tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-91679197830892246192011-12-03T07:22:32.250+11:00texturetexthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12531976950546159101noreply@blogger.comBlogger141100tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9167919783089224619.post-38114525347247091272010-11-22T10:02:00.013+11:002010-11-23T10:37:26.291+11:00

I'm going to take a break from my more navel-gazing obsession with reflecting on my own sound/musical work. Instead I want to write down some thoughts on radiophonic art that were first sparked three years ago by hearing six new, short 'radiophonic' works in three distinctly different listening contexts. The six works were created by six quite different artists and artist collaborations in

texturetexthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12531976950546159101noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9167919783089224619.post-42509100756006136652010-10-25T23:07:00.025+11:002011-03-06T19:02:21.992+11:00

What would the results for recording and 'sound art' be if there were as many different kinds of microphones in the world as there are pairs of ears? If, indeed, it was possible to use a pair of ears as microphones, and to feed whatever resonated in those inner cavities and nerves directly through the inputs of a recording device? The thought was prompted by a friend talking about the

texturetexthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12531976950546159101noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9167919783089224619.post-50610389555085674722010-10-02T23:19:00.006+10:002011-03-06T18:38:50.385+11:00

My collaborative residency with writer Jen Craig is coming to an end, and while we've both done lots of work over the past 12 days, there's not much that's ready for anyone else to hear. Part of my process over the past week has been simply to take Jen's texts and put myself in front of a microphone or two (with one of the mics feeding through an old analog synthesizer) and improvise take after

texturetexthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12531976950546159101noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9167919783089224619.post-42544930091155453252010-09-27T15:12:00.018+10:002011-03-06T18:40:00.165+11:00

Over the River, my second 'essay' (attempt) in responding sonically to Jen Craig's Absurd Enticements  blog began with a simple association of time and place. We stood on the banks of the Shoalhaven River at dusk. I made a recording of the cries of an enraged spur-winged plover, complete with natural echoes from the cliffs opposite. The effect of these sounds as the very last of daylight faded

texturetexthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12531976950546159101noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9167919783089224619.post-39233842812098699672010-09-27T14:36:00.003+10:002010-09-27T20:25:32.151+10:00

After reading my last entry and Jen Craig's 'Art Works' you may have been amused by the length and circumlocutions of my blog alongside the brevity and richness of resonance of her story. An object lesson of the communicative power of 'fiction' as against more discursive or banally analytical attempts to capture our reality. Perhaps my audio-piece Bundanon drive-by also seemed to labour the

texturetexthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12531976950546159101noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9167919783089224619.post-59085083593635586002010-09-25T12:24:00.013+10:002011-03-06T18:43:46.856+11:00

The piece Art works on Jen Craig's micro-story blog Absurd Enticements draws attention to assumptions about nature and the 'natural' - a presumed (desired?) absence of artifice or human intervention in 'The Bush', called into question in this case by the presence of an artist residency. Which is exactly where Jen and I find ourselves, working together on the first stages of an audio-textual

texturetexthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12531976950546159101noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9167919783089224619.post-47796699087350701982010-09-21T21:35:00.005+10:002010-09-27T21:13:30.368+10:00

What a year - my excuse for leaving this blog to languish for so long. Sounds of İzmir - sounds of İstanbul. In the last 2 weeks I've finally made the radio programs from the interviews and music I collected in İstanbul in January, not long after my last post. (If you want to hear the music and learn more about the artists, check out my programs on New Music Up Late, available for 4 weeks

texturetexthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12531976950546159101noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9167919783089224619.post-33616710904373677452010-01-01T04:24:00.004+11:002010-09-27T21:11:48.931+10:00

Sounds of Izmir - car horns, music playing from numerous street and shopfront systems, muezzin calls from mosques near and far punctuating the day and leaving langorous vapour trails of blurred background polyphonies. It's all music, isn't it? And now from inside the hotel room the muffled sounds of voices and indistinct bass lines filtering down from the restaurant above. Is the plethora of

texturetexthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12531976950546159101noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9167919783089224619.post-88865484627992951172009-11-15T14:38:00.000+11:002009-11-15T14:38:19.149+11:00

Still obsessing on aspects of my new flute and synth and solo flute pieces. Something specific to these pieces which was new for me was an intentional starkness of phrases, divided from each other by big, awkward pauses. Up till now my music has tended towards developing by gradual transitions from one sound world or gesture to another. More sudden contrasts have been rare and tend to be used to

texturetexthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12531976950546159101noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9167919783089224619.post-40914913240699252972009-10-26T15:26:00.001+11:002009-11-15T14:36:31.777+11:00

Did you feel the lack of images in my last blog? Whether for the fun of juxtaposition, or to make some movement towards redressing the loss of the visual I raved on about, for every piece of audio I upload to Pool I try to find and upload an appropriate image. Which immediately begs the question - what does appropriate mean? With Reverse I discarded the more lateral interpretive options for

texturetexthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12531976950546159101noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9167919783089224619.post-12159420804131338312009-10-17T14:05:00.005+11:002011-03-06T18:57:51.234+11:00

I've recently posted two versions of the work Reverse on my Pool page, the one for flute and synthesizer which I linked to in my last blog, and now one for solo flute (with the player also vocalising a lot). Removing the synthesizer and adding vocalising and more varied articulatory and timbral techniques to the flute has finally enabled me to finish a solo flute piece I'm happy with. Whether

texturetexthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12531976950546159101noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9167919783089224619.post-37505145277179495062009-10-11T06:33:00.006+11:002011-03-06T18:55:38.381+11:00

Recently I've been making works using an old Korg MS-20 analog synthesizer as a processor for flute and other acoustic inputs. It's a process that has seemingly allowed me to break through two creative barriers. 1. As a composer and flute player I've often been asked by other flute players to write pieces for solo flute for them. Until this year all such attempts have been discarded. For some

texturetexthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12531976950546159101noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9167919783089224619.post-80521192387286869602009-09-26T18:02:00.020+10:002011-03-06T18:52:38.505+11:00

I'm just feeling my way with this whole blog thing. What I really want is a a blog that enables me to move fluently between text image and audio, but at this stage I can't see any way to embed audio except as a link. If you clicked on 'link', what you're looking at now is my page on 'Pool' - in which case you are of course not reading this blog. Pool is ABC Radio National's online space for

texturetexthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12531976950546159101noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9167919783089224619.post-31091843296559111302009-09-26T01:45:00.003+10:002009-09-27T12:12:06.746+10:00

Creating starts with an idea or 'text'. Put through the masher of processes and play the idea dissolves into texture. As the texture stabilises, it becomes a new 'text', a clarified idea. Or is it the other way around? Grabbing hold of some intriguing or captivating fragment or strand of texture - working with it until it becomes more well defined, a definite figure or idea - then pushing it

texturetexthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12531976950546159101noreply@blogger.com0