Musical Pornography: Soundscape Recording

Bathroom Music
Musical Pornography
Soundscape Recording

This is a term that I first heard a friend use to who came to a U of T Symphonic Band concert. In particular, he used musical pornography to describe Karel Husa’s “Music for Prague 1968.” Of course, since musical judgement is largely a case of taste, cultural capital, and general musical knowledge, it is subjective, but Husa’s music is known for dissonance, atonality, and arrangements that can sometimes sound vulgar. In one instance in “Music for Prague 1968” one snare drum begins, and then others are allowed to join to play a crescendo roll that starts at ppp and ends when “the sound is almost unbearable.” This music is programmatic, but in any case, these extremities are certainly aurally vulgar, and deafeningly loud. Ultimately though, aural vulgarity can parallel vulgar experiences of human history and other means of perception.

I wanted to explore this idea of musical pornography as aural vulgarity through a soundscape recording. We often associate soundscapes with sounds that we are aware of on a daily basis, and because of our urban upbringing and enculturation, we therefore most commonly associate soundscapes with city sounds – trains, streetcars, etc. – the noises of commercialism and development. I chose to record a series of sounds with which everyone is intimately familiar. After all, going to the bathroom is an inescapable element of the human condition.

So, I positioned myself with the ever so handy M-audio Microtrack 2496 recorder in the men’s washroom in the Lower Basement, hiding in a stall. If you visited this washroom on Thursday April 12 between 12 and 1, chances are I recorded you. Initially, I was frustrated with the time that was passing and the lack of business the washroom was receiving. As such, fairly extensive editing of the original recorded material has taken place. Silence is very much apart of the bathroom soundscape – and certainly one of my favourites, but I wanted this recorded material to have musical merit. The other editing challenge was separating natural sounds from “forced” sounds. Due to this lack of business, I began calling friends and inviting them to the washroom. So some came and very obediently made some noise for my recording. But other delinquent friends came and shouted, or sang songs. Some appear on the final edited version for humour’s sake, and others I have scrapped.

The use of reverb magnifies the overall sonic presence of the recording. It makes the recording sound “big” and if you listen to it on headphones, try to imagine yourself in the space hearing these sounds. I have left gaps of silence to mimic the self-reflection time that bathroom visits allow.

http://www.willderness.ca/bathroom2.mp3

Barenaked Ladies: Concert with a Social Conscience

Experiential Reporting: BNL Concert with a Social Conscience
the ACC
Feb. 16, 2007

Toronto’s Air Canada Centre is probably the worse concert venue. As an acoustic space, the 5 millisecond slap back echo makes listening to music very difficult. When I first walked into the ACC around 7:45, I expected to be late and to have to be the annoying latecomer who climbs over people to get to my seats. However, when I arrived, the small amount of early comers were being serenaded by a mediocre opening band. Next time I’ll just arrive a lot later. The opening band was fairly mainstream sounding and was a big change from the Ladies since none of their lyrics were very intelligible. This seemed a huge contrast to the Ladies whose music is so lyric driven.

After almost an hours wait, the real opening act arrived. The focus of the Barenaked Ladies’ cross Canada tour is to be Green. They implemented plans like no idling on their tour bus and drinking from reusable containers. Furthermore, they have begun to distribute their music on USB keys so that their music may be shared more widely between computers and iPods and to provide a reusable media. David Suzuki came out to a standing ovation. What a testament to environmental activism. It’s easy to tell the kind of audience the BNL draw. The crowd was mostly teenagers, 20 somethings and people in their early thirties: all who have appreciated the better part of BNL’s musical career. Most are pretty left wing youth who value the environment and social issues. So Suzuki’s message did not fall on deaf ears. In fact, it’s refreshing in a way to see a crowd of people excited and passionate about positive change.

Other than the opening band, another aspect which seemed out of place was the groups of screaming prostitots. The BNL, thankfully so, have never been associated with other indulgent pop acts such as Justin Timberlake that cater to throngs of screaming girls. Instead, their witty lyrics and superior musicianship separate them from other flakey pop acts that plague our airwaves. The ear piercing screams emanating from these groups of teeny boppers were analogous to the stadium environment, but certainly not to the humorous, socially aware music of the Ladies.

