The gong limits

The diversity of sound and noise with a gong and mallets is hard to classify. However there are many sound qualities possible. On one hand soothing pitches and volumes are produceable, and on the other you can really cause a headache. The soothing sounds that were made were made with constant motion of the mallets that caused a sort of relaxing vibration just like the low-gain speed-picked guitar parts played at low volume sometimes cause.

On the edge of comforting sounds and discomforting noises was a level at which the gong produced soothing notes each time the mallets hit producing notes that were added pitches to the noise of the loudly ringing gong. The mallet notes were like computer sounds but somehow soothing as the loud gong rung your ears in slight pain. At the other end of the spectrum were the loud noises, and this occured when the mallets were ringing the gong loud enough that the added pitches could no longer be heard and the gong rang in your eardrums much louder.

The main point this blog is just showing the effects of dynamics. The fact that you can produce nearly entirely soothing sounds, utter noise, and a mix of the two with the same set of instruments is pretty awesome, and is a good example of a way to structure music that is less common that just having more types of instruments.

Christian Lundeen

I Am Sitting In A Room & Listening to a Gong

I had first heard "I Am Sitting In A Room" by Alvin Lucier a few years ago from a message board post without much of any explanation as to what it was I was hearing. Beyond the explanation that was given within the piece's text, I knew nothing about any of the factors that were at play in the making of it. With the information I had learned on the first course meeting, the ideas and physics of the process that went into were made much clearer, though the actual production of our own version was way more complex than I would have guessed it to be. Keeping the sounds from becoming too quiet, too loud, or too high pitched seemed very dificult, but in the end it was definitely a success. The idea that a recurring melody appeared regardless of whose speaking voice was used still amazes me, and it would have been nice to play around more with how the process would affect a singing voice or with shouting, and then also different sizes or shapes of rooms. Also, the example of bands or singers music being played back and recorded in a bathroom to get a more warmer sound intrigued me. Somehow the straight up recording being too sterile and using a somewhat artificial approach to make it sound more "real" and how the actual music should sound live was something that made me think about how so often music fans like it when stuff sounds more "raw" and often complain when a band with a previously more lo-fi sound makes something that, to them, sounds too clean or crisp. I found a link where a guy tried to recreate Lucier's experiment using a computerized voice and a simulation of the effects a real room would have here. I do not think it comes even close to capturing the feel of the original or anything produced using the regular method. By not picking up the subtleties of a real setting that can really affect the changes in the piece over time, it just doesn't develop into anything nearly as interesting, even though the same effects are at play.

With the banging of the gong last week, I was mainly astounded by the total variety in sounds that could be produced by different areas on the gong or methods in hitting it. The anticipation in the 4.5 minute build-up made me think that the second half would be far less interesting, but what I found was that I payed much more attention to the multiple sounds at work on the way down versus the first half. I did not hear the constantly-changing R2D2-ish sounds at all, but there was a point where some particular part echoed off the walls near the door of the room and I was curious as to what made that happen at only that point. There was also a part that, to me, sounded like an ambulance in the distance and at first tricked me into thinking maybe there actually was one outside of the building. This type of thought leads me to question how much the individual and their brain influence how they personally hear and interpret sound both biologically and based on their experiences in life.

-Aaron

Standing Wave

This is a link to a picture of what scientists have found on saturn's north pole.


Click this link for picture

Gong

The first thought that popped into my head when asked to play a gong for 9 minutes (after just listening to a gong being played for 9 minutes) was, "why not?" So the gong-ing commenced. Keeping on task was the easy part; no symptoms of A.D.D. yet. The hard part was the type of physical and mental concentration needed to perform the piece accurately. Well, to the degree of accuracy asked for by the seemingly simple instructions. Quite a task. I'm sure a seasoned professional gong artist would beg to differ.

Another interesting tid-bit I noticed was how differently each person played the piece. Each person, whether attempting to or not, created a different interpretation of how they wanted to perform the piece. Believe it or not- I think it would have been interesting to hear how everyone played the gong, to see what kinds of sounds were produced each time. Personally I couldn't get enough of the 'singing' quality of the gong when hit a certain way bringing out individual frequencies more noticeably.

As for the aesthetic that I felt for the idea, having just this one note, or succession of similar notes (the roll) depending on how you look at it, I was intrigued to hear that Tenney had an influence from Zen Buddhism- To me it represented more than just a person playing a gong for 9 minutes. It was more of a meditative piece (to some degree) demanding concentration on one thing for a specified time- or at least time enough to reach that state. In this present time period of "now", maintaining audience attention even for just 9 minutes or less is more and more difficult- in certain situations, possibly for this piece- so for listeners that have doubts... I would have them give it a try- listening and even performing. Both require concentration.

Physical Music

I look at music in a very elementary way, that is, until I think of the physical concepts.
We all know music is audio and our ears adjust to it (scientifically speaking) because of waves, which make our ears tingle or what not.
*But what else is involved with music?
*Is it more than just the waves bouncing around in our ears?... I think so.
I believe there is an extra force which determines your overall experience with music that nobody can describe or talk about. This force effects the artist as well as the listener. Take for instance the experience I had listening to Prof.T's convocation on radio amplification of different stations of static. My overall experience was a complete disaster, but why? Maybe...
1.) My brain has never shot those signals of music around before
2.) The material was unacceptable in the "radio edit" culture we live in.
Neither...Both of these answers are incorrect, at least with what I am getting at.. You have most likely learned those two concepts in music world cultures.
The actual identity I am looking for deals with that outer emotion. The sense we talked about where "Deaf people can hear certain things". WHY can they? I don't care why, but I know how it makes me feel- For instance...
I went to an Incubus concert 3 years ago. I love Incubus. I hated them live. Their performance was amazing, but the feedback drove me up the wall. The frequency of high pitched physical sound that is, drove me up the wall. Even though this happened, I still felt GOOD about the experience. After Prof.T's performance, I wish i never went because it was so ridiculous.
That is the best I can explain this "6th sense to music", and no offense to Prof.T's performance, as I said in class it was well worth it now that I have learned more about his concepts.
~James

Welcome!

Welcome to another semester of Music and New Media at St Cloud State University.

This fall the blog will be used primarily for journal style thoughts from the ElectroAcoustic Arts Ensemble participants. Each week they will be responsible for at least one posting containing their reflections from the previous week's performance. The co-authors will also have the opportunity to use this space to post any interesting links or discussion of new and exciting things that they've found that relate to Music and New Media.

We hope you enjoy checking back with us often!