Improvisation for Jeremy Yeo 27 March 2019 Box Hill Institute

Jeremy Yeo is planning to put on a music/multimedia recital on 6 August 2019 at the Esplanade Recital Studio in Singapore.  He asked for a bunch of us at Box Hill Institute, from which he just graduated with his Master's Degree (congratulations Jeremy!) to make video improvisations that he could incorporate into his recital.  Jeremy was just back at Box Hill, so on March 27, he videoed me improvising on iPad and iPhone in a classroom at Box Hill.  The software on the iPad Pro is Gestrument Pro controlling the Synclavier Go app.  There are 5 voices on the Synclavier, 3 sustained and two short and percussive.  The sustained voices are in 17, 18 and 19 tones per octave tuning, the percussive sounds are in 16 and 15 tones per octave.  The iPhone6 has Gestrument Pro controlling the Fingerlab SK-51, a recreation of the old Casio SK5 sampler.  The samples on the SK-51 are extended vocal sounds I improvised.  The iPad Pro is being played through the classroom sound system.  The iPhone6 is being played through the 2 mighty Marshall mini-Stacks.  If you're lucky enough to be in Singapore on August 6, you can see this video, and many others, in combination with Jeremy's live playing.  If you can't be there, you can at least enjoy this video on its own.

Symposium on Kenneth Gaburo from 2010 is now on the web

Waaaay back in 2010, Nate Wolley organized a symposium on Kenneth Gaburo's work that took place at Issue Project Room in Brooklyn.  The participants were Nate, David Dunn, Larry Polansky, Chris Mann and me - via Skype.  Many years later, in 2017, the symposium was transcribed and put up on the web on the Wolf Notes website.  I just discovered that it's there, so I'm passing on the URL.  It's interesting reading, all these years later.  Chris is, of course, no longer with us, so it's interesting to read his comments, and to feel his presence through his language (he'd have something to say about that, I'm sure) (probably the Satie quote about anyone who's interested in his music after his death is a necrophiliac...).  For Gaburo scholars, or the curious, here it is: 

https://wolfnotes.org/2017/05/03/kenneth-gaburo/

MOVE 50 - A new CD to celebrate 50 years of Move Records!

Move Records is Australia's leading Classical Music label, and they're 50 years old this year.  3 Cheers for Martin Wright and the whole Move team!  And to celebrate, they've released a CD with 24 composers writing short pieces (most played on piano by the amazing Michael Keiran Harvey) to celebrate.  Here's the front cover:

and here's the rear cover, with the cast list (as they say on cop shows, "the usual suspects").

 My "Postlude" (made with the Arturia realization of the classic Fairlight Computer Music Instrument (CMI)) is track 20 on this CD.  For more information about the CD, and where to get it in physical form or as a download, go to http://www.move.com.au/disc/move-50.

The Three Latest Reviews in Soundbytes Magazine

And the March 2019 issue of Soundbytes is out now, and I have three reviews in it:

http://soundbytesmag.net/music-for-tablets-synclavier-go-from-synclavier/

This one is a honey - the iOS port of the Synclavier 2.  Pure fm/additive/frame-based synthesis microtonal goodness from the late 70s/early 80s, now on your iPad.  And Synclavier Pocket for your iPhone or iPod!  I've been having a lot of fun with these.

http://soundbytesmag.net/review-walker-by-uvi/

More utilitarian, this one, but a lot of fun - a complete Foley footstep making sample set from UVI.  My colleague George Papanicolaou and I reviewed this one and were pretty impressed.

http://soundbytesmag.net/review-sound-dust-collection-2-for-kontakt-from-spitfire-audio/

And from Spitfire Audio, a collection of 5 of compositional sample-set developer Pendle Poucher's Sound Dust sample sets.  These are quite wonderful.  Each of them is a complete compositional environment, all cleverly conceived and all flawlessly realized - they run in Kontakt Full - well worth checking out.  And they're all fairly inexpensive!

Four Latest Reviews in Soundbytes Magazine

The new (January 2019) review of Soundbytes Magazine is now out.  In it, I have 4 new reviews:  Here are the URLS:

 http://soundbytesmag.net/music-for-tablets-apematrix-an-app-by-alessandro-petrolati-for-ipad-iphone-ipod-touch/

This is a review of a wonderful new app for patching your apps and effects together in the iOS environment.  It will handle both AudioUnits (AUv3) plugins and InterAppAudio (IAA) plugins.  It's MIDI routing is very good, so you can access all those "hidden" MIDI-controllable parameters on things.

http://soundbytesmag.net/review-gestrument-pro-by-jesper-nordin-and-jonatan-liljedahl/

This is a review of Gestrument Pro, an ELEGANT upgrading of Gestrument, which allows so many different kinds of control and tuning possibilities.

http://soundbytesmag.net/review-skypad-orbit-and-eclipse-from-wide-blue-sound/

A review of a complete environment - two Kontakt programs, Orbit and Eclipse, and a tablet-based (iOS or Android) Lemur controller for them, which enables all sorts of control possibilities not possible with just mice or keyboards.

http://soundbytesmag.net/technique-microtuning-in-kontakt-5-and-6/

This is an update of an article I wrote on this website last year.  Now updated and with more information.

Enjoy!