Time-Folding V.3.4, Solo Live Electronics

By JyKang in Electro-Acoustic, Ji's, SuperCollider, [EA]ComputerMusic, [EA]OtherTools 0 Comment

Somehow, I think that the direction toward my solo live electronics set has been built up for last few months. Considering my previous experiences with the electro-acoustic music for conventional instruments, I believe the world that those acoustic instruments and their tradition have brought, the values on themselves, the fact that they ‘still’ shine as they are, with enormous amount of possibilities that they can do, different from the digital sound, the power of acoustics. Again, they are different, and I don’t prefer one among the other. My point is that I’d like to use them both, in my own way.

Those analog synthesisers are the same for me. I simply would like to use them all because they are amazing as they are. So I am currently developing the way to combine those three worlds: analog, digital sounds and acoustic sound together, and I believe that this is not my first attempt, but the one that I was more aware of what I’d like to do with all the instruments.

So here it comes: Time-Folding V.3.4 for Gong, Benjolin, 16step sequencer, 555 timer, 4096 NAND atari junk, and laptop with Supercollider.

The main instrument here is the Gong, ‘Kweng-ga-ri,’ one of the most representative metal instruments in Korea, vividly in use with other percussions, and it creates very un-defined loud noise, as well as a soft resonance. Normally the instrument is played by a person holding vertically with one hand, and use a mallet to hit the surface with the other hand. The hand that is holding the gong is controlling the resonance too using fingers.

I wanted it to have all those qualities, but by playing in a completely different way. What I did is to use a loudspeaker underneath the gong and give a overloaded impulse to the speaker so that the speaker can hit the gong. I use an object to bounce inside too. It is much easier. Since I am using a speaker, I use the feedback too to create some sort of melodic(?) noise, which I love in this system.

Since this instrument carries mostly the rhythmic part, all the rest do some other jobs: like more linear motion, adding some weight into the musical drama. But mostly I wanted the Gong to be the main actor of the drama, and all the others can support this role. Nothing is less important.

One can probably say that I use too much equipments. That might be true so that I can’t carry them all by myself anymore. -I am too small for such music.- However those are very clearly categorised: The gong with speaker+mics for the sound input, The analogue devices are having its own network, and The laptop with Supercollider, controlled by midi controllers, are the effectors: again, acoustic+analog+digital respectively. Those three are very much bound together, especially by the system of Supercollider. The effector sometimes differentiate what to treat -either from the Gong or from the synthesisers. But often the effectors apply to both and create feedback too. Then they are equality treated at the same time. But still it is an ongoing project, and I am enjoying finding a number of possibilities from all of those.

Well, I hope you enjoy watching the video. I’ll see how many version of this Time-folding series will last. I hope it goes further.

Liveset @ HetNutshuis, Test Extra:Tele-li(f/v)e 31/Jan/2014 from Ji Youn Kang on Vimeo.

KANG, solo Live Electronics @ Noodlebar, Rotterdam from Ji Youn Kang on Vimeo.

Time-Folding V.22, Solo Live Electronics

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

I, as a composer, had been quite skeptical about improvised music until some time ago. I love to listen and experience of course, but I always thought that it should be done after a number of ‘formal music’ performances. In a way I still think that playing ‘formal’ music could help to give insight on the way music flows.

However, the  improvisation itself also needs practices : not only about musical practices, but also trusting your intuition, showing the moments, what you are aiming to throughout what you are playing. So I tried as well.

It’s been just a couple of years that I seriously started making my own solo project, using the instruments that I can play, and still treat them in the way that I do in my own composed music.

Here I’d like to share one recording of those. Recently I performed at Studio Loos in Den Haag, and this recording is made with the same setup. The only difference is that I used the ground noise at the beginning, without touching any devices, I only ‘approach’ toward the device with one hand, while the other hand was touching a different electronic device, connected to the same ground.

I liked the result. There was a big plan behind, but not all the details.

The process:

Benjolin, the chaotic analog sound generator, gives an input signal to the computer system, which was developed in SuperCollider. The signal not only works as the sound input, but also as the control rate, manipulating the buffer that was live-sampled inside the computer endlessly. The performer -me- is constantly choosing the moment for the live sampling, and looping the samples. There are 4 layers doing the same. The 1st layer as more aiming toward the base line, and the 2nd layer receives the first layer as the input. The 3rd layer is directly receiving the Benjolin sound as the input without any treatment, and 4th layer receives the 3rd layer. All the buffer lengths are different.

Those 4 layers are then processed, treated as an instrumental sound. The processings include  -several wave shapings and distortion, -spectrum manipulation, -binaural spatialization. An interesting aspect could be that I used a single output channel as the input channel for the processing. That means when the processing starts, it will also give a feedback to the result itself.

This is how the setup looks like:

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And the Recording:

This was performed recently in Seoul, South Korea at the event,  “Unsold Art.”

Hope you enjoy!

Do not play an electro-acoustic music under the sun when 36 degree! :)

By JyKang in Ji's 0 Comment

I had recently a great chance to visit Russia for the White Night Festival. I was one of the performers for the ethnical/experimental music performance, (the boss called it ‘Yellow Emperor Orchestra’) and was quite excited to visit to one of the mysterious cities in Russia.

One thing that I didn’t count was the weather and the condition of the performance. I had my laptop + percussion setup with Meiyi, the percussionist, and prepared for live processing, but in the end, I couldn’t play at all my electronics, due to the weather condition.

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I was quite upset for the situation at the moment, but I found it was quite funny to have that rare condition. So that I made the list that you should know when you perform an electro-acoustic music underneath the sun when 36 degree. This temperature is from the forecast, but I believe, since I came from also a hot city that can easily go up to 36 degree, that the temperature was much more than 36 degree on stage due to the direct sunshine.

This is a funny, yet serious list for this. Just to laugh about it. So here we go!

11 things to know when you perform an electro-acoustic music underneath the sun when 36 degree.

1. Do not use metal instruments. If you really need, use gloves, otherwise your hands will be burnt.

2. Do not use DPA microphone, it will be melting down and stop working within 10 minutes. If that happens, put it in a refrigerator for some hours and find the part that has melt and solder the part, and wish for luck.

3. Use an expensive jack -or any other- cable. Otherwise the tip and ring will be meltingTrip down and be stuck inside your sound card. (I don’t think the sound engineers realized when they disconnected their cable from my sound card, which is partly damaged now.)

4. Apparently Macbook Pro 5.1 (the old one) will still survive. Just hard to touch at the moment, and again, burning hands.

5. Prepare a handkerchief for your sweat, otherwise your precious electronic devices will have a danger. Forget about how you look on stage.

6. Do not use a mask. You can’t see anything, and you will experience a sudden rain in front of your face and soon be under hallucination.

7. Don’t even think of a glossy screen. Even with the mette screen, you can’t see anything on your screen and you will finally find your mouse cursor after 5 minutes.

8. Make sure that your performance is insured so that in such a condition, you can still perform without any worries.

9. Do not touch any cable. You will feel immediately scared by the unusual feeling of the touch, and again, burning hands.

10. Put a couple of bottles of water beside you. Without it, you will not be able to finish your performance.

11. Try to stand underneath the shadow. You can avoid half of the list above.

Still you can perform, will have an unforgettable good/bad memory, and experience quite an unusual situation to tell your friends, and learn for the next. I really think on stage it was close to 40 degree. So..