Category: Porfolio

I decided to read another book on sampling and the ideas of culture around music, following again from the previous book and my attributes task. I’m still in the process of researching and trying, a form of practice-based research. Closer towards my hand-in I’ll make more focused studies but currently, I’m following my curiosity.

The book has several essays to discuss the issues presented in the introductory essay by the editors. I read about half of the essays that really spoke to me and found these two in particular the most interesting, ideas of archiving culture through sampling, reanimating sounds and the crate digger as an archaeologist interest me.

An Introduction, or My (Ambiguous) Life with Technology, Steve Reich 

Steve discusses his early use of tape loops and his ideas behind them. He speaks about the first time he played two mono tape recorders at the same time and discovered this feeling of distance. At first, the sounds played at the same time but they slowly went out of sync phasing into each other. He carried on listening and eventually they came back around. He thought this was something to pursue. 

He moved back to New York in 1966 and he did a second speech loop piece called “Come Out”, the voice of Daniel Hamm, arrested for murder. He moved back to New York in 1966 and he did a second speech loop piece called “Come Out”, the voice of Daniel Hamm, arrested for murder. I’ve previously done research on blog posts on this and found this continued interview interesting. He created a similar tape loop with the speech that phases in and out of time together. I’ve previously done research on blog posts on this and found this continued interview interesting.

Eventually, this lead to other practices, attempting to do this with instruments live. Steve considered real musicians to be able to perform live. He then went on to discuss the sampler as an instrument and his fascination with it. When he started working on operas again he used field recordings of New York soundscapes and used samplers to trigger, edit and change the sounds and control the trigger for them in his compositions. Unlike synthesisers which didn’t interest him that much, he didn’t see the point if he could use a real instrument than a copy. He considered a sampler as a different tool, which enables sounds to be performed and used compositionally.

The Musician as Thief: Digital Culture and Copyright Law

I found these quotes to be of real interest to me, which has given me research towards my portfolio.

Human culture is always derivative, and music perhaps especially so. New art builds on old art. We hear music, process it, reconfigure it, and create something derivative but new

I suppose sampling is different to having inspiration and this quote doesn’t exactly back my ideas around sampling, but it is interesting that we can find inspiration to be like this.

Contemporary music from the top forty to the most obscure live DJ set, reflects this technological change, taking the music that came before as raw material for research and configuration. As David Toop has noted, this cultural practice profoundly blurs the line between creators and consumers of culture, turning listening itself into a platform for creative production and performance.

I find this reference to be of interest to me because it communicates listening as a way of being creative, listening can lead towards production and performing and breaking the idea of listening not being that. It also reminds me of the ideas around knowledge and this explains that sonic knowledge is a thing.

Does a change in technology produce a change in how we make culture? And, if we are making culture differently now, how should the law respond?

Correctly written, we find many laws that are still behind current practices. It always takes years through scheduling to finally combat bureaucracy for new laws to come to fruition and reflect modern society and its practices.

David Toop says “Songs became liquid. They became vehicles for improvisation, or source materials, field recordings almost, that could be reconfigured or remixed to suit the future. In a humiliating way, musicians became technicians, alongside recording engineers, tape ops editors, and all the other technocratic laboratory assistants cleaning their glasses in the back room. At the front end of the medium was the DJ… playing music and people as one fluid substance. 

The idea that songs can become liquid and reformatted into different uses beyond their original is a great point within my usage of sampling as well. Perhaps a song can have a different meaning once contextualised in a practice that sees different potential within the medium?

 “Collage as technique: the selection, arrangement and juxtaposition of the found bits of prior culture is the art. The fragments “impact upon each other to explosive effect”—through the artist’s selection and arrangement, she generates novel information. 

“It may be a culturally productive act simply to discover and draw attention to a fragment of text, image, or sound. Part of the mosaic- or collage creators’ art lies in the very process of rescuing the framing from obscurity and showing it to people. This Benjaminian urge to rescue and re-present culture is conspicuous throughout sample-based genres, and is illustrated in the following description of DJs making organised raids on collective culture—that is, going to record stores. This comes from Jeff Chang, aka DJ Zen, who describes feeling outclassed as a crate-digger by members of the now-defunct solesides collective.

