Einstein on the beach

Olga Oseth

Studio for Interrelated Media

Musm 435

Dr. Twombly

Blog no.1  on “Einstein on the beach”

            After doing some research on the “Einstein on the beach” I found out that the composers call it an opera because it is pieces and fragments. This opera was premiered in 1976 in France, it consists of four movements that are connected by a series called “knee play”, and it marked the international breakthrough for its creators and changed what audiences might expect from opera, theater or performance art. Many critics have called this opera “timeless” because it is a one of a kind product that should be cherished for life.  There are only few people that have experienced this opera live.  This piece defies the rules of conventional opera. This piece does not use the traditional orchestral arrangement; it uses synthesizers, woodwinds and voices of the Philip Glass Ensemble. The work uses powerful recurrent images that are shown through dance that was created by choreographer Lucinda Childs and constructed in the classical principle of theme and variation. This piece was the first collaboration between Glass and Wilson. This is Glass’s first and longest opera score it is approximately 4 and a half hours.  The reason why this piece was created was because Glass and Wilson decided to do a collaborative work together and decided on an opera that was 4 to 5 hours in length. Glass and Wilson insisted on portraying historical image for the opera. Even though they chose symbols from Einstein’s life they decided against having a plot to the opera. The words that are used in the opera consist of numbers, solfege syllables and short sections of poetry. There is even one-hour documentary movie made on the play because it is such an inspiring and changing image of Opera. The music assigned to Einstein demonstrated a circular process, which becomes a repeating cycle that constantly delays resolution. This process uses both additive and subtractive formulas. Specifically themes within the opera allude to nuclear weapons science and AM radio. Opera consists of nine connected 20-minute scenes. This opera requires a cast of 2 female and 1 male and 1 male child in speaking roles, a 16 person SATB chamber chorus with great soprano solo part and a smaller tenor part and three reed players. From watching couple parts of this play I actually understood the topic for our project better and would love to see the play in real life. I think this play is def. good meditation piece, because when we were watching it today in class I found myself relax as well as think about other topics. I think the music in this opera helped the script more than the visual aspects to describe Einstein's thoughts.

A Survey of Website Audio Soundtracks for MUSM 435

by Margo Kanthak

The following natural science website videos were collected to compare audio components. Each video is truly fascinating in itself and I highly recommend you visit at least a couple of the sites below purely for enjoyment (if not a little education about our planet and universe).

However good a video may be, when audio is included, I expect it to provide enhancement of or definition to the content. During this survey, the relative success of each of these selections in meeting my audio expectation ranges from the music being a mere backdrop (1) to providing an element essential for the total experience (5). I welcome others’ comments and suggestions about the creative and contributory aspects of the audio compositions you'll hear. How could we do better?

Towers in the Tempest:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kUG4-TEqPYc&feature=player_embedded
Originally from: http://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/vis/a000000/a003400/a003413/index.html
Computer-generated model of a recent hurricane: The audio is innocuous New Age synthesizer rambling that is far more conducive to meditation than a tempestuous hurricane. What could have been dramatic sounds of wild winds were more like a summer evening breeze.
Rating: 1 / 5

Icebridge:
http://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/search/Person/PerkinsLori.html
(Video #10678 -- about halfway down the page)
An ongoing study of glacier movement: The lively country guitar instrumental suggests a hint of American explorer, certainly appropriate to this video. The music also signals a scene change at one point. Other than that, I did not find the music to be significant to the bulk of the video.
Rating: 2 / 5

Fermi Sees Antimatter-Hurling Thunderstorms: http://www.nasa.gov/multimedia/videogallery/index.html?media_id=49435631
Recent study of the effect of lightning: The information NASA presents is truly fascination, but the non-descript music is only punched with percussion for the lightning strikes. No other audio enhancement of the video is offered.
Rating 2 / 5

The Early Earth and Plate Tectonics:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QDqskltCixA&feature=fvw
National Geographic five-minute video on a theory of Earth's land masses and tectonic plate: The professional-quality audio really makes a difference. Music changes frequently with the scenes and the sound effects definitely enhance the visual experience. One would expect such excellence of a television production, and it does not disappoint.
Rating: 4 / 5

