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I love my Stick!
After having my new instrument, the Chapman Stick, for five months I finally decided to shot a video of it. What makes the Stick so fun to play is that you can use both hands more or less as “two musicians that jam together”. The playing experience is very open and creative. Quite different compared to most ordinary instruments that force you to train multiple body parts until they become one unified performance machinery. Stick playing rather puts your brain into multi tasking mode and calls for a split vision attitude.
Another thing I like with the Stick is the powerful live sound design options you get by having two fretboards going out through separate outputs – meaning you can treat them with two different effect chains. I plug those two outputs into a laptop running Mainstage.
CDM covers one of my electronic instrument designs!
Wow, what an honor only to be mentioned by such a great webzine as CDM, Create Digital Music! “Dreams of a Musical Future: Digitópia Winners’ Wondrous Creations”.
As a matter of fact I did use my Steppophononic Looperformer at one track on the recently released duo album Sub City 2064 with Erdem Helvacıoğlu. Here’s a link to a track where I use that electronic design to play both the flute pads and the synth sequence simultaneously.
Note how three musical lines are created at the same time; (1) flute melodies, (2) chords layered by livelooping overdubbed long flute notes and (3) matching arpeggios (instantly snagged flute sample, live sequenced and sent through beat synced filters). All three parts following my harmonic on-the-fly improvisation.
This version of my Steppohonic Looperformer is like a pilot test. I mocked it up with Plogue Bidule and Expert Sleeper’s Crossfade Loop Synth Effect. Not technically optimal, but musically it worked well enough to be used on this record. I published the functionality design idea under a CC license so if you are a programmer you are allowed to steal the idea to create a plugin or whatever. Here is the link to my presentation.
First reviews of Sub City 2064
Psychemusic.org is putting our album on this weekends radio playlist called “PIONEERS AND CREATIVE VISIONARIES: MASTER PIECES OF ELECTRONIC MUSIC, TAPE MUSIC & ELECTRO-ACOUSTIC MUSIC & COMPUTER MUSIC“.
Review:
Live electronics has been used more and more not only as a tool to chose some new effects or distortions on the instrument, but also a real instrument with its own pallet of programmed changes. Turkish born Erdem Helvacıoğlu and Swedish Per Boysen both have experience in this field. Erdem uses the guitar, the cello guitar and a drum machine as his main instruments for additional filters, programming and electronic processing. Per plays flute and some tenor sax and horns and uses EWI, and his ‘step-o-phonic looperformer’ meta instrument, fretless bass and live electronics. This way improvisations between two artists start from a wide and colourful pallet, where the guitars are not only used as live melodic playing, but also for all sorts of guitar strings reverberations, from fast to slow, sometimes used with overlaps so that there is an orchestral feeling moving and somewhat evolving into space consisting of a near ambient setting of sound-paint and drones, mixed with a few different rhythmic but colorful variations. The strangest sounds come from the cello guitar, which sound like a balloon performance on one occasion (track 5). Overlaps, loops, effects and textures are also used in the mix. The horns are a few times a great extension of an effect in the bass parts. Interesting!
Sub City 2064 by Erdem Helvacıoğlu & Per Boysen
The instrumental album Sub City 2064 was produced as a long distance collaboration between Turkey and Sweden in the cinematic vibe of a chilly sci-fi horror soundtrack.
Erdem and I first met in Santa Cruz California 2007 where we both performed at the International Live Looping Festival. We became friends as well as fans, exchanged CDs and talked about creating recorded music together. And so we did.
Erdem Helvacıoğlu plays TogaMan GuitarViol, electric guitar and electronics. Per Boysen plays alto flute, tenor saxophone, EWI, electronics, drop-B electric guitar, Stratocaster and fretless electric guitar.