“There’s nothing worse to them than the kind of guy who won’t bid his rent and food money for a Tanzanian Funk 45 or the impossible-to-get Invaders LP. The kind of person who doesn’t scour thin phonebooks from foothill counties and find teeny used record stores owned by unwashed proprietors who look like trolls. The kind of person who doesn’t know where and when all the record convention within 1000 miles are going down, and what hour before dawn to show up in a miner’s light helmet and backpack.”

This is a serious pursuit of cultural fragments—on par with the great granddaddy of all crate diggers, Grandmaster Flash, who claims to have performed with “something like 45” crates of records behind him. The critical and commercial success of these artists suggests that their compulsion to collect, reconfigure, to re-present prior recorded sound is finding a receptive audience. To listeners, crate-digging is a highly legitimate foundation for signification and innovative cultural production. 

These last three quotes went one after the other. They affirmed my ideas that I’ve been curious about crate digging, what it means to crate dig, and what are some ideas around it? To reconfigure, to re-present works, to become an archival artist and connect to ancestors.

I also found a section that mentioned John Oswald and Plunderphonics, I’ll be doing research into this.

I decided to look into critical theory and readings of sampling and the ideas of copying or stealing, I was curious after my exercise of attributes and creating the song from the same attributes as MADVILIAN’s song Meatgrinder. What does it mean to sample music? What do people consider is right or wrong within it as well as the philosophy of using samples. Here are some quotes and ideas that I found interesting within the book.

The practice of sampling without permission has all but ended. However, this move to protect established songwriters at the expense of emerging ones runs counter to both the intent of copyright law and the best interest of society

It’s an interesting way to think that protecting the old artists can stop the new, I suppose it doesn’t speak on the right of old artists as well, why do we prioritise the more modern ones and disregard the older established artists?

American culture and politics would function better under a system that guarantees “thin” copyright protection. Just enough protection to encourage creativity, yet limited so that emerging artists, scholars, writers and students can enjoy a rich public domain and broad “fair use of copyright material “

While “thick” copyright has had a chilling effect on creativity, thin copyright would enrich American literature, music, art, and democratic culture.

The ideas presented around thin and thick copyright laws can make one consider where the opposing law can do. Thick copyright laws present extreme restrictions on ideas being shared, no sampling, no closeness to ideas presented. Whereas thin copyright law is more towards the idea of hive mind, that ideas should be on a public domain, or somewhere in between with a more lineant approach, to allow more to be used before being considered stealing.

Copywright was intended to protect artists  literature musical etc enough to encourage creativity, the law is based on creating distinctive work, to render it original. Originality displays a skill of his or her own skill labor and judgement.

All creativity relies on previous work, builds “on the shoulders of giants” 

This idea that all creativity relies on previous work speaks out to me in volumes, I couldn’t see any other view on this, I believe it’s stupid to act as if art is made in a vacuum, how can one not be inspired by others, on the shoulders of giants is a great metaphor to explain that reliant that creativity has on inspiration and the sharing of knowledge and expression.

But because twentieth-century copyright law has been a battle of strongly interested parties seeking to control a market, not a concentrated effort to maximise creativity and content for the benefit of the public, we have lost sight of such a formula along the way.

Again the idea of public domain, that the idea is to control a market rather than maximise creativity. The intent behind these ideas of intellectual property and copyright laws are there for a reason, to make sure whoever creates gets what is owed. But creativity is something that should be prioritised. Although there are arguments against this, Elvis Presley used the song hound dog. The song, which was previously released to little success, he then released it himself and it went on to become hugely popular and commercially successful. It was inauthentic. He reaped more rewards than the contemporary black artists, Chuck D leader of public enemy said “Elvis was a hero to most, but he didnt mean shit to me. 

