EMUSIC-L Digest Volume 66, Issue 04 This issue's topics: dancers as musicians (!) (4 messages) dancesoundbad EML VCS3 "Putney" (3 messages) music and dancers Sound Beams & Motion Sensing (3 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: Tue, 5 Jul 1994 08:14:33 CST From: "Harry F.P. Haecker" Subject: dancers as musicians (!) >OK, hands up: how many musicians out there are even a little bit >scared by the prospect of dancers performing and making the music >instead? I think this scenario is just like any other artistic "cross dressing": there will be some who are better at it than others. It's analogous to those computer programmers I've heard about who may not be schooled in music composition but enjoy manipulating sounds via software. More power to them, if their efforts sound good to me! Don't worry, Nick: you'll ALWAYS have a job in the theatre...if *I* have any say in the matter! |-0 Harry Haecker (haeckerh@nwrc.gov) ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 5 Jul 1994 14:40:42 +0000 From: Stephen Deutsch Subject: Re: dancers as musicians (!) >>OK, hands up: how many musicians out there are even a little bit >>scared by the prospect of dancers performing and making the music >>instead? > It's been my experience working with dancers that very few of them can make out any discernable patterns in the structure of the music at all, even in places such as the Royal Ballet. The prospect of giving these artists an unwitting or intentional say in the structure of the music might fill some with alarm. My view is that it will make very little difference to what many of them actually do as dancers. My general impression is that they are aware of small musical gestures, and can derive some understanding as to the relationsahip between a sound and a movement, but that large structures are beyond their comprehension. Hence the popularity of composers such as Minkus in the Ballet repertoire, whose music seems to be devoid of any structural content beyond the comprehension of the most moronic ballerina. ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 5 Jul 1994 10:03:16 -0500 From: Joe McMahon Subject: Re: dancers as musicians (!) The thing I find most interesting in this discussion is the dancers' requirement for fixed rhythm. The piece which immediately crosses my mind as a possibility for a dancer-controlled performance is "In C". Here we have the constant meter in the background, supplied by the ostinato octave eighth-note figure, and the fragments which are "stepped through" (no pun intended) at the pleasure of the individual performers. Stepping through these could be triggered by the dancers as they decide to move from phase to phase of the dance piece. Required controllers are very simple since all one has to do is make the piece move to the next fragment as each performer requires. Simply being able to send a single trigger that can be picked up somehow would be enough - this could be vocal, positional, whatever. "In C" certainly has a *lot* of interesting musical textures, and of course no two performances are going to be precisely alike. No ensemble limits, and the musician/conductor could have a free hand in choosing the timbres for the individual voices. It also might be an idea to use the same type of structuring of the musical space (boy, that sounds pretentious) in a composition of one's own. A difficult, but potentially rewarding project. --- Joe M. -- "Will somebody get the cat off the fender Rhodes?" (MST3K) ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 5 Jul 1994 11:16:24 -0400 From: William Matthews Subject: Re: dancers as musicians (!) I love it when dancers use my music, but I first became aware of a failure to communicate (cf Paul Newman) when, in 1969, a dancer asked me for music that was "you know, rhythmic but breathy, YOU KNOW..." I didn't know then, and still don't. When talking about music for dance, we don't speak the same language, and mean different things by the same words. I have figured out that 'rhythmic' means with a clear, unrelenting, and symmetrically grouped pulse, as it does for most lay listeners. The Cunningham dance company rehearses in silence using stop watches -- and so they can cope with any sounds coming at them during a performance, but very few other dancers can work independently from what they hear, since they rely on counting in their head to remember their steps. Dancers rehearsing to tapes of music, rather than live music, can create hair-raising performance problems when the performances are to be played live. A choreographer friend and I once had the inspiring idea of her making new steps for Copland's Appalachian Spring and I would conduct our chamber orchestra live for the performances. We went our merry rehearsal way, with the company using a tape for practice. When we got together, even the most minute difference in tempi threw the dancers into fits. Yet musicians never play the same piece at exactly the same tempo twice in a row... it's impossible (without a click track, which is very difficult to learn how to do). So an advantage to using computer music for dancers is that one can nail the tempo down and leave it there. Dancers *used* to do all their rehearsing with rehearsal pianists, but most companies can't afford that luxury these days. The better choreographers are certainly aware of large-scale structures, but most dancers and lesser choreographers are just looking for the old "one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, EIGHT" which is already problematical since musicians seldom think of 8 as the basic metrical cycle. For us, 8 is more likely 2 X 4 - and what happens when some radical such as, say, Haydn, adds that fifth measure at the phrase-end? Dancers often haven't gotten acquainted with high-fidelity sound. Even well-known modern dancers have arrived here for performances with