One Second Before the Big Bang:
http://www.mandala-corporation.com/movie/bigbang.html (Quick Time)
or http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FON1IA14vXU
Multi-faceted theories on the origin of the universe: Mandala Corp.’s first HDV short film was produced in 2009 as an experiment in fobots animation. Regrettably, no credits are given for the computer music composition. The superb audio component is as important to the enjoyment and comprehension of the material as the visual animation. BRAVO!
Rating: 5 / 5

Mon Oncle

What a cool movie. I love the way Jacques Tati directed the sound and cinematography of this movie. The sounds fit the locations perfectly. The stark, gray Arpel house is complimented by reverberant footsteps, annoying doorbells, and buzzing kitchen appliances. The incessant fish fountain almost mocks them with the natural sounds of water. Tati creates a separate world of sounds for Hulot, who is surrounded by the cries of street vendors, sounds of motorists, and songs of birds. These contrasting worlds present the stereotypical conflicts of nature vs. industry or natural vs. the unnatural in a new and entertaining setting. The use of sounds to portray these places is one of the strong points of the film. In many ways it reminds me of distopian fiction; Brave New World, 1984, Fahrenheit 451, though not as grave in tone as these stories, Mon Oncle presents the same conflicts in a light-hearted setting.

M, the movie

At first listen, M presents a sparse soundscape. Sound effects are rare, and dialogue comprises the majority of the sound. Many scenes show an odd (to the modern viewer) absence of sound; lacking the sounds of footsteps, constant clicks of guns, and roar of vehicles we're accustomed to. This isn't really surprising considering that the film was made during the infancy of cinema. In an era where films with sound were still called "talkies" it's to be expected that mere dialogue itself was enough to keep the viewers interested. However, instead of being a distraction, I found myself focused on the narrative of the movie instead. And of course, the distinctive whistling (one could almost call it a leitmotif) contrasts the dialogue and draws our attention immediately. I think it would be interesting if a filmmaker decided to make a movie using as sparse a soundscape as we see here. Would the modern audience have the patience to watch it?

Evaluating on Movie "M" for sound

I could tell this movie was gonna have a lot of old technology problems like hiss, clips and stuff when I began the movie at black and white graphics, also estimating the time of movie it was released about 3/4 th of a century ago. However I didn't get that disappointed by the end of the movie. A good movie is the one that expresses its self being alive without any thing making its viewers out of its magic in my point of view. For this movie "M" It was about the same to be a good movie except I felt out of the story every time there is a distracting sound that seems to not fit in the place, or the sense of lack of sound or in other term , the editing had a lot of flaws in that sense but It was made a lot years ago and still made it to entertain for the viewer like me in this 21st century. That could be made a remark that how sound could influence to make a great movie.
M has a good sense of sound put together to make it a good movie even with its flaws of feeling of unreality.

"M"

This film was not bad for being made in 1931 and having no music to progress the plot, except for the ominous whistling. I can't really say that I have seen any movie like it. My level of enjoyment that I get from watching movies is largely due to how good the soundtrack and/or themes are. So this just goes to show how good a job the director did in letting a lot of the images speak for themselves. Maybe it left more to the imagination. It is also pretty cool finding out that this was the first film to tie a musical theme to a character.

On “M”

Other than the singing of some children during their game playing and the ‘leitmotif’ (Edvard Grieg’s “In the Hall of the Mountain King”) whistled by and associated with the murderer, there was no music in the film – which, if only subconsciously, probably made what was heard somewhat more emotionally powerful.

Despite the German dialogue (and my non-knowledge of the language) the sounds of people speaking – individually, in small groups, or in crowds – did seem to carry some non-linguistic information. Crying, calling out and/or screaming are obvious evidence of emotional state, but the volume and rapidity of the speech may be as well. The sounds of the quickly gathering crowds, for example, seemed to crescendo and increase in tempo when recognizing a possible child abduction. The tonal quality of some of the individual voices – especially that of Peter Lorre (nasal, whiny, ‘demented’) as the pedophiliac serial killer – might help define some attributes of the character.

More surprising to me than the lack of music was the presence, in such large quantity and from a wide variety of sources, of tobacco smoke (and I was a four pack a day person till 1992). The clouds of drifting smoke occasionally took on a role of their own. In some scenes it added another layer of mystery, while in others it seemed to intensify the feelings of the characters involved in the scene.

