2018 in a Nutshell

By JyKang in Arts, Composition, Concert/Festival, Ji's, [EA]ComputerMusic 0 Comment

I know that the year 2018 has already gone long ago… Still, better writing about some memorable musical activities from the year rather than not! And eventually it will make me to go further. It has been indeed quite a busy and productive year. I worked hard, and made lots of new music and performances, so here I’d like to share some of them.

1. ‘Identifying’ in sonADA, Aberdeen/UK //Feb

It’s not the first time to visit in Aberdeen. 4 years ago, Mei Yi (Percussionist) and I went there, performed several pieces of mine, invited by sonADA festival, which my dear friend and admired composer Suk-Jun Kim is organizing. This time I went alone, performed ‘Strings,’ ‘Singing Bowl,’ and ‘Two Bamboos,’ the most recent live sets. Although it was quite demanding to perform several sets at once, but I had a pleasant time! When you are performing at one festival second time, then you become a friend with it.

2. Rewire Festival 2018 //Apr

photo by Peter Balkema for 3voor12

It’s always great when performing at the local music festival. Since I’ve been in Den Haag, I have never had a chance to perform at Rewire, one of the most popular music festivals in Europe, and this time I got the honer and was very thankful about it. I performed a newly developed set with Bamboo and Gong at Koorenhouse hall, the very heart of the center. It was great, especially you know that most of your local friends are in front of you!

3. ‘CHI’ vol.2 //Jun

Finally after so many years, the CHI volume 2 happened at Studio Loos, the dearest place. CHI Vol.1 happened in 2013, performing with Mei Yi and Sonolab, with a guest performer (Henry Vega at Vol1). This time, I composed two new pieces, ‘Rolling stones’ and ‘Drinking alone under the moon’ and performed a piece from Vol.1 ‘BamBoos,’ and another premiere of a piece for a Bass Drum, performed by Sonolab Duo. The guest performer was Yota Morimoto, another dear friend from my first year in NL. After very nervous stressing time passed, it was very relieving to perform all the pieces. I hope this series could continue.

4. TodaysArt Festival – Azimuth-x //Sep

photo by Mike Rijnierse

Normally Azimuth invites composers/performers to perform with their specific multichannel system, but this time was MONO! It was special as the concert was part of the TodaysArt Festival in Den Haag! I performed a newly developed set ‘Cross Wired’ :the main idea was to modulate a CV voltage with an analog amplifier with feedback signal. This chaotic signal was enough to manipulate with the signal processing. But still I needed some more materials to fill 30 minutes of performance. So I added some voice and processing at the intro, explaining what I am actually doing physically, but the audience can’t understand what I am talking about in time, as the sound is turning into a very noisy sound. It was really fun.

5. UTOPA Organ – Conlon & Orgelpark //Nov

UTOPA Baroque organ is a special organ that one can control its keys/stops/registers via MIDI or OSC. This gigantic machine(?) was quite challenging as it can do a number of different things that normal Baroque organ can’t do, such as air control, making continuous pulses/staccato, controlling each register individually, etc. I thought it’d be a good idea to make the concept and the piece simple, so that I focused on the characteristics of the organ as a ‘Machine.’ Accordingly the title of the piece is ‘Machine Breathing .’
The project is commissioned by Orgelpark. We, the Conlon foundation, were participacing the project as a composer and also as an assistant for other composers.

6. Pentacle 15.3 – NEXT Festival, Bratislava //Nov

photo by Nina Mik

It was an exciting opportunity to perform in Bratislava, as it was the first time in Slovakia, and I could meet some old Sonology friends who are very active there. Above all, the commission is to perform a live electronic muisic for 15.3 channel Pentacle system! Commissioned by NEXT Festival and SonicActs Amsterdam, I could perform with it. Pentacle is developed in STEIM by Fedde ten Berge and Jesse Meijer. The spatialization works with audio signal using FFT bins. All the composers did a few days of residency in STEIM and the NEXT festival was the premiere. I renewed the live set with two Bamboos and a gong. I had a wonderful time there.

7. PRISM#1 – Live music for Live film projection by Lichun Tseng //Dec

decomposed landscapes @ sound//vision IFFR with Ji Youn Kang (excerpt) from lichun tseng on Vimeo.

