What do you consider as an ethical challenge in your project? / What do you consider as ethical dimensions in your project?
The first challenge for me is to find ethical dimensions that are relevant and can contribute to the project. There are many ways to problematize and question a projects ethical dimension and one could get stuck on doing so from angles that don’t benefit either the project or its broader context. The ideal situation is to find questions that simultaneously steer towards a more ethical path while making the project itself deeper and better. Some questions I should consider in my project is the topics of cultural appropriation, identity, and ownership of cultural expressions, as it deals with traditional folk music (and in extension culture), in concrete ways. Cultural expressions which are not necessarily my own.
To analyze this situation, one should look at the power dynamics between the different involved actors. I must acknowledge my position as a paid researcher representing an institution in my meeting with this music. I also need to be mindful of how I represent this music and my history with it for an audience that is not familiar with it. Furthermore, I also have to consider who has been allowed to have a voice and an opinion on these matters historically and for what reasons.
Having said this, it’s important to point out that these ambitions does not mean that my project could (and should) be seen as problematic to some. My view on art in general is that every expression is in some sense a political act and thus has moral implications, which people can disagree with.
What am I saying by doing what I am doing? What are the implications? What does it mean and to whom?
I want my project to contribute to the ongoing discussion of what folk music is and what good music is. Both by the music itself I make as well as my reflection. And in doing so I may of course be wrong!
What do you consider as a research ethical challenge?
As I understand this question it relates more to the specific challenges that arises from doing research in the context of an institution rather than art in general. Here I consider confidentiality and consent as two main considerations, both from an ethical as well as legal perspective.
Example from your project (video, sound, drawing etc.) that in one way or another is relevant to the ethical challenge/dimension you have described.
https://youtu.be/3HMc-9_8u8Y
I choose this example as I feel that is the most problematic from an ethical point of view when I deal with the traditional musical material in such a concrete way as transcribing and playing my best. It feels less problematic when I only use it as inspiration for my own compositions.
The most obvious method in live electronic music to have a musical phrase repeat is by using an audio delay. Which is a fantastic tool that; with practice allows the musician to jam along to past version of him or herself. An example this technique in effect in a, for my project aesthetically relevant way, is Terry Riley playing with what he called his ‘phantom orchestra’ on records such as ‘a rainbow curved in air’.
The drawback of using an audio delay is the inherent predictability by which it operates, although the very repetitiousness of it can be used to great musical effect, it is not always desirable.
To escape this effect, a live electronic musician may employ techniques which are on the opposite spectrum of predictability for generating musical phrases to play along with, namely using different forms of random information generators that in turn can be used to play musical phrases. This technique however has the inherent downside that it cannot be mastered by a musician in the same virtuoso way that the delay method can, since the player is not the originator of the musical material and thus are always one step behind, relegated to responding to the randomly generated phrases after the fact.
I wanted to explore a middle ground of these two extremes of certainty, which allows mastery and expression, and uncertainty which allows for non-repetitive and surprising events. Another reason for me wanting to try this is because of my own limitations as a keyboard player, I’m not Keith Jarret.
This could be (and has been) done in various ways. Following are two examples of early experiments I’ve been trying using a synthesizer module called teletype. Which basically is a very limited computer with a simple scripting language that allows the user write algorithms configuring what the inputs and outputs of the module does. This computer does not handle continuous information like audio, it works in discrete steps.
I’m calling this technique ‘bad imitator’ because it will try to copy what I play but it will not be able to repeat back exactly what I played. This comes about because I’ve programed it in such a way that the there is non-linear elements in how it stores and recalls the information, I’m giving it from my keyboard playing making it output a non 1to1 version of it.
It works like this. The latest note values of my playing are stored in a short list (the one closest in the video) and the timing interval between my keystrokes are being stored in the list next to it. The module then goes down the list consecutively outputting the note information and doing it in the time that it is reading from the time list.
