Re: [microsound] live performance

[Richard Zvonar <zvonar@xxxxxxxxxx>]

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At 8:42 PM +0000 12/8/02, wesley m wrote:

>describe your hardware/software setup, the process of producing and 
>processing sounds in a live performance context, and the sonic 
>content of the performance in relation to your setup.

Below is the typical sound setup used in recent performances. In past 
years certain particulars have varied, but the basic approach is 
similar.

Sound sources:
Two (2) CD players

Sound processors:
Eventide Orville (dual processor)
Eventide DSP4000
Eventide H3000

Mixing:
Mackie 1604

Control:
Niche Automation Station MIDI fader box

Performance is entirely improvised, though based on several hours of 
practice with the selected source materials. CD players are patched 
into Mackie Mixer and Eventide processors are fed via auxiliary 
sends. Typically each of the four processors is fed a mono signal. 
Processor outputs return to channel inputs on the mixer, so that the 
output of any processor can be re-routed to the inputs of any others. 
Control of certain processing parameters is done with the Niche MIDI 
faders.

Performance strategy is based on the recognizability of most source 
recordings. These range from spoken voice (William Burroughs, Noam 
Chomsky, Alvin Lucier, James Joyce, et al.), to environmental sounds 
(surf, rain, insects, short wave radio, etc.) to music (Satie, 
Xenakis, the Who, Dick Dale, Conlon Nancarrow, Bach. et al.). 
Juxtapositions of sounds are sometimes musically motivated and 
sometimes theatrically motivated. The particular choice of material 
can be haphazard or meaningful, depending on my mood, and the number 
of different sources can vary from just two to a dozen or more. For 
instance, my last performance was on the campus of UC Santa Cruz. 
This is where I first heard a recording of Conlon Nancarrow's player 
piano music (in Jim Tenney's computer music class) and it is also 
where I met my violist partner of the past 16 years. I selected a 
recording of one of her recitals, playing a Bach Cello suite, and I 
chose a Nancarrow CD (Nancarrow happens also to have been influenced 
by Bach).

This particular performance was based mainly on capturing source 
material in a 4-track looping program on the Orville and then 
postprocessing the looping tracks with the other Eventides. Short 
snippets of the source would be captured into the loops without being 
able to hear the source in advance. This caused everything to be 
based on an initial serendipity. Whatever popped up was what I had to 
make music out of. Some of the postprocessing was extreme, so that 
the sonic identity of the sources could be radically obscured. 
Sometimes the original looping sounds would be supressed in favor of 
the processed sounds, then brought back in some form later in the 
performance.

I've used this general approach with live performers as well, 
starting in the early 1980s when I was working regularly with 
Diamanda Galas, then over a 10-year period with bassist Robert Black 
and others, and more recently with the ensemble Cosmic Debris (AKA 
Alias Zone in its studio incarnation). At various times the 
processing kit has included a TC2290 delay, MIDI controlled from a 
Max patch, and assorted other digital processors. Playback has 
occasionally come from cassette as well as CD, with the TASCAM Porta 
One being a key playback device (handy for its 4-track feature, that 
also allows backwards playback of cassettes).
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______________________________________________________________
Richard Zvonar, PhD
(818) 788-2202
http://www.zvonar.com
http://RZCybernetics.com

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