miserable casette copies-of-copies-of-scratchy LP sound, and seemingly not noticed or cared about the wretched and unprofessional results. And let's not even get into the issue of program credit for musicians (well, yes, I can tell it's PINK FLOYD, guys, but which song, who composed it, from which album, when, and - mmmmm - where's your performing rights permission, eh?) I have noticed that dancers are as impatient with musician's inability to understand their musical needs and thinking as this thread reveals us to be with them. Do we need a mutual FAQ? A good book, co-written? How about more education: Which dance curricula include a musical-theoretical component? Ah, which music curricula include anything about choreography or dance history? Bill Matthews wmatthew@abacus.bates.edu ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 5 Jul 1994 17:09:38 GMT From: "Andy B. Mcdonough" Subject: dancesoundbad someone commented about dancers awareness of sound fidelity....like, they don't seem to care. i, too, have seen it and i don't understand it. i saw a martha graham touring company a while ago in the NY area and,yuk, boom box like sound for the auditorium.....the dance was wonderful, but the experience was gut-wrenching as the sound was sooooo bad. i foolishly thoughtsome diaster had taken place and the truck with the musicians (or decent tape player) had been destroyed and the show had to go on......wrong. it just struck me as unprofessional....i would have rather seen them without costumes (excuse me?), but i guess that that's a personal preference :-9. anyway, it reminded me alot of a music appreciation class i attended where the prof kept saying, "you really need to hear an orchestra do this" as the old lp skipped and crackled through copland(sp?). ...andy ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 4 Jul 1994 19:58:31 +0100 From: Nick Rothwell Subject: Re: EML VCS3 "Putney" >Way back in l965 Bob Moog designed some antenae type >triggers for Merce Cunningham.You might write him a letter To Moog or Cunningham? I have an indirect contact with the former, and Merce is coming to Edinburgh; his group is performing in the Festival. OK, hands up: how many musicians out there are even a little bit scared by the prospect of dancers performing and making the music instead? I have various opinions on this, but let's hear yours first... Nick Rothwell CASSIEL Contemporary Music/Dance nick@cassiel.com ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 5 Jul 1994 09:18:23 MEZ From: Thomas Subject: Re: EML VCS3 "Putney" Nick Rothwell asked: > OK, hands up: how many musicians out there are even a little bit scared by > the prospect of dancers performing and making the music instead? Well, I'm not really scared but I found it not so easy to do. In 1992 the Theater der Klaenge from Duesseldorf made a project called "Figur und Klang im Raum" which was based to a large extend on the interaction of dancers and actors with an electronic environment controlling music and lights. We used photoelectric sensors and the GAMS system I wrote about in a former message. During the work on that piece we found three points quite difficult to manage: First, the dancers (or choreographers) had to bear in mind that all they do influences the music as well, so not everything they made *sounded* well. Second, the composer (me) had very carefully to calculate which musical parameters could be left open to what extend to the influence of the dancers to keep the musical structures intact but leave enough space to proper reaction of what happens on the stage. Third and most difficult: How could these interactions be kept simple enough for a spectator to understand whats happening without getting too primitive? We didn't find ultimative solutions to these problems but some of our scenic experiments worked quite well and were very fascinating (at least for us to work on them), which encouraged us to continue to work in that direction in one of our next projects. So I'm definetely not afraid to become jobless. In fact there was no theatre-production I was more occupied with than that one. In the course of this discussion: Does anybody know of the pieces that Gerhard Bohner did with the German composer Roland Pfrengle? They were great examples of such interactive pieces. But Bohner is dead and I fear these pieces will never be performed anymore. Anyway, I like to hear more on that. Thomas Neuhaus ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 5 Jul 1994 14:35:09 +0200 From: Guy Van Belle Subject: Re: EML VCS3 "Putney" On Mon, 4 Jul 1994, Nick Rothwell wrote: > > OK, hands up: how many musicians out there are even a little bit scared by > the prospect of dancers performing and making the music instead? I have > various opinions on this, but let's hear yours first... Two years ago, I was asked to do the 'music' for a dance performance by 6 dancers. Since I have particular ideas about dance and music, I suggested an interactive installation based on the sound that dancers produce while moving around. They could only provide a minimum budget and I bought some sound processors and a wireless microphone system (send-receive). I designed a system that would take up sound from the dancers individually (I was lucky that they had to say something from time to time), and then I programmed in MAX (Opcode) some software that would basically initiate dynamic change processes. Most of the problems had to do with the inability of the people to rehearse with time-units as a whole. It seems to be easier to repeat tiny sequences until everything is as it should (sound and movement). The larger timings (dynamical changes over a 10 to 20 minutes period) were such a big mess and impossible to get it right. The dancers felt lost. Part of the problem was the fact that most of the dancers needed music with a fixed beat to temporize