We are posting this for our friend Mickey. He and his mom (who famously feeds him one blade of grass at a time) are regular visitors to this site and have been very supportive over the past couple of years. Mickey’s health has taken a serious turn for the worse in recent days. He and and is family are in our thoughts.
Saw this poster on BoingBoing:
Hugh Electronic sez, “The I.W.W. hired Eric Drooker to design posters for a general strike which he is told, now appears imminent in Wisconsin. The Industrial Workers of the World asked him to design versions in Spanish and Arabic, for international solidarity.”
I doubt that general strike is actually imminent in Wisconsin, but one has to admire that poster. Of course, we love black cats, and black and red is great color combination.
Luna looks on at the jumble of furniture, on which the dotara is sitting post performance. I actually like the geometric formation of the tables pushed together during the construction, and the contrast of the curved musical instrument.
The big concert is now over and done. It mostly went quite beautifully, except for one technical flaw that disrupted the final piece (more on this in a later post). The construction is also now done. So we are looking forward to life at home returning to normal.
We now have the time and opportunity to put the apartment back together, and do those mundane but necessarily things that make up normal life. Oh, and to relax and enjoy a little down time. At least until the next big creative project begins. I think we will be starting on Tuesday.
Weekend Cat Blogging #300 is hosted by Mog and Meowza at Mind of Mog. Like us, they seem a bit dazed.
The Carnival of the Cats will be hosted tomorrow by Nikita and Elivra at Meowsings of an Opinionated Pussycat.
And the Friday Ark is at the modulator.
On Tuesday, I went to the Center for New Music and Audio Technologies (CNMAT) in order to continue preparing for the Regent’s Lecture concert on March 4. I brought most of the setup with me, at least the electronic gear:
Several pieces are going to feature the iPad (yes, the old pre-March 2 version) running TouchOSC controlling Open Sound World on the Macbook. I worked on several new control configurations after trying out some of the sound elements I will be working with. Of course, I have the monome as well, mostly to control sample-looping sections of various pieces.
One of the main reasons for spending time on site is to work directly with the sound system, which features an 8-channel surround speaker configuration. Below are five of the eight speakers.
One of the new pieces is designed specifically for this space – and to also utilize a 12-channel dodecahedron speaker developed at CNMAT. I will also be adapting older pieces and performance elements for the space, including a multichannel version of Charmer:Firmament. In addition to the multichannel, I made changes to the iPad control based on the experience from last Saturday’s performance at Rooz Cafe in Oakland. It now is far more expressive and closer to the original.
I also broke out the newly acquired Wicks Looper on the sound system. It sounded great!
The performance information (yet again) is below.
Friday, March 4, 8PM
Center For New Music and Audio Technologies (CNMAT)
1750 Arch St., Berkeley, CA
CNMAT and the UC Berkeley Regents’ Lecturer program present and evening of music by Amar Chaudhary.
The concert will feature a variety of new and existing pieces based on Amar’s deep experience and dual identity in technology and the arts. He draws upon diverse sources as jazz standards, Indian music, film scores and his past research work, notably the Open Sound World environment for real-time music applications. The program includes performances with instruments on laptop, iPhone and iPad, acoustic grand piano, do-it-yourself analog electronics and Indian and Chinese folk instruments. He will also premier a new piece that utilizes CNMAT’s unique sound spatialization resources.
The concert will include a guest appearance by my friend and frequent collaborator Polly Moller. We will be doing a duo with Polly on flutes and myself on Smule Ocarina and other wind-inspired software instruments – I call it “Real Flutes Versus Fake Flutes.”
The Regents’ Lecturer series features several research and technical talks in addition to this concert. Visit http://www.cnmat.berkeley.edu for more information.
From alkexinstruments on YouTube, via matrixsynth:
“Mr Kitty and Bessie Jamming on the Alkex instruments minimoog midi controller. Get yours at www.alkex.com”
