End of Week 3

End of Week 3 for Fall 2019 school term. It has been a super busy schedule for us because the Oliver rehearsal at Cottage Grove. Jeff has to drive the girls back and forth almost every weekday’e evenings. The girls seem to enjoy the dance and singing a lot. That is good.

School work is moving forward as it will be day by day. One exciting subject for me this term is the sensor music. I am hoping by the end of the term, I can have a better idea of what I can do and how to do it in the field of sensor music.

Other two classes (20th & 21st century music and History of theory) demand a lot of reading/studying time. I am glad that I am getting to know music deeper in any aspect; just hoping I can have hours and hours of time for all the information that I want to absorb.

2019年秋季學期的第3週結束。 對我們而言,這是一個非常忙碌的日程,因為奧利弗(Oliver)在Cottage Grove排練。傑夫幾乎每個工作日晚上都要開車來接送孩子。孩子們似乎很喜歡跳舞和唱歌。那很好。 
學校的工作日復一日。這個學期對我來說令人興奮的課堂是"傳感器音樂"。我希望在學期末能更了解在這個領域裡我可以做什麼/怎麼做。
其他兩節課("20和21世紀的音樂"和"音樂理論史")需要大量的閱讀/學習時間。很高興有這個機會對音樂有了更深入的了解。只是希望我可以有幾個小時的時間來研究所有我想吸收的知識。


FMO Concert

Last Saturday was FMO concert. The setup started at 9am. Scott Waytt is our visiting composer. Stolet also performed his composition ImPossible. During the rehearsal/setup. I was trying to learn the mixing board. Fang’s recital will be on June 8th, I will have to drive the mixing board for her. My first time…

The OEDO ensemble piece did not went well. The image just wont showed up so Olga had to give up playing back the image. Feel sorry for her. She spent so much time preparing the image…

After the concert, I was so tired, almost wanted to give up the gathering at Steelhead. I am glad Jeff went with me. It was nice to chat a little bit with Scott. He is such a nice teacher. Can’t believe that we know home more than 10 years…

This time I did t have any piece performed. I will, though, for the Fall term concert for sure.

Network Ensemble Project – Seeking Unity

A fun collaboration with Jared Knofczynski and Payson Carpenter for UO Musical Performance Network class.

Description

  • Generating random two tones within a specific range from host computer. Then the participants alter the frequency of each tone, to bring to tones eventually playing in unison. 
  • Using Max/MSP object UDPsend/receive functions to send data in-between computers. 
  • The host computer is not sending any data to participants’ computers. Instead, the participants have to use their ears to identify the pitch of the individual tone, then decide he or she wants to make each tone go higher or lower. A number, or two numbers (if the participants wants to change both tones at the same time) are sending back to the host computer to alter the frequencies constantly.
  • Besides listening to the sine wave tone generated by the host computer, this project also calls for careful listening to other participants’ action to create a mutual agreement of where the result tone will go. 

The actual performance was very enjoyable. It was like a game for aural skills. When the two tones getting closer and closer, reaching the point that we can hear the  beat frequencies, some kind of excitement aroused and we all got the feeling of “we are almost there!”. That was a very nice moment. 

Emerging Technology – Final Presentation

Presented final project on the Emerging Technology class. Using the Google Seedbank Style Transfer application, I concerted two pictures and created the third picture. Then taking those pictures into MAX/MSP, trying to turn the picture into sound. The outcome was good. We had some technical difficulties with projector, but luckily was able to present my work in the lab.

As a starting point, this project could be taken into another alveoli. The 10 by 10 pixels extracted from the original pictures could be mapping into sine waves. Bring the additive Synthesis concert into the project could be the next step.

Google Seedbank Style Transfer

Giant Dipper Premiere

Giant Dipper was premiered last night at FMO concert. Everything went well. Audience seemed liked it. I am happy that I can pulled it together. It was very hard. I almost gave it up three weeks ago. Not enough sleep, piles of gradings and projects… and still going on. But it’s all good.

Thinking about my next project… Some video/picture and MAX?

Style transfer

Style transfer is the topic of this week in Emerging Technology class. We explored the Google Seedbank. Some interesting pictures came out while I experienced using the application.

Colin suggested a book :surveillance capitalism.

Once we searched Google, but now Google searches us. Once we thought of digital services as free, but now surveillance capitalists think of us as free.”

Emerging Technology Project

Presented our first project for the Emerging Technology class.

Using the AIY kit that provided by Colin at the beginning of this term, detecting the faces count, then feeding that data into MAX patch I wrote to generate a set of drum patterns, then route that data to another two computers though OSC (Open Sound Control) to create some images using Processing software. We finally did it. It has been very challenge to work on this project. None of my team members, including me, knows how to do the coding. But we did it. I can see this basic idea can be a seed, then to develop further to a possible installation.

Enjoy very much the class.

Giant Dipper

Working title for my next Data-Driven composition.

It is finally get going a little bit on this piece. For a while, I was kind of stuck and not really getting any energy to write something good. But today, after the lesson, I finally feel move forward a little bit, step by step. This will be a challenge two weeks coming ahead. I really want to make it to the FMO concert, but also don’t want to present it as a “practice” one. It got to be professional and something I feel worth to perform in the public.

The seed inside you is the magic key to the sole of your music. You got to fell it deep enough to make it coming out from you, and only you. What is this little 3 minutes recording mean to me? How do I transform it to another form of art and take the audience stepping into the magic?

Challenge.


Cartridge Music

Realized Cartridge Music in our EM History class today. 

I did my on Tuesday, it was fun.

During the class, I just realized that I forgot to turn the reading response for this class… First time late for turning in my assignment. Da. Should have been more careful.

In the class, we talked about Brain Eno’s Ambient music. The story about how he came up the idea of ambient music during his hospital visit is very interesting. reminds me that “the basic decency everyone should have in them”. Some people just don’t have the decency and not respect others.