Apart from the social conscience of the BNL, their music really helps to put Canada on the map. They infuse their lyrics with references to real life counterparts which help to ground their music in local, Canadian settings. For example, their song One Week ends with the phrase “Birchmount Stadium home of the Robbie” which is a reference to a stadium in Scarborough that hosts “the Robbie” soccer tournament once a year. Furthermore, their song The Old Apartment includes the line “we bought an old house on the Danforth.” Hello City is an entire song about Halifax. Their lyrics have an element of storytelling which is contextualized in real settings which gives their songs resonance to especially local, Canadian audiences. It encourages listeners not familiar with these Canadianisms to find out what they all mean.

Critical Karoake

This is the text I wrote for the Critical Karaoke project which I spoke over the NEXUS & Fritz Hauser improvisation out of the blue. It is all original except for two lines which I have cited in brackets.

Here's a recording of it:

http://www.willderness.ca/outofblue.mp3

Out of the blue.
Improvisation
Spontaneity
Real time
Unedited, uncensored
Alive
It’s out of the blue.
Malleable
Ever changing
Amorphous
Or morphous?
It depends,
Since it’s out of the blue.
Some say cacophony
Others say polyphony
It’s a matter of perception –
But it’s out of the blue.
Individual voices
Fade into a collective whole
A melting pot of sonorities
That is out of the blue.
Instinct
Intuition
Let the drum guide you
Out of the blue.
See with your ears (John Wyre)
Play with what you hear (Robin Engelman)
Visualize the invisible
As you journey out of the blue.
Create
Innovate
Meditate
Communicate
Out of the blue.

You walk outside, into the crowded city streets. Traffic. Traffic of thoughts, of emotions. Traffic of people. Traffic of automobiles. Traffic of development. Traffic of drugs. Some call this a cacophony, others call it polyphony. To some it is the dissonance of living in a large urban centre. To others, it is the consonance of daily life. It’s a matter of perception. The individual voices – of humans, of animals, of technology fade into the collective whole of a city soundscape. A backdrop to daily existence. Embraced, or ignored. On a macro level, everyone is a dot in a continuum of space and time. What connects these dots? What guides their travel? Instinct. Intuition. Interaction. Biological hard wiring inherent in the human condition. Let guidance be sought. See the big picture. The continuum of space and time. See your place in it. Visualize the invisible and embrace it. Create, innovate, meditate, communicate. Life happens, out of the blue.

Tune your world
Let goodness be unfurled.
Let music be the source of union
So the collective can share in a communion
Of experiences, of goals, of identities.

Tune yourself,
Not to four-fourty
But find what
Matches your sonority.

Life may be out of the blue, but it doesn’t have to catch you.

Newspaper Review: NEXUS & Fritz Hauser at the Music Gallery

NEXUS & Fritz Hauser
The Music Gallery
February 27, 2007
8:00 PM

Matching Music to the Drum, Not the Drum to the Music

This collaborative concert between the Toronto-based percussion ensemble NEXUS, and renowned Swiss drum-set artist Fritz Hauser was a rare spectacle of musical achievement. On the program in this intermissionless concert was Away without Leave, a Bob Becker composition based on grooves from artists such as Steve Gadd, time flies a Fritz Hauser improvisation, and out of the blue which was a joint improvisation with NEXUS and Hauser. This concert program parallels the CD that was released, titled out of the blue. This title seems especially fitting for this rare treat in musical collaboration since the phrase out of the blue expresses the sentiment of improvisation perfectly: it is something that is formed spontaneously drawing on musical intuition as a guide.

Both NEXUS and Fritz Hauser are full of this musical intuition that centres their improvisation. When they play together, there is a sense of natural flow in their conversation, much like two good friends who converse so easily. Musically, they finish each other's sentences, predict one another's thoughts, and lead from one thought to the next without interruption, disrespect, or ego. This type of intuition and insight is obviously developed from the years of listening all of these musicians have partaken in.

Both NEXUS and Hauser have a reputation of pushing boundaries in their respective genres. NEXUS has broadened the possibilities of the percussion ensemble to embrace world music and improvisation which is informed by classical music traditions. Likewise, Hauser is a modern drum-set innovator. For Hauser, anything is possible and allowable as long as it is in service to the sound. Playing with hands? No problem. Replacing the conventional 14" hi hats with 8" reductions? Why not! Simply pushing on the drum head to get the sound of air escaping through the vent holes? Hauser takes everything anyone ever learned about playing the drums and throws it out the window. What the audience is left with is suspense at every turn, and the desire to see what else this dreamer can imagine.

