Post by apk5cq on Nov 30, 2011 23:51:30 GMT -5
My music class at the University of Virginia, called Technosonics, focuses on different styles and compositions of electronic music. We have studied the early use of instruments such as the Hyrdaulis, Aeolian harp, glass harmonica, hurdy gurdy, music boxes, panharmonicon, and metronome. These instruments lead to the initial stages of electric music and the computer music that we know and listen to today. In watching a concert from the Mobile Interactive Computer Ensemble, MICE, you could really see what we call “music”, has become. The MICE computer Orchestra uses many individual components to make on put together piece creating a “symphonic scale human/computer orchestra” with over 200 regular performing members. It incorporates the use of emergence, perturbation, and robotic instruments to generate the sounds that make up every individual piece.
What is interesting about the MICE orchestra is that it is never the same thing twice, which is what occurs in real life. We only hear the clicking of they keys or the snapping of a branch one way, a distinct way, once in a lifetime. What I really enjoyed about the MICE orchestra was that not only did it incorporate the main composers, Matthew Burtner, Timothy Dalbey, Jason Johnson, Steven Kemper, Irwin Reyes, Troy Rogers and David Topper, but it uses an audience to be a part of the music. In the piece, Unity Groove, we see a dark room full of computers that look like students are using them. We can see that they are all using the same sound generator program. What it interesting to hear form this piece is that it sounds like the sound is coming from all over the room, and not from one specific instrument, which is one of the main components of the MICE orchestra. When listening you can hear that it has all different types of frequencies and pitches that are all being generated from individual computers. The instrument is the computer that is being played by the person, but it is in complete control. It has this sort of reverberation sound that makes it seem that the music is echoing and it gives the feel that the music has no rhythm or strong tempo that keeps the song going. It makes the music just sound sporadic, but then again that could be the whole point of the piece, that it does not make that much sense. The music that is being created seems as if it is in an infinite loop of sound. The song starts of very quiet at the beginning, and as the song progresses it seems that the song gets louder and louder, until it reaches a climax and the sound begins to diminish in volume. With the students not pressing the keys anymore, we still hear a buzzing sound that the computers are generating. This to me seems to be a complete stretch of what music is, but then again, what can we really say is music because what we hear every day can be seen as music, weather if it is a bird chirp or a car crash.
What is interesting about the MICE orchestra is that it is never the same thing twice, which is what occurs in real life. We only hear the clicking of they keys or the snapping of a branch one way, a distinct way, once in a lifetime. What I really enjoyed about the MICE orchestra was that not only did it incorporate the main composers, Matthew Burtner, Timothy Dalbey, Jason Johnson, Steven Kemper, Irwin Reyes, Troy Rogers and David Topper, but it uses an audience to be a part of the music. In the piece, Unity Groove, we see a dark room full of computers that look like students are using them. We can see that they are all using the same sound generator program. What it interesting to hear form this piece is that it sounds like the sound is coming from all over the room, and not from one specific instrument, which is one of the main components of the MICE orchestra. When listening you can hear that it has all different types of frequencies and pitches that are all being generated from individual computers. The instrument is the computer that is being played by the person, but it is in complete control. It has this sort of reverberation sound that makes it seem that the music is echoing and it gives the feel that the music has no rhythm or strong tempo that keeps the song going. It makes the music just sound sporadic, but then again that could be the whole point of the piece, that it does not make that much sense. The music that is being created seems as if it is in an infinite loop of sound. The song starts of very quiet at the beginning, and as the song progresses it seems that the song gets louder and louder, until it reaches a climax and the sound begins to diminish in volume. With the students not pressing the keys anymore, we still hear a buzzing sound that the computers are generating. This to me seems to be a complete stretch of what music is, but then again, what can we really say is music because what we hear every day can be seen as music, weather if it is a bird chirp or a car crash.
