Addendum to the last post

Would like to direct you to the post of Bill's, my fellow student http://forumfindings.blogspot.com/ on the last forum we went to. Reading this, and speaking to Bill made me feel much more warmly about the forum where we discussed music technology. Bill reminded me of how much has been done here. Thanks Bill.

Do or do not, there is no try

This week's forum was our first open forum, in which we pondered the possible multiplicitous, fractured nature of music technology within Universities in general and ours in particular. Mark Carroll illustrated this by constrasting our divergent goals with a performance degree in violin, where the outcome is clean, obvious, mutually understood and desired by violin student and University. 1 (Figure 1: ah for the simple life of the violin student)

Allusions were made to the distinct possibility that in the fullness of time, all things adding up to more than equal and planets being fully aligned, proudly embracing multiplicity could potentially have some implication for how the unit thinks about its courses, at some unspecified future date and in some unspecified future way. (Well OK, for the pedants amongst my readership, Stephen didn't say this exactly, I'm taking some justifiable license with, "to change...is obviously a complex process, but it might be worth it" I can't quote the tone though, which thoroughly belied any enthusiasm or commitment the written quote suggests.2)

So far it's all sound and fury signifying nothing.

If only Stephen had heeded Yoda's wise counsel. "Do or do not, there is no try."3












Maybe time will prove me wrong. If the time does indeed arrive, and the faculty of music tech is ready to start using the force, what better way to start, than canvassing live students? Perhaps I could get in early and offer my two bob now? Consider broadening the bestowal of credit beyond the traditional proof of equivalent study at University to proof of skills. That might be a lovely way to acknowledge the multiplicity of student experience, skill and interest, whilst deftly increasing the relevance of the course for individual students. Here are some thoughts from our country cousins, tafesa who do exactly this...

http://www.tafe.sa.edu.au/students/a8_publish/modules/publish/content.asp?id=18003&navgrp=568

On the positive side, I did enjoy Mark's lovely vocabulary, and is it any wonder? What an erudite fellow he turns out to be. http://www.anu.edu.au/NEC/auen_markcarroll.php


1. Mark Carroll, Forum on Music Technology, University of Adelaide, 6 March 2006
2. Stephen Wittington, Forum on Music Technology, University of Adelaide, 6 March 2006
3. http://www.starwars.com/databank/character/yoda/

Chris Williams

Interesting times. Unpredictable times. Even death and taxes, thanks to life extension research and mysterious government policies are less certain than ever. Gender roles are in a post second wave party hangover where men are the new women. Red is the new black, bimboism is empowering, thirties are the new twenties, crap art is the new good art because it makes an ironic and profound point about crapness and geeks are at the pinnacle of the new social ladder. Nothing is but what is not. And so to this week's guest, Chris Williams, who as a radio drama producer (translation: director) is the new composer.

Computers are responsible.
Not all computers, just the Macs and the software Pro Tools Chris uses to arrange and work with the recordings of his actors, the way an old guard composer would work with notes. He called this "sound design". 1

The concerns Chris talked about were exactly the same issues that face music composers; layering the voices, spacing, timing, flow, paring the work back for both time and artistic reasons. Chris described this composition step as "arranging for ear". (Could this be the collectively lent ear of the audience? Maybe the audience is coming back into fashion?) As he said, because he's working with voice, there is a musicality, therefore it can be approached musically. 1 Chris has gone as far as collaborating with composers in this arrangement of spoken pieces.

Well why not? If Robin Minard can compose music with sonic elements like cars driving past a building, then surely spoken voices make sense? Perhaps I have a singer's bias, but I think the voice is at the very core of musical endeavour.

The piece Chris shared with us that he had produced himself, had an actor being coached in delivering a line which included the word "Oratorio", amongst other discussions of pronunciation. I liked the piece, and I enjoyed Chris's work. It was tightly composed. The sounds of the voices worked well together. The actor delivered his line about Oratorio in a pleasingly oratory style - exactly what composers and singers aim for in Oratorio.

Did we need an excerpt of a genuine baroque Oratorio playing along? Perhaps a touch obvious, but beautifully sung Oratorio is always welcome, arranged for my ear.

Chris played us several other works, including the dramatic Monologues from the Apocalypse, where the arrangement stage was undertaken by other composers. I found this piece overblown, musically I didn't like the tone of some of the instruments the piece was scored for. This is personal preference, I believe drama, and especially tragedy are communicated best with understatement. As Peter Barkworth wrote in About Acting (2001)

"For God's sake be monotonous!" said Alan Bridges, when he was rehearsing Greer Garson and me in a scene from Crown Matrimonial. (We were doing the television version.) "You actors, you're all the same: you're all so good at explaining the text...You've got the right inflections, the right emphases. You know exactly what you mean, and you're determined to let us know. Come on you two...For God's sake stop acting! Mumble. Mutter. Anything...Just don't explain it all." 2

That's exactly how I found the acting in Monologues from the Apocalypse - the text was explained by the actors. But perhaps this is veering far from technology and music concerns.

I found it heartening indeed to experience the way Chris has harnessed music technology to bring an extra layer of artistry to his dramatic work. He did hint at being a musician/composer himself. Perhaps he has utilised a composer's approach not only because of the technology available to him, but his own disposition to composing? Interesting times.

An example of Chris's work for the ABC can be found at http://www.abc.net.au/checklist/ .

1. Chris Williams. Lecture presented at University of Adelaide, 30 March 2006.
2. Barkworth, P. 2001 (4th edition) About Acting (pp 46 - 47) London: Methuen Publishing