However, where it gets confused is that I’m using different length lists for note and timing information making the right notes being played back at the wrong time. To complicate it even further the list gets overwritten when I play in new notes, but when I play in the new notes the timing and note information are also misaligned due to the differing pattern lengths. If I just leave it to play with the information that I’ve given it will still repeat itself, but it will take the number of note slots times the number of timing slots in the lists to do so (in the case of imitator 1, 8x9 = 72 notes to repeat).
For me to be able to play with this bad imitator and make it predictable in a way whereby practice I can learn how it will respond to my input, I’ve found that it’s necessary to limit the information that it can hold to very few events.
More about bad imitator 1.....
More about bad imitator 2....
I’ve held two presentations of my project, one at ungt forskerforum för folkemusikk and the other at an artistic research seminar.
Some feedback include: good use of video as examples, perhaps my three questions/methods could be condensed into one question, need to focus more on the process and failed attempts.
powerpoint slides attached below
Three golden paths
As I’ve discussed my project with my co-supervisor it has become clear to me that that my project as well as the artistic expression, I want to explore involves three main paths.
1 - transcribing
Translate tunes for the modular synth and play them with the goal of retaining as much detail from the source as possible while at the same time allowing them to be adapted in a way that the tune benefits in some way from being played on the synth.
2 - stretching
Take the transcribed musical material and stretching it out in various ways using techniques from minimalistic composition.
3 - space
Placing this material in different abstract sonic environments. Both as a way to juxtapose the material and also to put the listener in a space.
These three paths are to run parallel in my project and form the basis for both live concerts and recordings as they are all integral parts of the whole that is the artistic expression I want to explore.
Inspiring friends!
My approach to music in general highly inspired and informed by my peers, a few important people in this regard include Zoe Efstathiou, Hans Hulbækmo, Andreas Røysum, Fredrik Rasten, Guro Kvifte Nesheim and Marthe Lea.
I specifically want to mention the work Hans Kjorstad, Anders Hana and Morten Olsen. Besides that their music as ‘Naaljos Ljom’ (and Hans solo and in other groups) is inspiring on it’s own, I’m also a deciple of their approach of transcribing and approximating the notes/scales from folk music to just intonation.
Together they’ve been working on a website called ‘skalastudier’ which presents some of their findings and explains how they think and work. It has not yet been made public, but once it does I will surely reference it as a source!
Been experimenting a bit with processing archival recordings. Here's an example that I'm pleased with. In particular the "slow motion" feeling of it.
It's the same recording of Olav Snortheim's langleik playing that I've been transcribing previously. Here I'm using two channels that play overlapping 1second snippets from a contiuasly recording audio buffer of 15 seconds. The "playheads" are moduladet very slowly by lfos. The original recording is beeing played back at around 70% speed and is fading in and out.
An experiment in hocketing
Hocketing is an old arrangment technique where a melody is split up over a number of alternating voices. Inspired by Meara O'Reilly’s contemporary implementation of this technique, I wanted to try this on some folk music material. The goal is to keep the melody groovy yet obfuscate it somehow. I’m very happy with the result! In this example the melody is alternating between two ‘voices’ everytime I start a new phrase (everytime I send a gate, in the legato notes the same voice plays), the voice that is being switched out holds on the last played note. Furthermore the amplitude and length of the phrases are randomized with every voice switch. The result is some kind of arbitrary polyphonic accompaniment with a more diffused melodic and rhythmic structure. I tried this technique with several melodies and different number of alternating voices with very promising results!
24 jan 2023
Reflections from my encounter with the Synthi 100
One interesting that my co-supervisor Per pointed out to me is that my research really consists of two parts. The first one is perhaps the most obvious one and has to do with musically identifiable parts of folk music being interpreted with electronic means and techniques. This is what I’ve spent the most time exploring in my texts so far. In great part because it is easier to talk about since you can point to the musical phenomena that you’re working with etc.
