EMUSIC-L Digest Volume 63, Issue 19 This issue's topics: Laurie Anderson; "Stories from the Nerve Bible" (review) (2 messages) Markoff Melodies from the Court (de)Centers:x (2 messages) Your EMUSIC-L Digest moderator is Joe McMahon . You may subscribe to EMUSIC-L by sending mail to listserv@american.edu with the line "SUB EMUSIC-L your name" as the text. The EMUSIC-L archive is a service of SunSite (sunsite.unc.edu) at the University of North Carolina. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Date: Thu, 21 Apr 1994 15:03:55 -0400 From: Joe McMahon Subject: Laurie Anderson; "Stories from the Nerve Bible" (review) Metlay and I attended a performance by Laurie Anderson at Gaston Hall, Georgetown University, here in Washington, DC, yesterday evening (Mike was in town for the APS meeting). This is just a collection of impressions about the performance/etc. Technical Very (conceptually) simple rig. Ms. Anderson performed solo; she had a mixing board the size of Rhode Island, two Eventide Harmonizers, a load of EQ, a DAT deck, and a Steinberger electric violin with Zeta pickups. Nick would have approved, I think. She did all of her own mixing and control directly while performing. Performance setup was M1 in front facing the audience, 3 racks containing the rack modules supporting the mixing board on the left. Music stand sitting in front of the M1 with notes for the monologues. Two mikes, one on the right going straight through the soundsystem, probably EQ'ed (Mike said he saw a room analyzer in the rack as well). Very small lighting rig, couldn't see how it was controlled. 4 or 5 small spots on opposite sides of the stage, focusing in on the center. Two baffled spots sitting on the floor behind her projecting a kind of overlapping matrix of beams against the back wall. Performance Ms. Anderson sat at the keyboard, telling stories from the book, using the equipment to provide a running accompaniment to them. Music was not the focus of most of the night. Generally, she used a running tape on the DAT (usually with sound effects or recorded acoustic instruments that couldn't be synthesized well) with accompaniment on the M1, mostly more effects or pads for a sort of ambient effect. The Harmonizers allowed her to sing nice little choral licks on top. She used them as voice changers as well for "Walk the Dog", where she was well up into the helium range, and a couple of times for a male voice as well. She was a delight as a performer. Her stories were funny and touching - she talked about everything from her grandmother who convinced her that the world would end "next year" when she was ten, to playing with bombs in a parking lot in Tel Aviv, to trying to travel to the North Pole, to working with Andy Kaufman as his heckler. The pieces she did at this performance reminded me much more of the stuff from the "United States"/"Big Science" timeframe - much more dark and thought-provoking. The final piece used imagery of the reporting from the Gulf War and the sound of an electronic travel alarm in a most beautiful and effective way. After the hour-and-a-half performance, she took a short break and came back out again for a half-hour question-and-answer session. Among other interesting items: she, Peter Gabriel, and Brian Eno are contructing a theme park to be built in Barcelona, Spain. She says that it won't be the kind of theme park where you "stand in line for hours and then have to be hit over the head with a hammer so you can actually feel something", but an artist's, musician's and performer's place. Someone asked her about how she had gotten started in New York; she said that she was a film-maker, and would make films for festivals (quote: "seven people in watching movies in someone's loft: a festival"), but would never have enough time to get the soundtracks done, so she would show the films, stand up in front, and play the music on the violin while doing the dialogue. She talked a bit about the impact of fame -- one story was about sitting in her loft with a couple of boxes of albums at the time that "Oh Superman" was hitting the charts in the UK, and getting a call from someone there asking her if she could ship 40,000 copies of the album in 2 days. Looking down at the two boxes of CDs she has on the floor: "Uh, can I get back to you on that?" Summary: An amusing and entertaining evening, well-done by a talented and funny performer. See her. --- Joe M. "I've always thought of keyboard playing as something like driving. You have a set of controls in front of you, and pedals on the floor, and you have this sort-of head-on relationship with the audience." - LA, 4/20/94 ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 25 Apr 1994 20:34:34 +0100 From: Nick Rothwell Subject: Re: Laurie Anderson; "Stories from the Nerve Bible" (review) >Among other >interesting items: she, Peter Gabriel, and Brian Eno are contructing a >theme park to be built in Barcelona, Spain. Ah yes, the Real World theme park. I first heard about this, oh, almost ten years ago I think. If it gets built, there's going to be some really seriously weird stuff in there. >and getting a call from someone there asking her if she could ship >40,000 copies of the album in 2 days. Looking down at the two boxes of CDs >she has on the floor: "Uh, can I get back to you on that?" The way I heard it in interview: she was saying "yeah, sure, no problem" and just hanging up... Nick Rothwell CASSIEL Contemporary Music/Dance nick@cassiel.com ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 5 Apr 1994 17:33:05 PDT From: Casey Dunn Subject: Rr: Markoff Melodies from the Court (de)Centers:x Gregory - and others following this sparse thread - thanks for your astounding and insightful post. your refrences will give me a summer's worth of reading! your first point, on Markoff analysis working against the "core structure" of a peice and therefore being of limited use with this music, is probably right on the mark. could the elaborations be generated by various mandelbrot set manipulations? I doubt it...anyhoo it might sound interesting. (perhaps this last makes it clear that I'm interested in generation not analysis. ) perhaps the "two-hand" music would be more appropriate. anyhoo, being a plunge ahead sorta guy, I've been "transcribing" a peice into Vision. From that position I can then start analyzing it. a "Gert" via email sent me a MAX patch which does Markoff somthings to MIDI files. (this, by the by, was the final straw. I have finally been pilloried enough by y'all (and you know who you are) and ran out to purchase MAX...thinking of DZ's comment about "digital approximations of bad jazz") I will plunge the transcription into the patch and, well, stumble to the next step. garn. ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 13 Apr 1994 14:19:34 +0200 From: Kalev Tiits Subject: markov chains was it on this list a little while ago i that somebody was hunting for references on Markov chains and music? just found one of rather good coverage having also a good list of references: Cohen, Joel E. (1962). Information Theory and Music. Behavioral Science 7 p. 137-163. Kalev Tiits kalev@elisir.helsinki.fi ------------------------------ End of the EMUSIC-L Digest ******************************