EC Container 5
NIME concert
16/06/10 05:43
I am delighted to have Jason Noble from Ensemble Offspring playing my piece Grace Space as part of the opening night concert for the NIME 2010 conference in Sydney on June 17, 7PM at the Eugene Goosens Hall at the ABC Ultimo Centre. It will utilise 8 channels of Meyer UPJ1s to generate clouds of sound using the Kyma system from the clarinet part which is scored. Hope to see you at one of the NIME concerts. Cheers, Garth
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Mopoke Owl outside my house
21/04/10 17:42
I recorded this Mopoke Owl; the other night - just going to sleep around midnight and it started up - was such a fantastic sound I had to get up - original recording with a Soundfield SPS200 ambisonic mic and a Sound Devices 788T
Daniel Levitin
06/04/10 02:37
On Daniel Levitin's site Six Songs, there are a number of very interesting videos discussing science and art - the discussions with the musician David Byrne are some of my favourites
New tablets....
14/03/10 15:05
This video of the MS Courier shows some very innovative approaches to interfacing and computing in every day life
What I think is interesting about the Courier is the approach to 2 screens. I makes me think that Apple are the ones caught in a design loop - ie. the iPad is essentially an overgrown iPhone with some more functionality - ie the iWork suit, but it does not champion any real innovation in interaction design beyond that developed by Apple for the iPod/iPhone, which we probably all remember as amazing when it came out. I also note that Apple have only released glossy adds that flick through everything very very quickly - no details - no workflow illustrations like the Courier video. The Courier is essentially vapourware at the moment as we are unlikely to see it on the market - this may of course be why the iPad was released before it was ready... ?
What I think is interesting about the Courier is the approach to 2 screens. I makes me think that Apple are the ones caught in a design loop - ie. the iPad is essentially an overgrown iPhone with some more functionality - ie the iWork suit, but it does not champion any real innovation in interaction design beyond that developed by Apple for the iPod/iPhone, which we probably all remember as amazing when it came out. I also note that Apple have only released glossy adds that flick through everything very very quickly - no details - no workflow illustrations like the Courier video. The Courier is essentially vapourware at the moment as we are unlikely to see it on the market - this may of course be why the iPad was released before it was ready... ?
Wii-Leaf Exhibition - March 10th
08/03/10 02:34
One of the outcomes from the Thinking Through the Body project is the Wii LEAF project which you can see in Exhibition at the DAB Lab at UTS.
The opening is this Wednesday March 10th from 6Pm to 8PM
All welcome
Music sales - business models that no longer work
21/02/10 17:29
There is a very interesting article in the Guardian regarding illegal downloads and the music industries continued calling fowl of file sharing. Charles Arthur
wrote in June 2009:
Are downloads really killing the music industry? Or is it something else?The mystery of where all the money has gone isn't just puzzling economists and estate agents. It's also one that has had the music industry on edge, time after time. Thus, we saw the release last week of some "research" that said 7 million people "use" illegal downloads in the UK, "costing the economy billions of pounds and thousands of jobs" . I'm unhappy to say that it was repeated in this paper. Had I seen it sooner, I would have queried the assertion about the cost to the economy. The number of people doing downloads sounds near enough right, however..... more at the above linkHe also wrote an aricle on the figures involved, titled
it shows that whilst music sales as a portion of the total market may have decreased somewhat, this has only happened in the last 2 years and this is probably attributable to online distribution such as iTunes etc. Bans are putting out more DVD's and you can see that this portion of the market place is growing. It is clear that the music industry have been crying wolf for a long time and continue to stubbornly evolve their business model - they have been leaving this up to companies like Sony and Apple for some years now - come on guys - WAKE UP!!!which can be seen here
Sound Design in the film AVATAR
16/02/10 19:57
This SoundWorks Collection documentary looks at the sound design of James Cameron’s Avatar:
Bringing to life the sounds of Pandora include the talent of Skywalker Sound’s Supervising Sound Editor, Sound Re-recording Mixer, and Sound Designer Chris Boyes in this SoundWorks Collection sound for film exclusive profile.
