Workshop with Henry J. Ng – ng (2)

Henry Ng and I met for a second face-to-face workshop session at the EMF Institute, last weekend.  He and I were both in New York for the T-Stick Composition Workshops and so, we enjoyed some downtown walking and a concert together in addition to our workshop session.

Henry has laid out some very interesting challenges for us to overcome.  He’s exploring a concurrence with gesture and sound spatialisation in his t-stick composition.  In addition to initiating and modulating sounds, he would like the t-stick to control the localisation of these sounds in the context of a multi-channel work.

Workshop with Bryan Jacobs – jacobs (2)

My session with Bryan Jacobs at the Electronic Music Foundation Institute in New York, on 10 December, 2010, kicked off the second round of the T-Stick Composition Workshops.  For this second meeting with Bryan, it was wonderful to be in his current home town.  In addition, the EMF provided us with a perfect studio environment in which to work.

I was content to see/hear Bryan’s progress and to find out that he’s being consistent in his compositional project, which explores the separation of the human performer from his instrument amid a soundscape of vocal utterances.  I’m wondering what the final theatrical effect of his composition will be.  For example, how will the audience perceive the clearly vocal sounds in relation to the stick?  Will the t-stick appear to declaim – a ‘talking stick’?

T-Stick Sighting at the EMF Institute, in the Big Apple

On 9 Dec., 2010, I was invited by the Electronic Music Foundation Institute (EMF), in New York, to give an overview of, and brief performances on, the t-stick digital musical instrument. This was an event that coincided with the beginning of the second round of meetings for the 2010 T-Stick Composition Workshops. I truly enjoyed the close contact I had with the audience during the talk. Most importantly, I had a lot of fun auditioning some of my new material for the soprano t-stick. For me, the studio presentation-demonstration has always been an unusual context in which to ‘perform’, but I have to remind myself of the origins of the musique de chambre tradition from time to time and in this light, I appreciated the EMF giving me this intimate performance opportunity.

Launching software components & playing back datastreams

The purpose of this entry is to provide a short video clip of a few simple playing techniques and the Datastream file that was generated by these techniques.  After watching the video and downloading the datastream file, you will want to play this file back.  By playing the file, you will be able to ‘emulate’ the t-stick gestures seen in the video.  Before playing back the file, you may want to review some set-up procedures that have already been posted on the workshops website.

Cyberain, uh-huh and bam

New mapping strategies and, thus, new modes of performance are the most exciting advancements to originate from the 2010 T-stick Composition Workshops so far. The seeds of these strategies are born in the imaginations of the composer-participants. This example illustrates sound-gesture mapping ideas from three composers rolled into one t-stick: rain from Luna, vocal utterances from Bryan and battery from Patrick.