But perhaps the more important part of my research and what will be the reason behind its eventual artistic success or failure has to do with esthetics. What my project really is about on a deeper level is to develop a kind of overreaching esthetic that enables the melding of these different expressions (electronic and folk) to a unified one. It is my ambition that this esthetic can serve as a glue holding very disparate musical expressions together.
In that sense the actual techniques of interpretation which I’ve spent more time discussing (and will continue to do so) becomes of less importance. It can be a lot of different things and not every kind of musical expression needs to be present at the same time either. In the end it can all work as long as this common esthetic glues it all together.
This esthetic is something which I’ve sensed the possible existence of from my experiences on an emotional and abstract level with folk music and electronic music, I could feel a connection!
As well as from inspirations from heroes such Roland Kejiser, Kjell Westling and Bengt Berger who beautifully juxtaposed and incorporated Swedish traditional melodies in a free jazz setting as can be heard on the record ‘vedbod tapes’.
It is especially evident on the tracks where Kjell changes his raunchy free jazz clarinet for solo fiddle with traditional melodies and the music changes genre completely, it does not in fact change the esthetics of it. It is quite the opposite, these juxtapositions serves to enhance the sense that ALL their musics eminates from a deeper place and are part of the same thing.
Could there be a way for me to something similar with folk and electronic music? And how can I describe this esthetic for myself and for others?
These thoughts where in my mind as I encountered the legendary instrument Synthi 100 in Athens. And through the limitations of this instrument, it quickly pushed my expectations and habits of control of various parameters aside and demanded a different approach. One which put more emphasis on the aspect of esthetic rather than interpretation. One where only the faint and morphed echoes made by the ghosts of various long-gone fiddlers is the only thing that remains audible of the music’s inspiration….
Fanten
This is a slowed down drone version of the tune Fanten as I’ve learnt to play it on mouth harp. All the pitches of the melody get one oscillator each and I then play the melody by bringing these oscillators in and out of the mix. Later in the piece I freely improvise with these oscillators polyphonically to make a drone piece.
Melismatic
The Synthi 100 does not allow for the kind of micro transposing of a keyboard that I normally use with my system. However as the keyboards allow for scaling it enables xTET equal tempered scales (not only 12tet), although I found that the keyboards voltage was not equally spaced after all… in other words it took a lot of trial and error to find some scales that had a few arbitrary notes in tune. So this piece is composed of an improvisation with the arbitrary notes that the limitations of the Synthi allowed for.
14 jan 2023
Important text by Henry Flynt for future reference: http://www.henryflynt.org/aesthetics/meaning_of_my_music.htm
6 jan 2023
Patch notes for emulating a mouth harp.
VCO with sawtooth wave four octaves below the fundamental
-> Non resonant highpass filter with cutoff approximately at the fundamental (creating a spike waveform)
-> VCA controlled with an exponatial falling envelope triggered by ´Gate´ out from keyboard
-> Highly resonant low pass/band pass filter with cutoff starting at fundamental. Keyboard controls the cutoff frequency of the filter with 1v /oct. Even without having the exact right tuning for the keyboard the resonances of the overtone scale 8-16 will be clearly audible.
Looking forward to try this on the synthi 100!
Fiskaren
Trying to learn a new tune on the munnharpe and to help me hear the individual pitches I’m transcribing it on the synth as well. I then got the idea to mimic the resonant strings of a hardanger fiddle using resonant bandpass filters and process the dry synth sound through this to make a sort of synthesized hybrid between a munnharpe and hardanger fiddle. I’m not completely happy with the results but it is something to experiment further with. I’m especially looking forward to try these kinds of techniques to process acoustic instruments.
10 dec 2022
Space is the place
One of the parameters that makes electronic music special is the malleability of space and spatialization of sounds. Electronic techniques have enabled these parameters to be flexible and modulable and thus more an important consideration in the music.
If I am to play a folk-melody in a plain way with electronic instruments I believe that playing with these parameters can be key to adding some detail and interest back to the music (which could be removed in the process of playing with limited keyboard input etc.).