Ever since I worked with Filmwerkplaats Rotterdam, I missed working with them. And dear Lichun Tseng, one of the filmmakers there offered me this chance to make a live sound for her live film projections with 16mm projectors. This time at Nantes, France, we performed 40 minutes of live set. We practiced only 2 days, due to the complexity of booking the location and her heavy loaded setup, so it made us nervous, but we made it well. We drove 9 hours to Nantes, was quite an adventure, but all were memorable.

I am again looking forward to this year’s activities! Hopefully another productive year!

2017 in a nutshell

By JyKang in Composition, Ji's, SuperCollider, [EA]ComputerMusic 0 Comment

How was your year? It’s always exciting to look forward to a new year, making and setting up a fresh plan with a full of motivation! At the same time, it is very important to think about the past year, what are the achievements, and what I have missed. 

This post is about my memorable activities of the year 2017. I selected 4 activities:

  1. DELETION at International Film Festival Rotterdam


    ‘DELETION’ is a short film made by Esther Urlus, who I met two years ago for Light Leak project with Filmwektplaats. She’s a special filmmaker in The Netherlands, who create DIY 16mm experimental films. The length of the film is around 10 minutes, completely abstract, accordingly there was enough space for me to explore with sounds. The film is about a murder scene -accordingly, a horror movie!- but you don’t see or recognize anything through the screen. The story is behind the complete abstract scenes. The soundtrack therefore has a big role for audience to follow the story line.
    Thankfully this film was nominated at Tiger Competition for Short Films 2017 at IFFR, which gave me a totally new experience to attend the festival, sitting there with other amazing filmmakers and actors/actresses. Even though the film wasn’t the winner, it was for me a great achievement. I hope to have more opportunities working on films. I quite like it.

  2. Azimuth #3

    ‘Azimuth’ is a foundation that their multichannel system offers composers/artists to create spatial music/arts with the system. Azimuth #3 was my first experience with it. The piece I wrote is ‘Punky-Pulse-Pool’ for 32 channels.
    The materials were created from a short theme, a gesture using pulse oscillator, and as in variations on a theme, it was developed, manipulated, and re-synthesized into diverse forms. Then instead of presenting them one after another, they were massively and randomly thrown in time and in space. As if one freely plays a puzzle with multiple different blocks, the layered and squeezed sound materials are then sculpted and re-organized not only musically but also spatially. In that way new relationships between sound events are revealed, and the allied, survived sound parts are newly developed from there with a found connectivity.
    I wrote the blog post about my experience in more detail.

     

  3. ‘Bamboos’ for Bamboos


    Some might remember those Bamboo instruments that I made a piece for some years ago. Then I wanted to do something different with it, and here I made a live piece using them. Here I use(make) them as resonating ‘electronic flutes’ using audio feedback system. When I close the holes, their original tone varies. The feedback works like ‘breathes.’ Then I apply a number of signal processing. Together with it, I attached small metal rings on the holes that are wired to Arduino that gives a low voltage flow. My touch could change its voltage as I am also connected to another analog circuit. In other words, the voltage flows throughout my body and whenever the contact is made between me and the instruments, it changed. The variation is chaotic, unpredictable. Then this signal is added to the feedback sound, which is related also to the movement of my fingers. The program note for the piece is below.

    Notes on “Bamboos”: Bamboos, their bodies, their own resonating voices. Every other gesture drives from there, as the performer continuously tries to distort, differentiate, and control them until the instruments and performer become strongly linked together. The whole space, occupied by bamboos’ stubborn voices whose struggles are running and jumping all over, later on becomes part of the resonating body, singing and breathing all together.

  4. Staff at the Institute of Sonology


    Probably the most surprising news was that I became a staff member in Sonology, where I studied and achieved Master Degree, for which I came here in The Netherlands. Somehow, probably it was my dream, one day, teaching here. Luckily and thankfully I got this opportunity.
    The subject I am teaching is ‘Spatial Music Composition for WFS system.’ The course is designed for students to plan and proceed their project with the WFS system and I give lectures on Spatial music with tons of musical examples of other composers, history on spatial music and spatialization system/tools, the meaning of space, musical space, and practical knowledge on how to use the WFS system. It demands quite some research that I enjoy very much. It is definitely a new experience for me, and there is far more to become better.

Well, that’s it. Now it’s the beginning of the new year 2018. I am very much looking forward to seeing what will come to my life. Hopefully it becomes a very creative, more musical, and inspiring year. It’s mostly up to me. 

I wish all of the readers a very happy new year!