Tricia rose has argued, whiteness maters in the story of the commodification of black cultural expression. By virtue of their whiteness, many artists participated in styles and “crossed over” what was until only recently a gaping social and economic chasm between black music and white consumers. 

Even when blacks could cross over, white artists have had better opportunities to capitalise on the publicity and distribution systems. For instance many “alternative” or “rock” radio stations will occasionally play rap music, but only if it is by white artists such as the beastie boys, limp biz kit, or kid rock.

Rap didn’t come from blues but from “Afrodiasporic” black culture,

Early rap composers weaved samples from familiar songs into a new montage of sound.

Rap for a moment revealed gaping flaws in the premises of how copyright law gets applied to music and showed the law to be inadequate for emerging communication technologies, techniques and aesthetics. 

It is in fact a struggle between the established entities in the music business and those trying to get established. It is a conflict between old and new. 

As the market for rap and the industry that supports it grew and matures through the 1980s and 1990s, the law shifted considerably in favour of established artists and companies, and against emerging ones. So by the late 1990s, rap artists without the support of a major record company and its lawyers, without a large pool of money to pay a licence fee for samples, had a choice: either don’t sample or don’t market new music. 

I think these last few quotes and extracts really paint an idea around white dominance in copyright law and the approach that it applies for one and not the other. Also disregarding other cultures and workframes within communities, that because this works for the western world or white cultures that it applies to others.

In non western cultures, South America and Africa, ownership of ideas and expressions isn’t as important, one could argue that copyright laws are a white cultural idea imposed into law.

Why do rap artists sample in the first place? What meaning are they imparting? Some songs grab bits and pieces of different pop culture signposts, while other, such as tone loc’s “wild thing” or Hammer’s “U Cant Touch this” which lays lyrics upon a backing track made up almost entirely of rick’s “super freak” intstrumeuntals, hardly stand alone as as songs, but try “versions” of someone else’s hits. Sometimes, as with schooled d’s sampling of led zeppelins “Kashmir” for his song “signifying rapper” it can be political act— a way of crossing the system, challenging expectations, or confronting the status quo. Often, the choice of the sample is an expressions of appreciation, debt, or influence. Other times it’s just a matter of having some fun or searching for the right ambient sound, tone or feel. Certainly rick Jame’s funky hits of the late 1970s and early 1980s influenced not only artists of the 1990s but their audiences. Sampling is a way an artists declares “Hey I dug this, too” 

I find the way of discussing using samples as a way of challenging expectation, confronting the status quo, and having fun or in other means describes the varied approaches in sampling, it’s a different knowledge that is imparted when using these tools.

Music belongs to the people, and sampling in hip hop isn’t a copy cat act but a form of reanimation. Sampling in hip-hop is the digitised version of hip-hop DJing, an archival project and an art form unto itself. Hip-Hop is ancestor worship.

Sampling can be transgressive or appreciative, humorous or serious. It gives a song another level of meaning, another plane of communication among the artist, previous artists and the audience.

Digital sampling also had a powerful democratising effect on American popular music. All a young composer needed was a thick stack of vinyl albums, a $2000 sampler, a microphone, and a tape deck, and she could make fresh and powerful music. She could make people dance, laugh, and sing along. 

Hip Hop as ancester worship and renaimation of the past. To show respect and admire the past. An archival project. To think that one can communicate with others over time is beautiful. as well in the last quote discussing the advantages that samples have given towards people who don’t know musical theory. Anyone can become a composer with a sampler. To a certain extent ofcourse.

The digital sampling device has change not only the sound of pop music, but also the mythology. It has done what punk rock threatened to do: made everybody into a musician, bridge the gap between performer and audience. 

The power of such a tool that it allows people who are untrained to become composers through ideas.

Sampling is just a longer term for theft. Anybody who can honestly say sampling is some sort of creativity has never done anything creative.

I thought this was an interesting argument against the idea of sampling presented in the book. That sampling isn’t creative its just stealing. Something I disagree with but have considered.

