Week 11 - Whittington's Wit and Other Alliteration

David Harris was not available this week to contort our classically trained ears, so I just walked around Uni hitting things with a metal pole and pretended I was listening to Stockhausen. I may have hit a car.



Stephen Whittington presented an interesting array of research that he has conducted over the past couple years (1). Of particular appeal to me was the “globalisation of consciousness” idea, which essentially refers to the expansion of world-wide communication over the last 50 years and its affect on society. I had never given much though to times before telephony, and it was quite a revelation to me that the advanced forms of communication that we use every day are in fact creating a world with similar views, ethics and opinions. I am curious if this will somehow lead to a united world, however the results are more likely represented in this still from Futurama, a cartoon set in the year 3000.

There was no Creative Computing this week, so I had to be creative all on my own. I ended up performing some Albanian Monk style vocal sub-harmonics for fellow student and future Dictator of Earth John Delaney. I sounded quite convincing after some layering and stereo hall reverb, and I can’t wait to hear it after fellow ‘sub-harmonicist’ Patrick McCartney records his part.

Audio Arts was cut off at the head with Christian not being available, yet we somehow remained alive for the class, just like a chicken would. Much like a sound engineering headless chicken, we all ran around trying to record a classical vocalist singing part of an oratorio. To my dismay our group used 4:1 compression with an instrumental compressor, so I sat in the corner and sobbed quietly while the operatic dynamics were molested and unhealthy results were recorded. Thankfully, this class demonstrated an approach to vocal recording that I will not imitate in my Audio Arts project. I will now briefly brief you on my brief of this sound engineering experience*.

I have recorded a band called “Behold The Sun”, which I luckily contacted through Ailese Millington. I was hopeful that I would not have to record one of the “Alternative” Uni bands, with the clichéd rock instruments of drums, bass, guitar and vocals, so I was grateful to discover Behold The Sun consists of a drummer, singer/keyboardist, flautist, and violin/trumpet player. A genre of ‘difficult to describe’ was the icing in the cake, so I was very excited to record them. I extensively prepared the first recording session, with special attention on micing techniques for violin, trumpet and flute. I made a mic list with exact positioning for each instrument, and on the day I had all microphones plugged in and sending signals to a prepared ProTools session with all tracks named and microphone placement, type and polarity commented on. I will do this for every future recording session I organise, as it was only 45 minutes from when the musicians arrived to when I started the first recording with optimum signal levels. I imitated this procedure for the second recording session, however this time was all overdubbing. While I cannot relive my whole fantastic and horrific story within the confines of this blog, I will make it available on my backup blog, so read if you care. Note that by entering said site you have agreed to my emancipation from any repercussion or persecution I may be liable to as consequence of the actions or opinions transcribed within. This, my friends, is a Catch-22.

*Here we are again. Rather that making up crap, I have used an adverb, a verb transitive and a noun in a grammatically correct phrase. Here is the same sentence with synonyms: “I will now concisely inform you on my synopsis of this sound engineering experience.”

1. Stephen Whittington. “Music Technology Presentation: My Life As A Not-Dead Person” Lecture presented at the Electronic Music Unit, University of Adelaide, South Australia, 25/05/2006.

All pictures were found the lazy way: Google Image Search www.google.com

Week 10 - Bungle and Lawyers

I have noticed in the recent listening sessions (1) of our Music Technology Workshop that David Harris has been introducing us to musical pieces which provide us with more of an entry point into the avant-garde genre. I am curious to know if I would enjoy any of the pieces from term 1, now that I have a basis for interpreting them. I also wonder if David Harris has ever been nicknamed “Dirty Harry”, what with the similar name and all.


Enter prog-circus (2). My first foray into Mr. Bungle was with the piece “Love Is A Fist”, which starts as though it is a heavy metal rock song, then playfully swings between jazz and rock, then back into heavy metal . I truly enjoyed this piece (Shock! Horror!) for what it was (Oh…), with obvious talent shown in the ease of transfer between different musical genres. I could not educe where I had heard the name “Mr Bungle” until I heard the introduction of “Dead Goon”. Much like a 1950’s educational video for children, a voiceover told the story of Mr. Bungle and his lack of hygiene in the lunchroom to which I recalled an actual video of this very sound sample, which used puppets to show distasteful lunchtime antics. Perhaps this was the video clip of “Dead Goon”? Anyway, the actual music was funk in a minor key crossed with acid jazz, which fell into the aforementioned circus music intermittently. With heavy metal style vocals over the top of a chromatic scale, I certainly didn’t fall asleep, or rather couldn’t fall asleep. I’m sure ‘fans’ in the room will rave about it, but I’m sure it was intentionally silly and controversial, not a piece to be perceived as serious musical composition. Like in the previous piece, it is obvious that Mr. Bungle are talented musicians, however the overall structure is organised in a disorderly fashion*. Stockhausen was a step down in interest, with the short wave radio recording “Hymnen” (1966-67). I have often created pieces just like this when searching around on the signal test radio in EMU, which gave me an epiphany of what Musique Concrete actually is. It is: Difficult to put into words. Another of ‘Stocks’’ pieces was played, however it was merely talking, which I have also done often. My Bloody Valentine gave us this week’s “wall of sound” song, with “To Here Knows When” involving normal female singing on top of was seems like 2 LP’s player simultaneously. It was difficult to discern any actual instruments, yet it was interestingly in tune.

The “artist” presentation (3) was from a lawyer who was as faceless as his view of the people he represents. Dry sense of humour and general boredom with life indicated a tertiary education choice of “Well I got into Law, so I may as well do it”. The copyright component of my music technology class in high school was enough for me to understand what I can and cannot do, so I can’t imagine what would possess someone to use their 98 T.E.R. to end up in copyright law. I suppose it is the very same reason anyone would choose law in the first place; great money and hatred of the world. I do enjoy Law and Order: Criminal Intent, but only the episodes that have Detective Goran, not that pretentious git from Sex and the City.

More microphones in this week’s Audio Arts, which has proven once again to be an invaluable asset to my recording project preparations.

No Creative Computing this week, as Christian needed a “ladies day” (or so I’m telling people- PLEASE DON‘T FAIL ME!). Here's my Hand That Feeds thing.



*There are intricate intricacies of the English language, hence the nonsensical sense of previously used language syntactics. Sometimes I also just misspel stuff. While writing this blog I inadvertently created a new word: Controvetian; someone who bases their life around controversialism, much like a controversialist, but cooler sounding.



1. David Harris. “Music Technology Workshop: Listening Session.” Lecture presented at the Electronic Music Unit, University of Adelaide, South Australia, 18/05/2006.

2. John Delaney, “Music Technology Journal - Week 10.” www.intangent.blogspot.com (accessed 20/05/06)

3. Lionel Hutz “Music & Copyright Law.” Life story presented at the Electronic Music Unit, University of Adelaide, South Australia, 18/05/2006.

4. Christian Haines. “Audio Arts: Microphones” Practical class presented at the Electronic Music Unit, University of Adelaide, South Australia, 16/05/2006.

All pictures were found the lazy way: Google Image Search www.google.com