On February 28, one day after the concert, Fritz Hauser presented a masterclass at the Faculty of Music and fielded a range of questions from the audience. When asked what attracted him to improvisation, he responded, "I was tired of matching the drum to the music, so I decided to try and find what music I could match to the drum." I'm sure this is a central problem for anyone musician locked into a more classical paradigm. The traditional, at least orchestral, approach to percussion is one where one strives to find the drum that matches the part perfectly. Instead, Hauser reverses this paradigm and asks the drum what music it would like to create informed by the very moment of its present existence.

Academic Reportage

Experiential Reportage
The Rex Jazz & Blues Bar
April 9/07
Humber College Jazz Ensembles

What immediately confronted me at the Rex was a chops heavy trio from Humber College. I thought their intended style was in an electric jazz sort of vein analogous to modern groups such as Metalwood and Martin, Medeski and Wood. This type of style has roots in later Miles Davis music like Bitch’s Brew (1970) which utilizes electric instruments and funk influences. However, the guitar player’s rock style shredding was completely out of place in this groove heavy music in which his task was to improvise over repetitive bass lines that are constructed over simple harmonies. While chops were evident, musicality was not and the music was far too “in your face” for this venue. When the rest of the ensemble members – sax, percussion and keys – joined the rhythm section on stage, the guitar player settled down. Finally the prog rock-esque jams gave way to some ballads featuring soprano sax and some lighter textures. This gave my ears a much needed break.

This group was followed by the real group I came to see that a friend of mine sings in: Rick Lazar’s Latin Jazz Ensemble. What a fun group. The instrumentation includes three percussionists who alternate on drumset, congas, timbales and a slew of Brazilian percussion including surdos and caixa; piano, guitar, bass, trombone, sax and two vocalists. They played a range of repertoire that spans samba, rhumba and salsa feels. This was a welcome change from the second group because they really showed that improvisation is not about playing every lick you know. Even the timbale and conga solos were very well orchestrated. This is a testament to the fact that often, well orchestrated precise solos played with conviction go farther than solos that just bust some chops.

Personally, this group reminded me how much I enjoy Latin music. The energy and groove is something profound that I don’t feel in a lot of Western music. There’s something captivating about Latin rhythms. It’s very possible for me to sit and listen to a clave bell pattern for an entire seven minute song just because it sits so well in the groove. Another element of Latin music that attracts me is the incredible sense of push and pull within the ensemble. In the conga guaguaco pattern, for example, there is a strong sense of push and pull within the pattern itself. This cannot be mistaken for rushing, but a definite sense of where the pulse is gives the musician license to move around slightly within that structure of time.

Latin music is incredible in the sense of community it instills within the ensemble. As a percussionist, I sometimes feel my 3 triangle notes in an entire movement is not nearly as valuable as the soaring violin lines. But Latin music places extraordinary value on every percussive voice. In a Latin ensemble, everyone is responsible for the time. The singers all pick up guiros and maracas and become part of the groove texture, and not just a vocal element. The result is a sense of pulse – a sense of communal time – that is steadfast and unmoving.

Lastly, I’d like to contemplate music as a solitary listening act. By the time the Latin ensemble was on, I was alone. Of course this can be an intimidating feeling at a well known downtown jazz bar where people come to hang out and listen to music. But I found a spot in the corner at the bar, nestled behind two other people who were alone. I’ve always admired people who hangout in public places on a Friday night alone – just soaking in their surrounding or perhaps enjoying a good book or magazine. A Monday night is far from this Friday night mentality but I think our culture attaches a negative stigma to being alone. As such, it is natural that being alone in a public place can cause insecurity, but is it really such a bad thing? I enjoyed this performance more than a lot I have been to lately. And yes, I was alone. But there was something so engaging about the music that I didn’t feel alone. The call and response between the caixa and surdo players drew me in and made me feel involved in the musical process. I occupied myself by transcribing different bell and conga patterns I heard. Effectively, I didn’t feel alone but the music kept me company.

Reflection - Service Learning Session 2

I completed my second, and final service learning session on Friday. I must say that I would not recommend that anyone else goes twice in one week :)

Running on two hours of sleep made this session a little more difficult, but I think it went really well all things considered. I went with a smaller group this time: just Mark, Blythe and myself which is a challenge in itself because it means we were largely outnumbered by the participants. The good part about having a smaller group was that we all had to participate and take a more active role in the leading process. It was challenging because Mark and Blythe hadn't been before, so I had to do a little more of the initiating, but they got comfortable and adapted quickly. We didn't have time to do an extremely detailed plan, but we had enough ideas, so it was mainly a matter of adapting a little more on the fly.