For Chucked D, a sample is a “mineral.” It is raw material for a new compostion. Sampling is a transformation: using an expression as an idea; using what was once melody as a beat, an element of rhythm. Sampling is not theft. It’s recycling. If we define an expression by what it does, instead of what it did, it no longer counts as an expression in the new context. The expression does not do the same work in its new role. Content matters to meaning. An old expression is no longer the same expression, and note even the same idea, if the context changes radically.

Thats how creativity happens. Artists collaborate over space and time, even if they lived centuries and continents apart. Profound creatiivity requires maximum exposure to others works and liberal freedoms to reuse and reshape others material, Martha Graham

This has really made me consider critically the practice of sampling in a whole. I will be contextualising my work more after reading this and reflecting on the important notes I’ve taken from the book.

Since doing my first field recording trip, and conducting research into my own dissertation which is also about field recordings. The working title is currently, Retuning Into the Earth: Can the Positive Effects of Listening to Field Recordings Lead to Environmental Change? I’ve been curious about field recording practice and the technical elements around it. How can I critically look into the technical elements involved in natural history recordings? I wish to record the sounds of nature, so I read this book.

It’s a rather old book from 1977, I found it really interesting to contrast modern-day techniques and equipment and how they perceived wildlife recording in that current timeframe. The book discusses signal-to-noise ratio and the need to get close to subjects, as how electronics and the preamp can bring noise and hiss. The book discusses noise as any unwanted sounds while recording, such as noise pollution. It speaks about the modern technology is part of this noise pollution in our environment, the combustion motor engine more than a mile away can produce low drone rumbles in recordings. This is a negative thing amongst our soundscape but it does come with benefits, for example, battery-powered recorders that allow us to go out and record in the field.

It also discusses the dawn chorus, when animals are most active and birds more than often. The capture of birds in the early hours of the morning and the interesting recordings that can take place. As well as techniques to use this, place microphones around trees and keep yourself hidden. It lightly touches on ideas on bioacoustics and the relationship that sound and biology have together. It also discusses the different ranges that animals produce, some different than others and also the techniques to hear these sounds back, on tape changing tape speeds can bring high-frequency sounds to audible levels for the human hearing range.

The parabolic reflector dish is explained and discussed in this book heavily. In fact, an entire chapter is dedicated towards this tool. The parabolic dish works by reflecting sound waves to a central location within the dish, with a microphone facing towards the centre of the dish. The parabolic dish comes in different sizes and the different sizes can affect the frequency response and gain of the reflected sound waves. The use of the parabolic reflector is it amplifies directional sounds without the need to be close to the subject. The only downside is that it is incredibly directional and requires pointing it in the correct direction.

The book lightly touches towards the end on the idea of processing sounds and the editing that goes behind submitting your sounds and documentation for competitions and documentaries. It was discussed editing, EQ and filtering to bring the sound of the animal towards an authentic experience. Editing out ambience towards the end of a recording and cutting it into the beginning and the practices involved with displaying natural history sounds. It interested me because I didn’t realise the fakeness behind the production of natural history programs. That the idea they present isn’t realistic but glorifies the sounds into what they can sound like. This reinforces the idea that perhaps in this context field recordings aren’t an accurate representation of authentic environments. But a way to capture and categorise the recordings, with little care for the reasons why.

I want to get out the parabolic microphone I believe we have in the kit room and test it out for sure, along with recording natural history sounds. I’m not sure why but I have this love of being out in nature listening and recording. Perhaps I should look into this, I find my interests when followed and researched on give me deep understanding of myself and thoughts behind my decisions/experiences.

I’ve decided to follow with the very first attributes exercise I did and wrote down the attributes. The song was Meatgrinder by MADVILLIAN.

The attributes I decided were.

Uniqueness

Rustic

Original

LO-FI

Rough Mix

Tasteful

Breaks that knock

Passionate

Complex

Simple on the surface

Depth

I’ve decided to use similar tools that MADLIB would use when creating this song. An SP404MK2, a 4-track Tascam 424 and a turntable with some vinyl. I decided to start with the first attribute which was the drums and breaks that knock. I setup my 4 track and started going through some cassettes that I have to sample some drums, I ended up taking a high hat from a Commodore song, the drum and snare from Brick House from the same group. I chopped it into my SP404MK2 and started creating a drumkit, tuning the kit, chopping the waveforms, adding effects and then resampled them into a sequence.