 

Note on Azimuth #3 Concert : a new piece for 32 channels

By JyKang in Composition, Concert/Festival, Electro-Acoustic, Ji's, [EA]ComputerMusic, [EA]OtherTools 0 Comment

Rough view of Azimuth #3 setup

Few months ago, I was invited to present a piece for 32 channel system of Azimuth foundation. Azimuth foundation(http://www.azimuthfoundation.net) is an organization of musicians/composers that organize concerts with their multichannel system that its configuration varies every edition. This time, they offered 32 channels: 8 circle outside, 4 quadra up and down at the corners of the hall, 8 circular center up, and down.

Then I thought I must write a new piece for it, although I didn’t have so much time left at the moment. I didn’t want to re-arrange an old piece that is written for a different system as this specific configuration can offer a number of interesting ideas to make a sound journey.

As I have been writing a lot for the WFS system (192 loudspeakers), my brain worked automatically the way I used to when writing for the WFS, which… could be described like : considering the whole space as an opened one, and creating my own ‘drawings.’

It wasn’t too long to realize that I was wrong in my approach, as this system is quite a different one. It is more like a ‘interwoven’ space that is made with a mixed up of different system(quad+multiple octa, and even stereos), accordingly different capacities. I couldn’t say that it is for a diffusion, nor for a spatialization. Rather a mixture of those two, especially with the setup in the center, speakers directing toward the audience, from up to down.

The speakers in the center, 8 up and 8 down toward the audience

The idea had to follow up of the ideal of the speaker setup. Then my composition should have to make sense as well. Then I thought it will be a good idea to have two specific ‘motions’ work together: 1. Some sound sources that are alive, moving, and having strong identities. 2. Clouds that are diffuse and support those main actors.

Previously, actually long time ago, I wrote a series of pieces for the WFS system, called ‘Enfolding Plane(I and II).’ Those are the pieces that I composed in order to study fully what the WFS could do with a variety of different spatial figures, of course with different sound materials. I thought it might be a good idea to add another piece into the series this time, so that I put ‘Enfolding Plane III’ title and gave a subtitle into it, which was ‘Punky Pulse Pool.’

I imagined a giant pool that several selfish pulse-character sounds are trying to occupy the space. It is rather a political fight than a violent one (as sometimes it could end up like that). I created a simple theme with pulse wave that has a small gesture, and started manipulate it into a variety of ways (I called it ‘variations’ in my program note). I had over 200 babies that came out from the theme. I was thinking of categorizing them first, then I thought, why not just trying to listen to them all together. Just out of curiosity.

I randomly placed (threw) all the sound files within 15 minutes time, listened to them, and then I hear a giant mass. (That was the moment that I made the title.) From there, without actually moving the sound files in time, I started cut them off. In other words, I started sculpting it, revealing what’s hidden, and sometimes hiding what’s representative. During this process, I also made decisions of where each sounds or parts of sounds should go and do. Are they staying? Moving? Diffuse? Heavy? Light? Slow? Fast? Overwhelming? Passing by? Supporting? Leading? Timid? And so on.

Localization of sounds is indicated with different colors

After that I moved the result into the WFS Collider, and then I gave them color marks based on my decisions in order to remember and to create the final tracks, and made note of it. This process took quite long. Longer than creating all the sounds.

The tricky part was the fact that I can’t test this in my studio. I wish I had 32 channels myself to try it out but well, I had to use fully my imagination.

Then I made a virtual setup that is similar to the original with the WFSCollider, the software for the WFS system, which, as I mentioned earlier, allows you to create your own space. Then I could have a bit of perspectives how it might sound.

Always very exciting to go for the first tryout with the actual system. This time wasn’t an exception. The most difficult part is to balance all the speakers as they are with different capacity/character. As it was the first time of listening, I spent most of the time making the balance.

Azimuth #3 Concert (22,Apr,2017)

The performance went well. A number of audience of course make the sound quite different, but it was alright. The difference between the WFS and this setup (or course there are many different aspects but if I mention as a biggest part of it) is how the chunk(mass) of sounds is heard; WFS is very good with a sound mass with vivid individuals, while this setup can’t give that amount of detail. However it forces you with much power. It moves you up and down, back and forth!

One of the interesting feedbacks from the audience: “I could feel that I am taking a shower at the giant water fall, but the water came from the bottom, not from the top!”

I feel grateful to have a wonderful experience, not only to compose but also to listen to the system. Multichannel exploration is never boring. There are still a lot to find, reveal. Discovering hidden spaces beyond our imagination.