theoreticalplayground.co.uk » music

John Cage and Rahsaan Roland Kirk – Sound?? (1966)

det — Sat, 17 May 2008 10:08:14 +0000

An amazing video combining the talents of Rahsaan Roland Kirk and John Cage. The video questions the definition of sound…

John Cage Performance On TV Game Show

det — Tue, 15 May 2007 00:34:14 +0000

Found via the excellent wfmu blog, John Cage performs ‘Water Walks’ on a panel game show called I’ve Got a Secret in January 1960.

I’ll Be Your Dog

det — Mon, 14 May 2007 12:27:16 +0000

I watched a night in with Simon Pegg and Nick Frost on TV last night where they showed the Kia-Ora advert.

I hadn’t realised the song came after the advert! In fact I never realised the song exsisted until years after the advert. Thought I would dig out my copy and share. It was released by Caramba called Fedora (I’ll Be Your Dog)

Radiophonic Workshop

det — Tue, 17 Apr 2007 14:07:41 +0000

Some goodies from the Radiophonic Workshop, firstly the link to Alchemists of Sound documentary posted in the forums back in Novemeber 2005.

A documentary called Electric Music Machine I found on youtube. I found some information on it a while ago (when I first started this post) but I can’t find the source anymore…

This fly-on-the-wall documentary about five days in the life of the BBC Radiophonic Workshop has a slightly odd history. It was conceived not as a broadcast programme, but as a straight-to-video release, and was originally titled “Opus 10259″ (because the Workshop had worked on 10,259 projects by that point).

Filming took place in early 1985, but then the idea of releasing it as a sell-through video was dropped. Everything went quiet for three years, and then, after some extra filming in late 1987 (the Richard Attree segments), the programme finally saw the light of day on BBC-2 at 3.05pm on Tuesday 29th March 1988 to celebrate the Workshop’s 30th anniversary. To date, that is its one and only transmission.

It’s a nice little narration-free doco that does an excellent job of presenting a snapshot of the work that was going on in the Workshop at a time when the “traditional” methods of manipulating sounds using reels of tape were beginning to be supplanted by new technologies like MIDI.

Just so that the Who fans aren’t unduly disappointed, I should point out that this documentary about the Workshop is possibly unique in that it doesn’t make any mention of Doctor Who whatsoever, although the piece that Peter Howell is seen to be working on – for a Newsnight special called “D-Day To Berlin” – sounds an awful lot like mid-80s Doctor Who incidental music, at least in its early stages.

It’s been split into five parts on youtube:

[Part 2]
[Part 3]
[Part 4]
[Part 5]

Finally a radio documentary from 1979 called Wee Have Also Sound Horses, the title a reference to Francis Bacon’s 1626 novel ‘The New Atlantis’

On the Edge: Improvisation in Music

det — Wed, 24 Jan 2007 12:47:33 +0000

[edit: looks like they have been removed from dailymotion]

A four part series from 1992 produced and directed by Jeremy Marre and presented by Derek Bailey. It looks at musical improvisation from around the world and across all genres. There is some information about the series at European Free Improvisation pages which I’ve quoted before each clip:

1 – Passing it on
Douglas Ewart at Haynes School in Chinatown, Chicago; improvisation in Mozart with Robert Levin, piano and the Acadamy of Ancient Music with Christopher Hogwood; John Zorn and Cobra; improvisation in religious and devotional music and communities with: Naji Hakim – organ improvisations in Paris; Gaelic psalm singing on the Scottish Isles of Harris and Lewis; and Indian singing with Pundit Hanuman Misra.

2 – Movements in time
Tracing the effects of migration on improvising links across continents and the production of new styles from the combinations: qawwali from the Sufis in New Delhi, Northern India; Hindu music of Rajistan with Ram Narayan; early medieval music performed in Andalucia by Symphony (Stevie Wishart, Mark Loopuy, Jim Denley); improvisation in dance with: Mario Maya, flamenco; Indian kathak mime and movement; and Egyptian gypsy music; the mixture of Cuban music and jazz with Eddie Palmieri.

3 – A liberating thing
Broadcast 16 February 1992, concentrating on jazz based and free improvisation. With Max Roach at the Harlam School of the Arts; Butch Morris conducting (with, among others, Shelley Hirsch); Sang-Won Park and Korean music; Max Eastley’s sound sculptures; Derek Bailey (solo and fleetingly with Phil Wachsmann, Steve Noble and Alex Ward); Steve Noble and Alex Ward duo; Nashville musicians including Buddy Emmons; Eugene Chadbourne.

4 – Nothin premeditated
Broadcast 23 February 1992, with Jerry Garcia and The Grateful Dead; Buddy Guy; George Lewis and computers (and in quartet with Douglas Ewart and sound and video generation); mbira music from Zimbabwe; music of the Tonga people; concluding with a house party on the Lower East side.

minilogue – hitchhikers choice

det — Tue, 05 Dec 2006 16:59:12 +0000

A short version of a stopmotion video for minilogue for their hitchhikers choice track released on crosstown rebels. A longer version of the animation will be available on a forthcoming DVD. The animation was made by Ljudbilden & Piloten

Web Phases

det — Tue, 04 Apr 2006 19:00:19 +0000

Web Phases is a music webapp that uses internet traffic to help to construct musical compositions. It consists of four dropdown boxes for the user to select different musical elements such as drum beats, piano, drones and strings.

Duracell

det — Thu, 02 Jun 2005 20:08:00 +0000

Another post pulled from the old forum, Duracell is a great drummer using electronically triggered drums to play covers of Turrican, Space Harrier and more! A great live act, and videos are now on youtube.