Monday, October 20, 2014

Artist Instrument Visual Score Performance

For my performance I was given a score at the last minute due to the fact my partner was absent. The professor (which is you Clint since you will likely be the only one to read this), gave me a score from his book. The score worked very well for my instrument due to the fact I could make crackling and screeching noises the jagged lines of the score represented. The score looked a little like TV static and I tried to replicate some of those sounds. I also read the composition as different patterns and tried to use different techniques on my instrument to create sonic representations of them. I chose to read the score from left to right, with the simpler part and the beginning and then the more chaotic section at the end.

2D Visual Score


The visual score I created for my partner was centered on the fact that his instrument was predetermined to play a certain "song" since it was a computer program. His instrument was as simple as hitting enter on his laptop, which is why I included the word enter in the design. I added the words "you are not a computer" in hopes that he could try to find a way to play his instrument live rather than have the composition predetermined.
I printed the design I made on a broken printer to give the pattern, as well as to symbolize the lack of reliability in technology. I also used mostly negative space in the design as a reaction to the fact that my partners instrument was nearly silent.
It was interesting to hear my composition played because it wasn't performed by my partner, but instead by my professor on another student"s instrument. He interpreted design elements as musical notation rather than simply as text, which was never my intention with my original partner. It was interesting to see the contrast of how I imagined it would be played and the final composition,

Artist Instrument



For my artist instrument I created an instrument that functioned on the principles of a guitar but didn't have any strings. It relied on amplified feedback loops to create sound. I used a guitar pickup and a headphone speaker as a pickup as well, a switch between these pickups allowed me to manipulate the feedback osculation between two sounds, as well as affecting these sounds by moving the plank in different ways.
Since I am a musician I was encouraged to create an instrument that wasn't necessarily musical. The end result was a sound that is usually shied away from in music, feedback. The loud screeching noise produced by my instrument is far from pleasing, but interesting to me nonetheless. I don't think I could ever play the same thing on it twice, which is a strange concept to me.