I was pleased to have finally seen the film – only some seven years older than myself – and had the chance to understand a little of its importance to the history of cinema. (I knew that I’d get to say ‘cinema’ sooner or later…)

on Mon Oncle

10 September 2010

A quick note for those few who might, for whatever reason, read my class required blog entries :

I am at least three times as old as any of my fellow students in this class and more than twice as old as our beloved Professor. I am auditing the class and so am not at all concerned with grades – I’m simply trying to learn something new (can you really teach an Old Dick new tricks?) before I shuffle off this mortal coil. My entries are not meant to be curmudgeonly, clever, offensive, or erudite, they are simply what I might write if I were keeping a diary.

OK, now – about Mon Oncle:

I first saw this Jacques Tati film in the early 1960s, while in graduate school at the University of New Mexico. It was part of a series of French films being shown at the local Albuquerque ‘art theatre’ and was my particular favorite in the series. At the time I was a battle-scarred veteran (4 years in the US Army), an oc-casional user of perception altering chemicals and a paid up member of the Young Socialist Alliance.

My general understanding of the film then, in addition to enjoying the obvious comedic bits, was that it seemed to illustrate – through satire – the French hopelessness at the outcome of class struggle. Hulot and his neighbors, symbolic of the working class, having little or no chance against Arpel and the plastics industry ­– heartless, capitalist exploiters of human labor.

Watching the film again, well past my days as a ‘Young’ anything, I still felt there still might be something of the class struggle involved – if only in sub-textual form. But there also seemed to be a little more hope as well. The symbolic acceptance of the industrialist’s dachshund into the horde of worker dogs, the Hulot visits to the dominion of the well-to-do, and ultimately the acceptance of some shared values by the nephew, Gérard and Arpel, as Hulot departs for what I sincerely hope are greener pastures.

Listening to the sound (which I honestly didn’t remember even hearing during my first viewing) was an eye (ear?) opener for me. Not only the music, but also the sound ‘effects,’ offer the potential for a much deeper understating of the film. I’m beginning to understand a little of what Chion means by added value.

Sound and movie

Movie " Mon Oncle" Created by French filmmaker "Jacques Tati" This movie is the one of the most different movie I have experienced in prospect to things I hear in the movie. It is about fifty years old movie and for today's technology the things put in this movie clearly is out of date yet The conceptual grasp that it had in its time could have been pretty unique. The movie had almost all of its sound recorded in the studio and could be felt the sounds were very unlikely to be coming from the things that seemed to be coming from. The most unnatural effect I felt in the movie was the feeling of incompleteness for it to be convincing enough to make it through me. The sounds felt to be same thing repeated over and over again, There seem to be focusing of sound in limited forms. The were a lot of inaccuracy of the timing of the sound that was felt. What ever the bad comment I put forward, I am impressed that even the move had its entire sound remade in the studio and yet came out to be good. the cinema and sound had come a long way since then but we should always praise the early stages of any advancement .

Final Project...

For every class the projects had always been challenging and interesting in its self... Ever one of us in the class were required to build a circuit in a prototype for our final project.. Complete soldiered and fully functiong prototype was required for the project. We each had individual ideas over the project. For my submition, I made a prototype using a photo register. The pitch of the sound was processed by the litght sensitive registor. So every time I brought something to block the intensity of the light the pitch of the sound produced would differ. I could actually have different frequency come off with the circuit.
To give my project an interractive edge, I used a webcam to capture a minute of performance with the circuit. Then overlapped the sound , the previous recorded data to be the back track of my new performance. I countinued that for third time and came up with musical piece which was interactive to the self performance. Beside the sound intercation, looping video cincept was used to make the video interactive as well.

DIY Advice

- Always use a wet sponge to clean the solder from your soldering iron tip. Soldering tips degrade very quickly, especially if solder is left on them.
- Work in a well lit space where you can remain organized. DIY projects can get confusing and really disorganized, really fast.
- Do whatever you want. If you are doing it yourself, you should do whatever you want.
- Experiment. Breadboards are a great tool for experimenting with an unlimited amount of circuit combinations. Try anything; you never know what sound you will get.
- Acquire a de-soldering tool. Soldering can be pretty tough, especially when you are finalizing a circuit to a circuit board. If you drop a huge glob on your board, a de soldering tool will save the day.
- Lick your finger and touch things. Electronic things that aren’t plugged into wall outlets.
- Photo resistors and LEDs are best friends forever.
- Soldering guns are very hot. They will burn your flesh or melt your de soldering tool if you aren’t careful where you place them. Melting your stuff can be a bummer and filling your workspace with burning plastic fumes is just plain no good.

