Makoto Oshiro is a Japanese sound artist based in Berlin, who specialises in creating unique instruments based off of electronic signals, whilst also incorporating movement and light into the designs. He has carried out multiple installations and performances using these instruments, and in his lecture showed us how he made his most well-known instrument, the Kachi Kachi.

He started the lecture by playing us an excerpt of a piece he had made with the Kachi Kachi, which although interesting at first, I honestly found a little repetitive after a while. The Kachi Kachi uses an electromagnetic relay (the same device that makes the sound for car indicators) as its means of producing sound – this makes it a very percussive, rhythmic instrument which is capable of producing only one noise. The intervals between each ‘click’, as it were, are controlled by a timer circuit which turns the electromagnetic relay on and off using a square wave the trigger the response needed to produce the sound – the timer is manipulated by a knob on the Kachi Kachi that can be turned to either speed up or slow done the frequency of the clicking sounds. Oshiro describes this process as a form of “acoustic oscillation”. He then layers multiple of these instruments together to create pieces.

Although I didn’t find the piece that Oshiro had made with the Kachi Kachi particularly engaging, I was very interested by his process of making the instrument. Building an instrument has always seemed very daunting to me, and I have shied away from it in the past, however the Kachi Kachi seems like a very simple instrument to make and the talk did demystify the process for me a little bit. If I were to use the Kachi Kachi, I would only want to use it as an element of a piece rather than making it the main feature, however I appreciate that Oshiro was probably attempting to demonstrate the instrument he had made, rather than make it part of a wider piece with other elements.

Overall I found this to be an interesting concept, and I am hoping that we get to study a unit in second year on building instruments as I would like to start making my own unique sounds that I can incorporate into my pieces. Seeing that an instrument doesn’t have to be complicated and that it can be just as simple as hooking a couple of pieces of electronics together has made me feel as though there is an easier point to start from than what I previously thought.

Lindsay Wright is an English composer with a background in electronic and classical music, who now composes soundtracks for the screen. Her work for the screen spans many genres from documentaries to short fictional films to adverts, and her previous clients include HBO, BBC and British Airways, just to name a few. In her talk she walked us through three examples of her work – a documentary, a short film and her most recent EP ‘LINES’, which is her first experience of working on a project without a brief.

I found the way she explained her processes and bulletpointed what she had done very concise and helpful, and I was particularly interested by her work on the true crime programme ‘The Mystery of D.B. Cooper’, which documents the story of a still-unknown man who in 1971 booked a plane ticket under the alias ‘Dan Cooper’, and hijacked a plane full of passengers demanding a ransom of $200,000. Once he received the money he parachuted out over Washington state, never to be seen again. The documentary uses interviews of agents and bystanders who were involved in the case to tell the story, with Wright’s work playing in the background. In her talk, Wright told us how she had “tried to give each character who brought their story to the D.B. Cooper Mystery their own identity musically”. She gave us the example of a man who has walked the woods daily in Washington for 30 years and does not believe D.B. Cooper could have survived the jump and made his way out through the woods. As he is quite an outlier in the film, not really being particularly invested in the case other than wanting to give his opinion on whether or not Cooper is alive or not, Wright wanted to give his theme a mildly mysterious theme that was still inspired by a 1970’s sound that is prominent throughout the film. I found it particularly helpful that she played us through the different drafts she had made before she came to the final piece and explained why she made the choices that she did, as it really made allowed me to get a feel for her process. It was also really engaging to see her Logic Pro projects and hear the individual stems – it made me wish more lecturers had talked us through the more technical elements of their composition as it helped me relate to and understand her processes.

I don’t have much experience composing for screen, apart from for a couple of student projects for my friends, however talks such as this one in the visiting practitioner series have helped me gain a new understanding of the process, and it is something I would like to creatively explore in the sound for screen module next year. Being a very visually inspired person, I feel like it may actually be a professional route I want to explore, or at least come to appreciate better. Talks such as Wright’s, and Hollie Buhagiar’s (who I covered previously in my blog) have been really useful in finding out the processes and techniques needed to become a successful composer for screen. It seems as though it is one thing to compose a piece of sound designed to have the listener’s full attention, and another to design one that goes in tandem with a separate piece of media – the latter I would really like to experiment with!

References

1. Federal Bureau of Investigation. 2016. D.B. Cooper Hijacking | Federal Bureau of Investigation. [online] Available at: <https://www.fbi.gov/history/famous-cases/db-cooper-hijacking> [Accessed 25 May 2022].