I have previously sought a kind of acoustic ideal when playing electronic music, where I want my sound to emanate from a specific point in space (where I am playing), this works great, especially in a group setting. But I want to challenge this ideal of mine and experiment with wilder ways of panning the sound around, perhaps in a multichannel setup.
Inspired by violin strobe by Henry Flynt I've been experimenting with playing norafjells with a triplet based delay (without feedback). Three envelopefollowers following the triplets are excing three harmonics of the harmonic oscillator. The delay invites for some interesting rythmical interplay, escpescially on the "waiting" section of the tune.
The steady footstomping I'm after is coming along!!
28 nov 2022
Switched On Polska?
Now that I’m spending a lot time transcribing tunes by ear in order to be able to play them as close to the orignals as possible I find myself thinking about the old dichotomy between the famous early synthesizer records ‘switched on bach’ and ‘silver apples on the moon’ by Wendy Carlos and Morton Subotnick respectively. Wendy choose to adopt old music on a new instrument and Morton tried to imagine a new music for a new instrument. Following Wendy’s success, a great number of similar ‘switched on’ records by various artists were released to cash in on the trend. Most of them were quite cheesy. I feel there is a great risk in my project that my music can end up in a similar way, sounding like a cheap imitation.
I see two ways of mitigating this risk. 1. Practice until it’s perfect. 2. Add some of my own ideas to the music.
Or in the famous words of Knut Buen (ape så skape)
Springar after Olav Snortheim
Some early experiments with emulating the non melodic strings on a langleik using the envelope followers of a multitap delay to excite the different harmonics of a harmonic oscillator. Every time I play 'strum' the strings the strumming speed is a bit different due to the delay time receiving a stepped random voltage with every strike.
I play this part with the left hand. These envelopes also affect the amplitude of the 'playing string'. I don't have the rythm down as he plays it when I play with the left hand at the same time. Olavs version of the beat is more stretched out allmost like a finnskogspols? I am not really good in explaining these things... I can play the difference but I lack the language to articulate it precisely.
tuning:
9/8
5/4
4/3
11/8
3/2
27/16
13/7
2/1
Practiced my nordafjells today. I'm transcribing another version now, by Anders K Rysstad, he has some different phrases compared to the version by Torleiv H Bjrøgum that I've worked with previously. Probably my personal favourite version is that of Daniel Sandén Warg, I really want to accomplish his steady yet driving groove. His version seems more close to Torleiv's, but I could be wrong!
Here's an approximation of the tuning Anders K Rysstad plays:
10/9
9/8
6/5
5/4
27/20
11/8
3/2
5/3
9/5
20/11
2/1
I also got the idea from listening to Daniel and Siggur Brokkes record 'rammeslag' to do have multiple versions of the same song on different instruments. It could be an interesting effect to first hear a tune in a more traditional setting and then on the synth or the opposite.
Had a minor breaktrough in finding an alternative scale to polska från säfsnäs. Nice septimal bluesy sound! This is quite far from the recording (Per Gudmundson, säckpipa) I have the melody from but as Mats Edén put it regarding tuning: "you do as you want" https://youtu.be/NWUKaRn0VUg?t=1636
Would be interesting to look into if there exist any old chanters with a tuning more similar to this...
9/8
7/6
4/3
3/2
14/9
27/16
28/15
2/1
Pattern practice
How can I apply these methods of reptition with gradual change of timbre, randomization of octaves etc. but with phrases from folk music tunes as the basis for the patterns?
This kind of hypnotic pattern based synth music (ala Suzanne Ciani etc) is reliant on a constant and even pulse. Is this reconsileable with the uneven feel of a folk music phrase?
I have many tools for utilizing a droney synth music to accompany the melodies of folk music. However, when it comes to this style of synth playing I'm not sure of how to solve it, or if it is solvable in a satisfactory way. The research must go on!