I was trying to really hit the attributes and see what happened, the uniqueness I felt like would come from having no grid. Not quantising and just feeling the rhythm when creating the drum pattern. As well as this I was sampling different drum sounds, EQ’ing them to actually work and not clash. I even used one with a vocal sound to add an interesting texture to the drum sequence.

After creating my loop and figuring out the correct pattern, I set up my 4-track machine and recorded in the drum attempting to get some saturation from the cassette player. As well as hoping it would make my music wonky and change the frequency response, I wanted it to be muddy and just an expression.

After recording the drums into the 4-track I decided to look through another cassette and found a lovely guitar loop in a Sade record. I recorded it into my SP404MK2 and chopped and pitched, time-stretched. It really did lose all revelance and context from the original. I was just using it as an audio source. Then I jammed along and figured out a pattern, then record the pattern into channel 3-4. Finally, I felt like it needed an intro, I picked out a random 45 record and it had someone speaking at the beginning, it was a 1976 Worldcup record. Someone says “You’ve never heard anything like this before” I scratched the record after the person says this quote and used it as an intro.

Then I uploaded it into Logic Pro X, I used a multipressor, reverb send, and Chorus. I EQed the files as they were recorded in stereo which made it difficult to really mix it correctly how I wanted but I embraced the decision-making I had made before it. The outcome I’m pretty content with, I’m not sure where this will lead me again, but I’m curious about the process I did today. Tape and vinyl really speak to me in terms of sampling. I enjoy just pulling out physical media, perhaps I can use this as well?

Final Outcome audio

After my first session doing modular synthesis at university, last year I taught myself modular and found an open-source program called VCV RACK 2. I felt like jamming this afternoon and wanted to use the real modular but the university is closed on Sunday.

I started very simple with just a few VCOs and VCAs and then started using some VCFs and sending it to a VCA mixer. Then I got a sequencer involved and started adding more oscillators.

Because VCV RACK 2 is open source and free, people create their own modules for you to download online for free, so I downloaded some reverb and chorus. Started messing around with that. Then it leads towards downloading a new sequencer that is more creative than a standard step sequencer. I also saw a Lin Drum module that looked interesting so I also downloaded that and created a drum pattern. I sequenced up all the sequencers through clock outputs and I was done.

I wanted to export these sounds and see how I can do this, I either purchase the premium version for a hundred and something pounds or download BlackHole a program that acts as an internal audio interface routing internal OS sounds into an input or output.

I assigned the output of the audio module to the BlackHole input and on LogicPro X assigned the input to BlackHole and output to my Scarlett Solo for monitoring. I then did an EQ and Multi Compressor to get out sections that I wanted, as when recording the entire mix from VCV RACK there were sections I wanted to change. I created a reverb bus and added some small 1980s slapback reverb to it. Exported and saved it.

I think this has made me consider how I can in future incorporate this within my work, especially this black hole mechanic. I can when I purchase my new interface next month have inputs and outputs going into my cassette player. I’m considering using that as a drum sequencer for it. Here is the outcome of my goalless exploration.

Since my last field recording trip, I’ve decided to take some equipment out of LCC Kit Room.

I’ve borrowed a Sound Devices Mix Pre 6, a small Korg Contact Microphone and SOMA Ether electromagnetic microphone. As well as this I have recently purchased my own LOM Geofon which I haven’t even used yet! I want to also bring my Zoom H1n as the normal XY microphone instead of lugging a large shotgun microphone in a Rycote shield.

For this trip, I want to explore the woods in Epping Forest. I’ve been thinking about how I can create a piece of work that reflects my current research in my audio paper dissertation. I’m exploring the ideas around field recording as a tool for environmental change. I’ve been reading a lot of papers about environmental sound arts and the ways that field recordings are used to expose issues in our environment. I’m curious as to how I can perhaps use the recordings I find to bring issues to the forefront.