Felisha Ledesma, originally from Portland, Oregon, is a Berlin-based sound artist and musician. She co-founded the S1 arts performance space in Berlin, and is the co-creator of Fors, an experimental project dedicated to building software synths. The aspect of her work that I found the most interesting during her talk was her non-profit organisation The Synth Library, which was founded in 2016 with the idea of making synthesisers more accessible to those that can’t afford them, whilst also giving educational classes on how to use them. The concept of The Synth Library actually works very similarly to the way that we can hire out the synth bench at LCC – you sign up, get a brief introductory course on how to use the synths, and then you can book ‘library time’ to record and experiment with the instruments. The classes they run are also free – two recent examples I found on the organisation’s Instagram page are ‘Coding Interactive Visuals for Total Beginners’ and ‘Using Max’.

With learning and creating being the nature of the project, it has become a useful space for sound artists and musicians to interact with each other, with many artists who booked out time at the Synth Library having been given opportunities to perform at Ledesma’s S1 performance space. Ledesma describes it being “really cool to be in there… because when you’re surrounded by other people working on something and experimenting, you’re also throw into that”. I think that is a huge benefit of making a space that is completely accessible to artists who may not have the money to be able to afford all of these instruments – you start to create an ecosystem of creators who all work with and inspire each other, which then gives way to new opportunities. If I didn’t have the facilities already available to me at LCC, I would definitely be interested in finding something similar to this project in London – maybe one day I could set up a branch here myself!

References

1. Ledesma, F., 2022. SL. [online] Synthlibraryportland.com. Available at: <https://synthlibraryportland.com/> [Accessed 25 May 2022].

Christina Wheeler is an American multi-instrumentalist, vocalist and composer. When researching her work, I was particularly impressed with her long list of collaborations with artists I personally admire, such as Ryuichi Sakamoto, David Byrne, Chaka Khan and John Cale. However, Wheeler is also an accomplished artist in her own right, having developed a unique technique on many unconventional instruments, a few of which she showed us in her talk such as the theremin and autoharp. One instrument she talked about which particularly grabbed my attention was the Array Instruments mbira – I had never heard of this before.

This instrument is a development on the traditional mbira family from Zimbabwe, and has a full four octave range. It is arranged in the circle of fifths, meaning each note is placed to the left of its fifth interval according to the traditional western sense of music theory, until the circle of fifths is completed on the other side. Each note also has four different octaves placed next to each other. The bigger metal tines produce lower octaves and vice versa. Here is a picture of the Array mbira to get an easier idea of how it is laid out:

A note is played by plucking one of the tines, which is then sent to a stereo output by two pickups, one of which picks up the signal of notes from the left of the instrument, whilst the other picks up the signal from the right. Wheeler described this as particularly useful as “you can take one note from the left side and play it and process it in one different way, and then play the same note on the other side and process it in a completely different kind of way”. It makes a particularly calming bell-like sound, and I would love to try one out if I can get my hands on one!

Another part of Wheeler’s talk that I found particularly engaging was when she was asked how she learnt to play all of the instruments she uses. She said that she was mostly self-taught and wants instruments to become ‘more egalitarian for everybody”, rejecting the snobbishness that come sometimes emerge from the classical world – the idea that there are certain set characteristics that determine whether a musician is ‘virtuosic’ at their instrument or not. This is a mindset I definitely agree with, having been self-taught on the majority of instruments I play, including the sitar and zither.

I also agreed with Wheeler’s sentiment to pick up new instruments and “start messing around” with them to “see what kind of sounds you can get”. This is really refreshing opinion for me to hear – having come from a background of playing gigs around London with various musicians I often feel as though there is a snobbish mentality, especially in jazz circles, where there are certain barriers to entry to be able play with other musicians. Being mostly self-taught and not having the greatest knowledge of theory, this has always got under my skin a little bit as I am more interested in building soundscapes than making paint by numbers. To hear an accomplished professional encouraging artists to “be uncomfortable” and experiment with new sounds and instruments in their practice was very inspiring.

This has been one of my favourite talks of the visiting practitioner series, and I will be listening to more of Wheeler’s work in the future.