3 Nov 2022
Some thoughts on the topic of sound emulation, later to be upgraded to BANK OF MATERIALS status.
the musical uncanny valley of emulation
The closer to emulating the sound of acoustic instruments by electronic means one gets, the more artificial it tends to sound. As you approach realism the connotations of the intended emulated instrument come into the foreground making you listen extra closely for the difference making you notice how off it really is. I tend to find this distracting for the kind of musical expression I’m after. (I find that it works slightly different for non-instrumental yet naturally occuring sounds such as rain / thunder etc. but that's a topic for another text.)
Modal synthesis (maybe I should include a brief explanation here?) is a good example of this phenomena: video missing here
Even sample-based instruments such as modern digital pianos have this issue, they just sound more fake than fake.
However, I also encounter a similar distracting phenomenon when using typical synth sounds such as sweeping resonant low pass filters over a saw/pulse wave etc. Then I find that the connotations of the Synth (with capital S) draw too much attention to itself and distract from the melody.
For this reason, I’ve so far opted to use more simple sounds such as sine waves, wavefolded sinewaves, or sinewaves mixed with other basic waveforms. While being very modest in the use of modulation of these sounds, keeping them rather static or changing over longer timeframes i.e., using a brighter sound for the second time I play a melody.
This is a fine solution for some things, by leaving some expressiveness out you can also gain focus for other parts of the music, which is interesting and something I intend to explore further.
However, in this expressiveness of sound (such as changing bow pressure emphasizing the groove etc.) I find some of the most interesting details in the source material. Which I have as a goal to highlight in different ways!
So this poses for me a great challenge: How to play as expressive as acoustic instruments without getting stuck in the musical uncanny valley of emulation?
31 Oct 2022
Bought some books. I'm not sure exactly how they will relate to my project but it can't hurt to read a bit!
Polskans Historia (a real brick of a book)
The San Fransisco Tape Music Center (about Subotnick, Oliveros and other heroes!)
Growing the Third Ear Under the Great Astral Mother Tree - Christine Ödlund (amazing graphic score-ish art)
Conversations with Iannis Xenakis (should be interesting)
Folkmusik i Sverige (a more introductory book on the subject)
Composing Electronic Music (Curtis Roads overview of thechniques)
17 Oct 2022
Concert documentation with short reflections of three concerts FALL 2022
I had the opportunity to play two concerts with different materials related to my research project early fall 2022 and thought this was a good opportunity to check the status of the project in a live setting both in a solo and ensemble format. To evaluate and identify some areas to develop further.
Compare and contrast
Playing with Hans made the melodies groove better, transitions easier and the improvised parts more alive. I can use these recordings to see how things develop.
Solo concert at Fri Resonans, Trondheim, 1oct 2022
the good
Nature sounds impro (21:48)
Drone with loop layer (07:07) using the ‘time lag accumulator’
the bad
Tuning issues – problem throughout (I have to look into other technical solutions for this)
Feet stomping – Not groovy and clear on the gangar (27:30) especially the 2nd triplet
Non varied sound for the melodic playing
and the ugly
Boring outfit
Evaluation: I’m not very happy with this concert.
Duo concert at Forskningsdagene, Kristiansand, 26 sep 2022
the good
Hans makes the melodies groove (09:52)
the bad
Occasional mistakes in my playing of the melodies
Feet stomping not clear enough
and the ugly
the monitors on top of the table look distracting
Evaluation: I’m very happy with this concert.
Vallåt från Mockfjärd efter Frisell
Pelle Jacobson
Lockrop och Vallåtar
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ti8crUD0kwk
PROTO BLOG POST
Listed below is a series of short texts with topics concerning compositional and instrumental techniques, songs, idiomatic details from folk music etc. That serve as a musical foundation for this project.
Where possible I try to describe the methods in an instrument agnostic way and where necessary I try to explain the specificities of my instrument.