I think our need to think more in real time was a very positive thing. Since the participants have gone through a number of sessions with our class, there were several participants who wanted to take a leading role. For example, I repeated the percussion game we played on Tuesday using hand signals to control volume, and who plays when. Ray decided he wanted to try leading this too. So after I did it once, he did it a second time. Everyone followed him very well, I think because it was like watching a peer, instead of a leader.

I repeated the Delacroze idea where everyone moves until the music stops, as well as the percussion game, and singing In the Jungle. With the percussion portion, we added an element of rhythm where I would play one note, and then everyone would play one back. And then I would play two notes, and the participants responded with two, etc. Then Blythe mixed it up (1, 5, 2, 4, etc.) which was a cool idea: the participants now had to wait to see how many she played before playing back. This was very effective. It was more difficult singing this time because we didn't have any instrumental support other than drums. I really enjoyed on Tuesday having Scott and Brian with their keyboard and guitar which is far more flexible and engaging than a CD. The a capella with drum accompaniment worked well though.

We added the idea of a round, singing Brother John while splitting into two groups, and then George wanted to sing it solo in French (Frere Jacques). He made me sing along with him, which was difficult because his French version was a lot different than the one I knew. But everyone knew he was singing in French! Blythe also taught a Native American song (I think) which was good because we were introducing songs in different languages. For singing Brother John, we had everyone clap so they could all stay together in the round.

We also sang the now required You are my Sunshine which is Ray's favourite song and danced to some Queen. Everyone enjoyed this section. One of the participants was even hitting on me. She said I was cute...too bad she has an intellectual disability:) When they all start dancing, all notions of "personal space" definitely disappear.

We discussed soundscapes again by asking them what sounds they hear everyday. Mark also introduced the "making rain" activity using clapping, stomping, hitting thighs and snapping to show that music and sound can be made with the body. It actually sounded like a rain storm, too.

At the end of the session, no one wanted to leave so I think they enjoyed it all. I was impressed with how we kept it moving and adapted on the fly. The participation from everyone was great, especially George who enjoyed singing several solos and Ray who led part of the percussion section.

Session One Complete

Today marks the completion of my first session of the Service Learning Project. I think the session went extremely well, and we got lots of positive feedback from the staff and participants.

We stuck mostly to our original plan, so the session went something like this:

• Stretches
• Review and singing of "Yellow Submarine" and "Hey Jude"
• Scott led a good discussion on how to participate in the musical process - either through singing, dancing, clapping, etc. We had some good contributions from the participants on this one.
• Then we sang, and danced to the Beatles.
• I really liked how Scott led the group after each song in singing the chorus with piano accompaniment, and not CD. I think the participants enjoyed the instruments we brought - I brought some hand drums, Brian played guitar, and Scott played keyboard. This helped the participants to feel like they were part of live music, and not karaoke.
• Then we did a brief session inspired by Delacroze. One of Delacroze's main ideas is that music should be felt very physically. We did an exercise where we would play music and everyone would start moving, and then they would stop moving when the music stopped. We encouraged the participants to move however the music inspires them, so we experimented with different feels to see the results. The latin, blues and double time swing feel all had different movement results. Interestingly, one staff member told use afterwards that one man he works with has trouble moving the left side of his body due to a brain injury, but moved his left side particularily for the Latin feel.
• After this, we went into the percussion section. Between the instruments I brought, and the percussion gear ETS has, we had enough for everyone. The initial plan was to introduce every instrument, but I realized that can drag on a bit, and all of the participants were anxious to make noise. It's difficult handing out instruments however when everyone hits their instrument as soon as they get them. This made for interesting crowd control, but nothing crazy.
• We discussed soundscapes and took a tally of sounds all of the participants are aware of on a daily basis. Subway, streetcars and buses were a common theme.
• We also discussed sounds that occur in a jungle in preparation for in the jungle.
• When everyone had instruments, we worked on some ensemble ideas. I would use my hand to pass over a section of the room which was the sign to play. When I came back with my hand, it meant stop. This was a success. Then I worked on dynamics. Then, both elements were combined so there were dynamics, and different "parts."
• We went from the percussion to "In the Jungle" which I think was a hit. A lot of people knew the song and some really hit the high "A-WEEEEEEEEEE" part in the chorus quite in tune. This got everyone really excited.
• Lastly, we did Raymond's favourite song "You are my Sunshine."
• This was a nice closer.

That's all for now!