. Mexico City: Coyoacán 
   The Places category has not been updated lately, but it is wonderful to listen to another place in the world and go on a sonic journey. Lately I have been uploading short bits of sound using AudioBoo on my Posterous page.  

Click to read more ...

Five Sound Questions to Miriam Lohan

This week’s Five Sound Questions are answered by Miriam Lohan. Coming from the world of theatre and live art she is drawn to sound recently. In one project Miriam created a composition for harp from noting positions and weight of apples falling from a tree. 

 

Last year I participated in her ‘Twitter orchestra’ in which specific words in tweets lead to predefined sonic results. The word ‘thinking’, for instance, resulted in the winding up of a music box and a smiley in the songs of a blackbird. Interesting ideas! Read more about her work on her blog Murmuration.

 

1. What sound from your childhood made the most impression on you?

Other people; their footsteps, breathing, clothing - I could identify people by these and I liked knowing who was around, and how they were - there’s a lot of information in a footstep. I like being quiet when I’m on my own, and I remember deliberately making myself as quiet as possible, so I could concentrate on something or make mischief without getting caught. So it surprised me that others make sound for company when they’re on their own. 

2. How do you listen to the world around you?

Peripherally, or from a distant, quieter place. I prefer panorama - panophony! - to detail and listening like this, tuning in and out as needed, keeps me grounded when I’m thinking or daydreaming. I don’t wear headphones outside of work because I can’t navigate through the world properly without hearing it, and mismatched sound and vision make me nervous. I love the sound of a school playground or a party from a distance, but find it hard to cope with several streams of voices close up - though I think this is more to do with trying to process the streams semantically. 

Click to read more ...

Architectures of Silence by Tom Kotik

Tom Kotik’s initial idea was to build a sound proof room with windows and put a rock band inside, playing at a top-volume, with the audience outside, not hearing anything. For financial reasons Tom decided to simplify the idea and created Rational Impulse, a sound proof box holding two speakers playing loud music.  

In later works he left out the noise but stayed on the subject of sound proofing and silence. An interesting idea how we can construct silence ourselves, in what Kotik calls ‘Architecture of Silence’. How do noise and silence influence us and the world around us? 

Rational Impulse was created in 2004, but from March 4th to April 25th, 2010, Tom Kotik’s work is exhibited at the Fundación Joan Miró in Barcelona. 

Sound in Context: Exhibiting Sound Art

When an architect designs a building, or a gallery space gets prepared to exhibit works of art, is the role of sound taken into consideration? What if the art in the exhibition consists of sound installations as opposed to visual arts? In Sound in Context, a short documentary by the Sound and Music organisation, the role of sound within the visual arts world is explored. 

People like David Toop, Richard Whitelaw and Benedict Drew, among others, discuss the invisible nature of this time-based medium we are dealing with here, and how many curators and art experts are not used to it. Another subject they cover is the value of sound art. Can it be sold? In what way? Should an artist give away CDs with recordings of sound installations? A very interesting subject which makes Sound in Context an interesting documentary to watch, apart from the soporific way some of these sound artist tell their story (they are probably not used to be recorded in a visual way).