Erdem Helvacıoğlu is one of the most renowned new music composers of his generation in Turkey. His music has ben performed and broadcast all around the world, included in many prestigious festivals and received numerous international electronic music awards including prizes from Luigi Gussolo, Insulae, Electronicae and MUSICA NOVA Electroacoustic Music Competitions. Erdem Helvacioğlu has been called “the genius of unusual sounds” by prestigious German magazine Ragazzi.
Per Boysen’s live concerts focus on instrumental music with an openminded “psychedelic” touch, utilizing live looping and interactive electronics to extend traditional instruments in multi lateral improvisation. He is a Swedish freelance worker in many creative fields, often referred to as a renaissance man. Has toured worldwide as a musician, affiliated with both major record labels, small independent labels and as a self promoting artist. Former studio musician counting one gold selling album. Produced recorded music for CD, surround DVD multimedia, radio and television.
Recorded in Istanbul and Stockholm by Erdem Helvacıoğlu & Per Boysen. Mixed by Per Boysen. Audio mastering by Pieter Snapper at Babajim Instanbul Mastering. Photo and album cover by Danne Eriksson.
Improvisation is not free!
The better you become at “improvising” the more you realize there is no such thing as “free improvisation”. Since music is a form of communication the best improvisations are those where the player succeeds in applying gestures that draw on rules known to the listener. Such gestures and rules can be timbre, direction in movement or plain music harmony theory.
I am especially excited by multi lateral improvisation, as I call it when a player improvises many musical parts at the same time – as opposed to simply improvising a melody over a given background. In this performance I use live looping, which means I record phrases I play and then keep changing those recordings while playing an additional part. So there is no “lead” and no “background” part of this improvisation. I do not play melodies and improvise chords to back melody up, nor do I play chords and improvise melodies that fit in. I invent all parts of the music at once. This is not “free improvisation” because in order to sound like some sort of music, although weird, everything has to relate to some common ground. The common ground in this particular performance is parallel transposition of minor chords. In this case using only the tonica, first, second fourth and sixth position transposition diminishes the palette further and creates a musical universe where almost anything can be played and still turn out harmonic.
The looping technique used here is to start out by playing an instrument and recording it as a very long loop. Careful to initially play only notes that will work harmonically even if transposed (thinking not only about actual sound here but also about what scales any given future transposition of the recorded loop may imply). So as lungs go empty of air I close the loop and it starts repeating. Now I use foot pedals to shift speed/pitch of this long loop into different intervals while I play along. Manipulating transposition of the recorded loop is one orchestral element and my live instrument is a second – both elements are parts of the same improvisation. This is a simple technical praxis of what I call multi lateral improvisation. If transposing a musical part in minor you get totally different harmonic scale options for your playing compared to transposing a musical part in major. It can easily become too complex to sound interesting so the challenge is, in my opinion, to find themes and refine them.
Composers use similar theoretical rules to create scores, but to me in this moment of time it is more fun to work out techniques that allow you to do it all at once in sound!
(edit)
Since publishing I have received some questions on what software were used in this performance, so here we go: Mainstage by Apple is the “effect rack”, “mixer” and “patchbay”. Inside Mainstage I am running the AU plugin version of the looper Mobius. As soon as the first loop is recorded Mobius calculates the musical tempo I am playing in and sends out MIDI Clock which Mainstage adapts its tempo to. This makes tempo dependent effects follow my playing/live looping. Maybe I should also mention that the video doesn’t cover the extensive foot work done to simultaneously play Mobius from a Behringer FCB1010 MIDI pedal board. There are almost as many looping commands happening as there are notes played in this performance.
The audio sensitive live graphics are simply the iTunes Visualizer
The Chapman Stick totally rocks!!!
I’m learning a new music instrument here, The Chapman Stick. It’s so fun because on the stick you can play both bass, comping chords and melody lines at the same time. The stick has twelve strings divided into two groups of six and each group has its own set of electro magnetic pickups and output. In this recording I’m playing it that way, in dual split/stereo, so I can have different amplification assigned to each side. What you hear is an improvised live looping session using the stick to feed the software looper Mobius hosted in Apple Mainstage. No fancy PA or studio – just the stick, a laptop and a MIDI control pedalboard.