Bringing to life the sounds of Pandora include the talent of Skywalker Sound’s Supervising Sound Editor, Sound Re-recording Mixer, and Sound Designer Chris Boyes in this SoundWorks Collection sound for film exclusive profile.
"Avatar" Sound For Film Profile from Michael Coleman on Vimeo.
Tod Machover new opera
16/02/10 19:54
Tod Machover is head of the Media Lab’s Hyperinstruments/Opera of the Future group. I have not been a great fan, but he does some interesting things and this is an interesting background interview
New Interfaces - the Harpejji
01/02/10 17:22
Jordan Rudess and the Harpejji, which is described on their site as a member of a small family of stringed musical instruments known as tapping instruments. Tapping instruments are descendents of the electric guitar but are optimized for a style of playing that involves tapping on the strings to produce a note. One of the primary benefits of this style of playing is that it only requires one finger to make each note, unlike strumming which requires at least one finger on each hand to make a note.
By freeing up more fingers, the player has the freedom to play arrangements that are physically too difficult to play with the more traditional playing techniques. Unlike all other commercially available tapping instruments, the harpejji has a keyboard-inspired playing interface that many will find easier to learn, more comfortable to play and more interesting to explore.
The harpejji is played on a stand, horizontally or on a slight incline or decline. A decline position allows the audience to see more of your playing, whereas an incline position makes it easiest to reach the top frets.
Prices are from US$3999 to US$4999, so it is being target as a serious instrument for professional musical practice. An entry level instrument is missing from their range. The following YouTube video shows some of the capabilities of the instrument as do more more videos on the makers site
By freeing up more fingers, the player has the freedom to play arrangements that are physically too difficult to play with the more traditional playing techniques. Unlike all other commercially available tapping instruments, the harpejji has a keyboard-inspired playing interface that many will find easier to learn, more comfortable to play and more interesting to explore.
The harpejji is played on a stand, horizontally or on a slight incline or decline. A decline position allows the audience to see more of your playing, whereas an incline position makes it easiest to reach the top frets.
Prices are from US$3999 to US$4999, so it is being target as a serious instrument for professional musical practice. An entry level instrument is missing from their range. The following YouTube video shows some of the capabilities of the instrument as do more more videos on the makers site
Céleste Boursier-Mougenot - birds talk
24/01/10 21:30
Another approach to getting a pay check without having to play the music 
New commission for The Curve, Barbican, London
http://www.barbican.org.uk/artgallery...
French artist Céleste Boursier-Mougenot creates works by drawing on the rhythms of daily life to produce sound in unexpected ways.
For his installation in The Curve, Boursier-Mougenot creates a walk-though aviary for a flock of zebra finches, furnished with electric guitars and other musical instruments. As the birds go about their routine activities, perching on or feeding from the various pieces of equipment, they create a captivating, live soundscape.
27 February 2010 - 23 May 2010
The Curve, Barbican, London
http://www.barbican.org.uk/artgallery...
Free admission
Times: Open daily 11am-8pm
Open late every Thu until 10pm - poor birdies should have gone to sleep by then
New commission for The Curve, Barbican, London
http://www.barbican.org.uk/artgallery...
French artist Céleste Boursier-Mougenot creates works by drawing on the rhythms of daily life to produce sound in unexpected ways.
For his installation in The Curve, Boursier-Mougenot creates a walk-though aviary for a flock of zebra finches, furnished with electric guitars and other musical instruments. As the birds go about their routine activities, perching on or feeding from the various pieces of equipment, they create a captivating, live soundscape.
27 February 2010 - 23 May 2010
The Curve, Barbican, London
http://www.barbican.org.uk/artgallery...
Free admission
Times: Open daily 11am-8pm
Open late every Thu until 10pm - poor birdies should have gone to sleep by then
Pat Metheny's Orchestrion
24/01/10 21:19
This Pat Metheny project is very interesting. He has built/had built (they look like Eric Singers work to me??) an Orchestrion, a robotic orchestra that is responding to his guitar playing style on the fly - check it out
Vision tests
18/01/10 03:03
I am experimenting with some algorithmic approaches to image generation, preparing some material for live electronic music performance, driven by the sound, and I rather like this one
Moving from Garth Paine on Vimeo.