Tape Music

A microphone can be turned into a speaker and a speaker can be turned into a microphone. All you need to do to make the switch is switch things backwards. If an air microphone is wired to an audio output, the diaphragm will vibrate at the same frequency, making the signal audible, just like a speaker. If a speaker is wired backwards and its cone is vibrated, the frequency of that vibration will be turned into an electric signal can be played by a speaker. Electronic motors can also be turned into speakers. If the power input of the electronic motor is an audio signal, the electronic motor will turn on and off at the same frequency of that signal. This action effectively turns the motor into a speaker. Kristian Twombly demonstrated one of the possibilities that electronic motor speakers present by placing a small electronic motor on a 5 ft long span of packaging tape, suspended in the air between two points. The motor vibrated the tape and turned the entire span of tape into a very unique speaker. The motor was hooked up to a personal music player. The music could only be heard clearly if your ear was within a few inches of the tape. However, if you pressed your ear right up against the tape, the sound quality was much better. Also, the volume, tone, and timbre of the music is altered if you move your ear across the tape.

STUD STICKS

Look out Les Paul, guitar pick-ups are pretty easy to make and cheap too. In DIY audio we learned that an electric “guitar pickup” can be created by spooling copper wire around a sewing machine bobbin. A magnet is then placed in the inside of the bobbin. I placed my bobbin pickup on a wooden stick, just below a metal guitar string, strung up the length of the stick. When the guitar string vibrates, the copper wire and magnet create an electric signal which is sent down the length of the copper wire. I soldered the wire to an 1/8 in connector which I then plugged into a mini amplifier. The result was a surprisingly loud and rich timbered stick guitar! Stick guitars are a great fix if you need an electric guitar in a jiff. They can be used in performance, but are the most fun to just play and jam out. The total cost of one of these guitars is only a few dollars and if one string isn’t enough, it wouldn’t be too difficult to rig up five or six more!

DIY Audio and Beyond

DIY Audio taught me much more than just how to create microphones and electronic instruments with little or no cash. Before DIY audio, I had a very minimal understanding of electronics and wiring. That understanding was enhanced by DIY at “paradigm shift” levels. DIY taught me that most electronics are very simple at their most basic level. DIY also taught me skills like soldering and circuit construction. I learned how to make circuits that can be used for electronic sound, lighting, video, or just about anything electronic. I also learned how to repair or modify my own battery powered electronics. This class gave me skills that will save me large sums of money in the long run. This class also exposed me to an entire new world of artistic possibilities. The materials for DIY audio projects are cheap and easy to come by and their possibilities are limitless.

Final Project

The circuit I mentioned in my last post used a bcm14093 nan gate chip. I used this circuit to create the electronic instrument for my DIY final project. The resistance on the first oscillator is controlled by a 1 megahertz potentiometer and has a .1 uf capacitor. The second oscillator is controlled by a photo resister and has a 35 uf capacitor. The third and final oscillator is controlled by a 10 k potentiometer and a .1 uf capacitor. From the final oscillator are an audio out and then a 100k resistor and red LED. The LED lights up whenever audio is being produced. The two potentiometers are mounted on top a small black box, about the size of a tin can. The circuit is mounted on the long side of the box. The photo resistor is mounted on the left side. The 9 v battery is mounted inside of the box. The LED light is mounted on the top of the box, between the potentiometers. The instrument also has a large power switch mounted on its right side. When the switch is activated, a green LED inside of the switch lights up. The instrument can be played by altering the potentiometers as well as varying the amount of light exposed to the photo resistor. The potentiometers control the pitch of the sound and the photo resister controls the tone. The potentiometers can be controlled while leaving a finger or two free to control the photo resistor. I am very pleased with this instrument. The sounds it produces are awesome. They sound pretty good when played out of a mini amplifier and sound amazing out of a large amplifier. I have already begun recorded music with this awesome instrument.