their own movements. If they would make a different sigh, off course my 'music' started to behave differently. So, when I was not present at the rehearsals they secretly used pop music to dance on. After a while they were so stuck into that music that they could hardly do the dancing right without. Finally I took their popsongs and remixed it all as a strange but familiar basic layer. During the performances I played around with the music as well as with their own sounds. A year later I made some music for a solo dancer. I programmed a piece in which the amplitude of her footsteps on the floor would trigger different percussion sounds. Everything went fine, but later she dismissed this piece. As an explanation she gave: the set up is too technological. In fact, what went wrong in both performances is the fact that dancers who have the opportunity to 'make' music in their performance are scared to do so. I found out that most of the dancers (not all) have a problem setting down and maintaining a rhythm. Every rhythmical mistake is immediately perceived by the audience. This causes an additional tension in the dancer's performance. (Of course they are not trained musicians) So most of the dancers prefer an unalterable form of music as a certainty to rely on during the performance. My approach is of course the approach of a computer musician. I design forms of interactivity that drives the music (I select sounds, sequences, timings, and instantaneous changes for the ingredients). So, I am not scared to let a dancer rehearse, construct, change and play around with it. I actually prefer that to composing a piece on which people dance like this, and another piece on which the dancers act like that. But it seems to be hard to find the right people to get rid of this traditional heritage. It is big fun when it works, because dancers dance differently due to the new forms of control that they have, and a composer/musician behaves differently because (s)he can finally deal with movements in the composing process. So, what do you think? Guyz11B. ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 5 Jul 1994 11:48:26 -0500 From: Burton Beerman Subject: music and dancers I work with a dancer in an intermedia environment (I am a wind player and composer). We have been lusing (using) mandala for the amiga . A camera places the dancer (or whatever) into a projecged computer environment real-time. When the dancer crosses points in this environment pre-programmed midi will occur. It it is a seq start the dancer must hold and shape this seq. (It can be an intternal sequence or hardware sequencer, or both). The dancere can also trigger a variety of video effects at the same time. Mandala is out of tornoto (toronto) I believe. You can take the triggered midi out (note on?) and run it to another computer for processing with max or another programming environment (cmt?). We are using it in an intermedia drama in which the dancer is on a virtual cross and triggers sequences of her own masks (drawn likenesses) and pre-programmed sequences. She is on a cross (virtual cross). I know of a few people using this software artistically but not many considering its potential. Yes, the dancer must be musically aware, but the machinery must be transparent to the product. ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 1 Jul 1994 10:10:45 -0400 From: William Matthews Subject: Re: Sound Beams & Motion Sensing > For motion detection I made good experience with a Canadian System named > GAMS which is much more reliable, is capable of doing 3D detection and > > > If anyone needs more info as about where to get this stuff, feel free > to contact me. > > Thomas Neuhaus > yes, please send info, or your e-mail address Bill Matthews wmatthew@abacus.bates.edu ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 1 Jul 1994 21:52:58 -0700 From: Nate Waddoups Subject: Re: Sound Beams & Motion Sensing On Thu, 30 Jun 1994, Thomas Neuhaus wrote: > For motion detection I made good experience with a Canadian System named > GAMS which is much more reliable, is capable of doing 3D detection and > you may define any MIDI event, even sequences of them as a reaction of > any change of position, velocity, acceleration in any of the three > spatial dimensions. You might as well subdivide the performance space > into regions which react differently than others. Are the devices small and light enough to be usefully attatched to the ends of a pair of drumsticks (i.e. without rendering the drumsticks useless)? I saw a presentation from a fellow (Schloss, I think his name was) with a pair of 3-d mice set up that way. I've wanted to try that ever since. --natew@halcyon.com--------------------------------------------------------- ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 5 Jul 1994 09:41:52 MEZ From: Thomas Subject: Re: Sound Beams & Motion Sensing To everyone interested in the GAMS-System: Contact Will Bauer (willbo@delphi.com) for information about the latest developements. As far as I know, the system consists (meanwhile, I used an older prototype) of a PC-Card and is capable to track as many as four actors/dancers simultaneously, everyone of which has to carry a small microphone with him/her. The software allows to configure the system such that an arbitrary midi-message might be sent due to changes in position, speed or acceleration of movement in any of the three spacial directions. Such reaction-patterns might be layerd as well as restric- ted to selected areas in the 3d-space. I don't think that the microphones are small enough to mount them to drumsticks, but Will told me that he drastically reduced their size and their weight so it might be worth dropping him a note. If anybody contacts Will, send him warm regards from me. Thomas Neuhaus ------------------------------ End of the EMUSIC-L Digest ******************************