To the reader: this approach is highly inspired by Ivar Grydelands artistic research work found here: http://www.ivargrydeland.com/artisticresearch/
Check it out as as example of an, in my opinion, successful way of presenting different topics in a wiki style, allowing the reader to follow their interests and get interesting information without reading the whole text in one go. I personally found it super interesting and useful as a fellow improvising musician.
Methods for playing / generating countermelodies and polyphony
My instrument affords me several approaches for playing countermelodies and polyphony. Each with their own unique musical and technical challenges and rewards. Bellow I’ve outlined the main methods I’ve employed.
Time Lag Accumulation+
Time lag accumulation was the fitting name that Terry Riley used to call his techniques for using tape loops and longer tape delays back in the times where ‘looping’ was yet to become a well-established practice.
Inspired by his and others (such as Pauline Oliveros) virtuosic use of longer tape delays I wanted to apply similar methods to melodies and fragments of melodies.
An early experiment with a ‘vallåt’.
I choose my first experiment to be on a ‘vallåt’ (explanation needed) because I the limited harmonic content together with it’s rubato tempo would be well suited for a kind of uneven musical canon.
The scale I derived from the recording.
9/8 (ren sekund)
32/27 (litt låg moll ters)
27/20 (litt hög kvart)
15/11 (litt högare kvart men ikke helt opp till rein 11)
3/2 (ren kvint)
64/35 (neutral 7)
21/11 (hög dur 7)
2/1
On a more poetic level I also pictured this herding call being echoed back to an imaginary horn-player standing in a valley surrounded by mountains to the left & right.
The melody as it is (transcribed from this(missing) recording) played in a plain fashion on the synth.
Video -> https://youtu.be/H5UiQqzLMHE
Slowmotion version with a custom time lag accumulator.
Video -> https://youtu.be/b4-Hu0gLatI
My version of the time lag accumulator I used in this example is composed of two digital buffers of 14s and 15s that are read continually. The two buffers are hard panned left & right. The two buffers are continually being recorded to (from the melody we hear being playd) without overdub, thus deleting the previous material. The two channels are hard panned left & right. The long and uneven times were employed for the effect of an uneven and unpredictable musical call and response.
Apart from the stereo panning I wanted to distinguish the sound of the echoes further subtly by emulating some qualities of analog tape (again inspired by Rileys take on the subject).
This was achieved by the use a tanh function (modulated by white noise) applied to the audio to add the grainy and compressing qualities of tape without the, for my purposes, distracting pitch wavering associated with tape delays.
Using digital buffers instead of analog tape opens up possibilities for playing back from arbitrary points in the recording and in doing so breaking away from the 1:1 recording / playback relationship. At about the xx:xx mark I activate a function which at random intervals of about 3-15s shifts the buffer to read and write from a new random point. My goal with introducing this randomness was to further dissolve the melody into an unrecognizable state as the piece went on.
Illustration missing?
To further conceal the looping points I gradually faded in and out the phrases (using my left hand as seen in the video) in order for the phrases to overlap more smoothly. I also was mindful to take longer pauses between the phrases as the time lag accumulator would later fill those in.
My aim was to have a gradual dissolving and abstraction of the original melody as the piece went on by introducing the randomization as well as introducing other improvised phrases that served to fill out the sonic space with a focus on establishing two harmonic distinct states. One with the steady fundamental and the other with the dissonant neutral seventh and high fourth.
FUTURE TOPICS:
Polyphonic keyboard
The most straight forward is using a MIDI to CV interface to connect a keyboard and patch it up like an ordinary polyphonic keyboard.
The downside to this method is that it is technically challenging to play the intricate ornaments of the material in several voices at once.
missing
(EXAMPLE WHERE THIS TECHNIQUE IS USED)
Hocketing
A technique for voice allocation or verticalization of a melody.
Digital Sequencer with record capabilities
Example blågeten
Bagpipes
Drone with melody
Strumming
Attempts at different emulations of langeleik on the modular synthesizer.