INTERACTIVE WORKSHOPS
LIVE SOUND PROCESSING STRATEGIES — Dafna Naphtali w/Hans Tammen
“Live Sound Processing” alters and affects the sounds of acoustic instruments live in performance, with the goal of creating new sounds with their own unique identitiy in the musical tableau of the performance. Although the difference between “Live Sound Processing” and other electronic music practices has often been misunderstood by audiences (or even many musicians), in recent years it is no longer simply the domain of a live sound engineer in the back of the room but is also accepted as a role for composer or performer on stage and both performers and audiences have become more savvy about and can recognize many of the techniques as they have become ubiquitous in many musical genres.
This workshop will explore various live sound processing techniques and strategies through performance, lecture and presentation, and gives participants a foundation to develop their own work. The lecture/presentation will be given by Dafna Naphtali (who uses live sound processing in her work since 1995). The lecture/workshop was first given at Harvestworks in NY May 12th http://www.harvestworks.org/may-12-live-sound-processing-strategies/ with Satoshi Takeishi (percussion) and Robert Dick (flutes). — students are invited to bring their (acoustic) instruments to the workshop and participate hands-on
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THIRD EYE ORCHESTRA – ELECTRONICS WORKSHOP — Hans Tammen w/Dafna Naphtali
By the beginning of the 21st century circuit bending, no-input mixers, laptops, analogue circuitry, network sniffers and many other creative ways to produce sounds electronically have become a normal way of expression for the artistic community. We can see electronics as instruments among other instruments, but larger ensembles are seldom built entirely from circuit-benders or laptop musicians. Hans Tammen is offering a workshop in preparation for a performance of an orchestra of electronic musicians for between 10 and 15 people. Workshop and performance will employ the techniques of his THIRD EYE ORCHESTRA concept, in which I work with a score that is rearranged every time it is performed, and which is adaptable to any instrumentation.http://tammen.org/third-eye-laptop-orchestra/
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ARTIST TALKS— both Dafna Naphtali and Hans Tammen are also available to discuss their own work:
KALEID-O-PHONE — LIVE SOUND PROCESSING AS INSTRUMENT
Dafna Naphtali discusses her compositions and projects since 1995 when she first started using live sound processing on all the instruments in her ensembles as well has her voice. In projects as diverse as What is it Like to be a Bat ? (digital chamber punk with Kitty Brazelton), to chamber music, to avant-jazz improvisations and in open form compositions, and recent work for vocal sextet and electronics and LEMUR music robots.
Dafna’s work has twice been commissioned by American Composers Forum and supported by NYFA, NYSCA, American Music Center and Franklin Furnace. https://dafna.info
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ENDANGERED GUITAR WORKSHOP – IMPROVISATION WITH A HYBRID INSTRUMENT (Hans Tammen)
Hans Tammen is a composer whose music has been described as an alien world of bizarre textures and a journey through the land of unending sonic operations. He received a Fellowship from the New York Foundation of the Arts (NYFA) in the category Digital/Electronic Arts in 2009 for the ”Endangered Guitar” – a hybrid guitar/software instrument used to control interactive live sound processing. Signal To Noise called his works “…a killer tour de force of post-everything guitar damage.”
In his lecture he discusses how his approach to music, rhythm, and improvisation has changed over the last 20 years, and how it has shaped the technology that he uses today. A combination of sound creation through means of mechanical devices on his table-top guitar, together with custom software programming, allows for flexibility in many different styles of experimental music, using the guitar as a soundsource and controller at the same time. He will further describe the benefit of modular programming for improvisatory approaches, as well as the increased importance of the room itself for performances of electronic music.
http://tammen.org/biocv/ — http://tammen.org/endangered-guitar/
MULTI-CHANNEL SOUND WORKSHOPS/TALKS (requiring multi-channel sound systems)
AESTHETICS AND APPROACHES TO MULTI-CHANNEL SOUND (Dafna Naphtali)
Dafna Naphtali was a programmer for Engine 27, a 16-channel sound gallery in New York for several years in the early 2000’s, and gained much experience and perspective on the various and possible aesthetic approaches to working with multi-channel systems. She later continued work on her own projects and presented her work in performance at Diapason Gallery, Issue Project Room (Floating Points Festival ’05 and ’10) and most recently in Hamburg at the Hochschule for Musik und Theater in a hands-on workshop and performance using their 220 speaker Wavefield Synthesis system. This workshop gives and overview and history of various techniques including point-source, ambisonic, 3-D audio and surround (as well as Wavefield Synthesis. Requires a sound system with a minimum of 5.1 (6 speakers), but preferably with a minimum of 10 speakers.
MULTICHANNEL ENDANGERED GUITAR WORKSHOP (Hans Tammen)
Hans Tammen discusses his recent multichannel/surround works, pieces that have been presented on festivals in Bulgaria, Czech Republic and Slovenia in 2011. As part of his hybrid instrument setup, his surround sound software allows him to position a single voice against several surrounding voices, all in realtime created and processed from his guitar manipulations. A standard 5.1 surround sound system can be used, but the “center” speaker has to be placed elsewhere in the room. In his surround sound lecture, Hans Tammen will describe his experience with multichannel systems, the various constraints and limitations that the regular film-industry oriented 5.1 standard offers, and how his approach to multichannel works circumvents these limitations.
http://tammen.org/multichannel-endangered-guitar-works/