Hollie Buhagiar is a Gibraltarian-born composer for screen and session vocalist, based in London. She has won multiple awards for her work, which she has produced for Vice, Amazon, Channel 4 and the BBC amongst others. Something which pricked my ears during her talk, as a long term science fiction fan, was the work she has made for the long-running BBC series ‘Doctor Who’, a show that I have talked about previously on my blogs. Linked below is one of the songs that she worked on collaboratively with fellow composer Segun Akinola:

Although she didn’t talk about this particular project much during her talk, I found it interesting and wanted to listen and learn more. Buhagiar sings on two tracks from the soundtrack of Series 11 of the programme, ‘The Doctor’ and ‘Thirteen’. I must admit, I haven’t watched this series in particular as I am not particularly a huge fan of modern Doctor Who, so I had to have a fresh listen. The piece ‘Thirteen’, which I have linked above, is used as the Thirteenth Doctor’s main theme throughout the series, and features Buhagiar’s vocals. It’s a rather grand affair, rich with strings, loud drums and melodic vocals – this certainly fits the character of the Doctor, who has always been portrayed as a heroic character who has travelled through near infinite galaxies and timelines. Buhagiar’s singing towards the end certainly lifts the intensity of the piece as the strings, synthesisers and drums swell towards the climax, only to drop away at the very end. Although this piece is more of an example of Buhagiar’s session work, over composition, I am personally also interested by this as I am a multi-instrumentalist and would like to get involved with larger session projects as a way of monetising my craft. I found an interview with Buhagiar on local radio where she talks about how she got the job:

In the interview, she explains how she met the main composer of the Doctor Who soundtrack, Segun Akinola, during her Masters at the National Film and Theatre School. Since their studies, the two had remained in contact, so when Akinola landed the job with Doctor Who, he offered for Buhagiar to add some vocals onto two of the tracks from his new soundtrack. The lesson to be learnt from this is to keep good connections with those who you study with, as they may (and probably will) go on to become successful in their fields, at which point they may offer you opportunities you would never have had.

All in all I found this to be an interesting talk, and the outcome I found particularly useful from it was the advice on networking that Buhagiar not only gave in the talk, but also discusses in the interview I found.

References

1. Akinola, S. and Buhagiar, H., 2019. The Thirteenth Doctor’s Theme. [Online] London, UK. Available at: <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-gNz_6HeaW4> [Accessed 25 May 2022].
2. Buhagiar, H., 2018. Local Singer Involved in Music for New Series of Doctor Who.

Pamela Z is an American mixed media artist, mostly known for her performance work, incorporating various forms of extended technique with electronic processing. A work of hers that caught my eye during her talk was her 2011 project ‘Baggage Allowance’:

In her own words, ‘Baggage Allowance’ is based on Ms Z’s experience spending “a substantial portion of my days carting a curious and ever changing collection of objects around the world with me”. It is a mixed media project, combining the separate disciplines of vocal performance art, gallery installation and an interactive website which is sadly no longer accessible due to flash player being taken down. The project’s main theme is the baggage and security checks that one goes through during international travel, and what certain items mean to certain travellers – why do we bring certain items with us every time we travel, and what is their emotional significance to us?

A part of the piece that I found particularly interesting was the use of a gesture-activated MIDI controller, played in a similar way to a theremin, that allowed Ms Z to control different samples throughout the piece – an example of this can be found at time stamp 4:32 in the video linked above. Using one’s own body and movement to create sounds it something really appeals to me and I would like to do this if I get the opportunity to perform some of my art live. Ms Z often uses Max MSP in her live performances, which is a programme I have personally never used but would really like to experiment with as I am interested in live performance and manipulation of sounds. The fact that she has built a whole world around her live performance and technique is really impressive – I’m also very interested in gallery installation work, so finding a way to combine these two disciplines together whilst also having them act as two separate strands of the same project that don’t necessarily need to be viewed together to make the project make sense seems like a clever idea. Perhaps in the future I could make a series of pieces all under the same theme, but communicate each piece through a different medium.

The idea of the installation piece being interactive also appeals to me, as this seems like a good way to make the piece stick in the mind of the viewer. For instance, the “mock x-ray machine that reveals secrets as bags pass through it”, is an interesting, playful concept as it superimposes images on top of the luggage that they have put in the machine. For instance it might show that the viewer has a pistol in their bag, or a small animal. This humorous touch coupled with the idea that each viewer gets a unique image superimposed onto their bag, means that it can be a talking point amongst friends and makes the piece more memorable. Some level of audience interact-ability is definitely something I would like to bring into my piece, as I personally find it much more engaging than simply sitting and observing.

Overall I found this to be an innovative project and there are ideas and inspiration I may take from this talk going forward. I found the technical aspects of the piece particularly engaging, and I hope to start experimenting with Max MSP soon.

References

1. Z, P., 2011. Baggage Allowance. [online] Pamelaz.com. Available at: <http://www.pamelaz.com/baggageallowance.html> [Accessed 25 May 2022].
2. Z, P., 2011. Pamela Z BAGGAGE ALLOWANCE performance excerpts. Available at: <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eFCrA6_vK5E> [Accessed 25 May 2022].