I’m hoping to see if there are any electromagnetic signals in the woods, noise pollution and the microtonal sounds that we miss every day. To try and bring back the sounds of nature within our cities, no matter how minute it is. I want to try to find the small sonic environments within a large soundscape.

I’m interested in finding the ideas that are present within minimalistic music, the idea that soundscapes can be minimalistic music, and the slow progression that occurs. The ever-changing soundscapes that perform for us.

After going to the Thames and recording some sounds I decided to mess around on Ableton without any direction and just see where things lead to. I went through my field recordings and starter layering sounds, pitching, and time stretching. Added a reverb send and started creating an atmosphere/drone sound.

I then added two synthesisers, one a really trebly low end ish long 1980s SciFi-sounding chord. After a higher-pitched lead line. It ended up sounding really cinematic, and it’s made me consider perhaps doing sound for something? A short animation? Also, it was very ambient, can I use field recordings in ambient music? Am I into ambient music? Does making this actually interest me? I’ve been considering if I prefer the actual practice of field recording, the meditative listening aspect to using them in art pieces. I need to research further into avenues around this.

Here is the outcome.

I didn’t go to much into it because I didn’t find much inspiration from doing this, I found this more a light exploration into using the field recordings.

I’m still not sure exactly what my first mock, prototype, or whatever it is will be for my portfolio hand-in. One of my ideas is still the production/musical left-field sample-based hip-hop project. I’ve decided to do a bit of research into the art theory behind sampling and music production. The analogue culture within the recording and the ethics of remixing work, what does it mean to remix-sample work and recontextualise it.

I read this short book about sampling What’s a Sampler? it was rather simple and I knew a lot of it but I decided to start at the very beginning. What is a sampler? I found it did have some interesting ideas, explaining the digital to analogue or vice verse concept. How a sampler records and translates audio into digital and how it allows manipulation. The processing involved in recording, aliasing, and the difficulty within memory.

I also found the bit rate to resolution explanation really useful and I do feel like a lot of the explanations within this were made to be broken. One specific section explained loops and extending sounds, and how to find the middle point of a waveform to create a loop that does clip or sounds unnatural. It also explains how to effectively perform instruments once sampled, and how to create a digital instrument through recording, typically by using root notes.

I think this has given me some ideas on what to do, perhaps create an instrument from the Thames rubbish and digitally sample it? I did have ideas on creating a trash instrument and this might be the outcome of it. Let’s see.

Since initially being commissioned for this build I updated my model from last year and designed it slightly differently. I also was receiving some issues with the impedance of the microphone at first. I went to a few blogs and got some advice to check it on a multimeter and then I managed to fix the issue by rewinding the copper cable wrapped around the microphone.

I spent a lot of time at the creative workshop lab soldering and creating the XLR cable from scratch through Neutrik components and Van Damme tour-grade XLR cable.

In making this one I also broke my old one by attempting to open it to see what I’d done wrong on the new one. I’ll be fixing my old one and using that to field record.

Here are some finished photos of the final product.

I’m going to fix my old Priezor DIY mic and field record with it. I also want to create the other LOM DIY Elektrosluch which is quite different to the Priezor, sonically and physically.

I’m not sure where creating these microphones are taking me but perhaps I’ll use these microphones on recordings and pieces, I don’t think I want the actual microphone to become my portfolio piece.

I found steve’s website and this is his bio

Steve Reich has been called “the most original musical thinker of our time” (The New Yorker) and “among the great composers of the century” (The New York Times). Starting in the 1960s, his pieces It’s Gonna Rain, Drumming, Music for 18 Musicians, Tehillim, Different Trains, and many others helped shift the aesthetic center of musical composition worldwide away from extreme complexity and towards rethinking pulsation and tonal attraction in new ways. He continues to influence younger generations of composers and mainstream musicians and artists all over the world.