The Stick was invented by musician Emmet Chapman in the late sixties to be used by himself as his “custom instrument”. However, many folks that heard him play also wanted sticks so Emmet started manufacturing in -74. I feel honored having an instrument actually built by the inventor. Thank you, Emmet!
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Here’s where you can read more about The Chapman Stick.
How to sync plugins to Mobius looper in Bidule
Bidule is one of the most configurable plug-in hosts for setting up your own custom effect and live looping laptop rig. In this example we’re using the software looper Mobius. Here’s how you make all your plugins take on the tempo you create by the first loop you make:
Detailed walk-through:
1. Set Mobius to “Sync = Out” (“Configurations / Presets / Synchronization”).
2. Set Mobius to “Plugin Output Devices = IAC Driver IAC Bus 1″ (“Configurations/MIDI Device Selection”. The IAC bus only applies if using OS X. If using Windows you have to download and install MIDI Yoke in order to be able to send MIDI through the system, between applications and plug-ins). 3. In Bidule, open the IAC Bus (as “MIDI Device”).
4. In Bidule, toss in a “MIDI Clock To Sync” bidule and cable it to the IAC Bus device.
5. In Bidule, right-click all tempo dependent plug-ins and chose this “MIDI Clock To Sync” bidule under “Sync To”.
I also think it’s cool to set Mobius maximal respectively minimum tempo to a BPM span I like playing in. This prevents ending up with a way to fast tempo if starting out a session by creating an extremely short first loop (for glitchy stuff) or with a boring slow tempo if starting out with a very long first loop.
Link to Mobius.
It’s a free download. On this site there is also a discussion forum, a manual and a scripting documentation.
I have posted similar walk-throughs for hosting Mobius in Mainstage and Logic at my Picture Album Area at the Mobius Forum (requires forum membership registration to keep bad spam out).
And there is more on Bidule: http://www.plogue.com/
I would appreciate if people post questions here or at the fora (above), rather than contacting me directly. I have no chance to help everyone individually and if I should try to do that no one else would benefit from it. So please let’s be friends at the fora, share the goodies and spread them to everyone!
Florence Live Looping jam # 1+2+3
This is the first improvised session, from the “Anteprima” of the “First International Live Looping Festival – in Rome”, that took place on the 6th june 2009 www.livelooping.it
This recording was taken in Florence on the 3th june 2009, at the “Anfiteatro dell’Anconella”.
Performers:
Rick Walker (USA)
Per Boysen (SE)
Fabio Anile (IT)
Sjaak Overgaauw (BE)
Koan Loop Ensemble (IT) (Massimo Liverani, Massimo Fantoni, Claudio Canaccini, Fabio Capanni, Fabrizio Orrigo)
Logic seminars Gothenburg-Stockholm-Malmö
Collaboration Apple/IDG. Tickets and questions here!
Florence Concert – listen here!
The three clips below were recorded on June 3 2009 at the International Live Looping Festival of Florence. After the festival night we gathered all artists on stage and played a jam session together. The moon was full and sixty people were sitting in the purple neon lined open-air amphitheatre listening to these sounds. For a Scandinavian like me it was nice to be out at night in a park and not being attacked by mosquitos. Anyway, sound files are streamed from Fabio Anile’s podcast.
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The musicians you hear playing on this recording are Rick Walker (Found Sound, Percussion), Per Boysen (EWI), Sjaak Overgauuw (Piano, Synth), Fabio Anile (Piano, Synth, Drum Loops). And then there were all the Koan Loop Ensemble members: Massimo Liverani (Theremin, Air-synth, Air-fx), Marco Canaccini (Percussion), Massimo Fantoni (Laptop, Drum Loops, Samples), Fabrizio Arrigo (Piano), Fabio Capanni (Electric Guitar).