Double Sextet won the Pulitzer Prize in 2009 and Different Trains, Music for 18 Musicians, and an album of his percussion works have all earned GRAMMY Awards. He received the Praemium Imperiale in Tokyo, the Polar Music Prize in Stockholm, the Golden Lion at the Venice Biennale, the BBVA Foundation Frontiers of Knowledge award in Madrid, the Debs Composer’s Chair at Carnegie Hall, and the Gold Medal in Music from the American Academy of Arts and Letters. He has been named Commandeur de l’Ordre des Arts et des Lettres in France, and awarded honorary doctorates by the Royal College of Music in London, the Juilliard School in New York, and the Liszt Academy in Budapest, among others.

One of the most frequently choreographed composers, several noted choreographers have created dances to his music, including Anne Teresa de Keersmaeker, Jirí Kylián, Jerome Robbins, Justin Peck, Wayne McGregor, Benjamin Millepied, and Christopher Wheeldon.

Reich’s documentary video opera works—The Cave and Three Tales, done in collaboration with video artist Beryl Korot—opened new directions for music theater and have been performed on four continents. His work Quartet, for percussionist Colin Currie, sold out two consecutive concerts at Queen Elizabeth Hall in London shortly after tens of thousands at the Glastonbury Festival heard Jonny Greenwood (of Radiohead) perform Electric Counterpoint, followed by the London Sinfonietta performing his Music for 18 Musicians. “There’s just a handful of living composers who can legitimately claim to have altered the direction of musical history and Steve Reich is one of them,” The Guardian.

Steve seems like a really important figure within minimalism culture and music, I’m going to listen to a few of his works and read his essay “Music as a Gradual Process” and reflect on each piece. I want to learn more about his work and the ideas that he presents.

Come Out

This piece was based on a piece he was tasked to make for the Harlem Six who were six black youths arrested for murder. Reich was given 71 hours of content from tapes recorded during their arrest. He selected one four-second section where the youth says “I had to, like, open the bruise up, and let some of the bruise blood come out to show them”. Then the words “come out to show them” are looped at increasing speeds, two channels start on time and slowly go out of time and begin to phase. This piece reminds me of Jessica Ekomane’s work Figures / Ground where two bleeps come in and out of time until eventually, they are completely out of sync. Madlib uses this sample in the intro of his work on MADVILLIAN with the song America’s Most Blunted, this just adds to the creative genius that is Madlib knowing how he discovers all these samples and recontextualises them. I want to attempt a similar idea for both these pieces but with field recordings. Can I make field recordings come in and out of time and eventually start together? What does this mean when I use recordings from a specific area?

Steve also does this in his work It’s Gonna Rain, he creates two tape loops at slightly different speeds and allows them to phase to come in and out of time over a span of seventeen minutes. I really want to try this for myself. Perhaps in the context of other environmental sound artists and their uses of field recordings.

I also read Steve Reich’s essay Music as a Gradual Process

He makes interesting points towards the ideas of minimalism within music, that music shouldn’t be an instantaneous thing or at least he doesn’t enjoy that. The gradual process of composition or display can enhance the actual listening. As extended listening presents itself to more of an understanding and focus towards what is happening, and the gradual process of development means a lot more when you can anticipate its happenings. Here are some interesting quotes I’ve extracted from this.

I do not mean the process of composition, but rather pieces of music that are, literally, processes.
The distinctive thing about musical processes is that they determine all the note-to-note (sound-to-sound) details and the overall form simultaneously. (Think of a round or infinite canon.)
I am interested in perceptible processes. I want to be able to hear the process happening throughout the sounding music.

by running this material through this process I completely control all that results, but also that Iaccept all that results without changes.

That area of every gradual (completely controlled) musical process, where one hears the details of the sound moving out away from intentions, occurring for their own acoustic reasons, is it.
I begin to perceive these minute details when I can sustain close attention and a gradual process invites my sustained attention. By “gradual” | mean extremely gradual; a process happening so slowly and gradually that listening to it resembles watching a minute hand on a watch you can perceive it moving after you stay with it

I’m going to create something based on this reflective research. Tape loops and gradual compositions?