As I delve deeper and deeper into the world of Kyma I realise that our tools inevitably define us and that the main challenge in making sound and music today is finding the best tools.
Symbolic Sound Corporation, who make the Kyma software and Capybara hardware that I now am learning, seem to think completely independently. This I enjoy. This makes for new and original tools.

A bad workman always blames his tools.
A good workman praises his tool.
A violin is a tool.

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“I believe that to shape sound is simultaneously to enunciate (pace Arnold Schonberg) idea, the sense that material states, in aesthetic experience, are somehow transubstantiated, imbued with their own form of awareness of life force”

“The harnessing and melding of the spiritual power of the creative misunderstanding lies at the very heart of present day aesthetic experience”

Brian Ferneyhough

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I have just finished the the music for a film promoting Tony Abeyta’s new jewellry. The film was shot and edited by Gabriel Abeyta. I so enjoy making music for these films of Gabriel. In case you missed it on the home page, click here to view.

The Capybara and Kyma are in and running. It has been an enormous amount of work completely rearranging my studio to accommodate the Capybara. It’s just a totally different way of working.
Much manual to read (but happily- well written and printed!)

He seems fragile in this interview….but still that laughter

I am will be working with Protein Dance on their new piece ‘L.O.L.’ which will premiere in January, 2011. We are still at the early stages of negotiations so I can’t say much more at this stage except it is all quite exciting.

In other news, I’m taking delivery of a Capybara 320 and KymaX, made by Symbolic Sound Corporation. If this means anything to you you will know how excited I am! The Capybara 320 hardware is the power behind the KymaX software, a language for creating, processing and combining sound and in short it is the holy grail of sound manipulation.
I first came across KymaX many years ago when I wanted to morph two sounds together, so that the ‘crossfade’ from one sound to another was imperceptible. This is actually incredibly difficult to achieve with sound, as opposed to light. All I could do was listen to the convincing examples on the SSC website and dream- it was, and still is, a major financial investment.

Kyma does many many more things besides morphing. It is deep. Very deep.

So next week I will hopefully take delivery of this fabulous beast.

Today the word “music” is as outmoded as the word “shay” and has about as much connection with what is going on in America, Europe, and Japan as Euterpe has with choruses. Perhaps we should substitute Edgar Varèse’s definition of music as “organized sound,” provided we add two words from John Cage, making it “organized sound and silence.”

by Faubion Bowers and Daniel Kunin from “The Electronics of Music” in Aspen no.4 Spring 1967

Yesterday I lost my dear friend and colleague Neil Cooper. I have known Neil for most of my working life and I am missing him so much. A true one off.

Here we have a view so simple but resonant….

In researching the world of ‘Pervasive Media’ I came across this:
“Science is nature redundant in the mind; art is nature’s perception revised by the mind”.

To which I can add nothing.

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I attended a conference on ‘Pervasive Media in Theatre’ this week in my home city of Bristol.
What is ‘Pervasive Media’? You may well ask, and so did we all.
I think I can finally say what it is: there is an idea out in the computing community called ‘Ubiquitous Computing’ which dreams of a future where there will be no desktop PC’s, no laptops or mobiles, rather computing will be woven into the very fabric of our society- everything will be a computer in some way and as humans we will be in constant interactive communication with this fabric. Your tea cup will know how much tea is in the cup and its temperature, and will communicate with the kettle, for example.
I became interested in the cybernetic aspects of this- the feedback loops that exist within systems and came across a mind-expanding book from 1967 called ‘The Science of Art’ by Robert E Mueller.
I cannot recommend this book enough- it’s incredible! Starting fron ideas of entropy and structure and moving through cybernetics and communication theory it somehow manages to stay full of heart and soul and tackle the big questions- what is art, who are we and how can science and art help each other?
A digression- you will find very little reference to this book and author on the internet. The book was published in 1967 and then went out of print. What is interesting is that in my local library this book is very much alive- I searched in their catalogue using the keyword ‘cybernetics’ and it immediately appeared. It was available for loan from the library store.
On Amazon this book does not exist, it is too long out of print and of no commercial value.
I always worry about our new great source of information, the internet.

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“Great minds discuss ideas, average minds discuss events,
small minds discuss people.” Eleanor Roosevelt

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Today is my last day in Singapore.
Yesterday I gave a lecture at Lasalle College of Arts. Afterwards Jeff and I went to Little India, an incredibly vibrant area which feels so different from the rest of Singapore.
Unlike home, this is a primarily South Indian enclave. We happened to be there on a holy day and the Hindu Temple was in full swing. We removed our shoes (and socks) and went in.
It can sometimes feel voyeuristic entering other peoples sacred spaces but not so here. We felt welcome.
And that is my overall feeling of being in Singapore really.
Tomorrow- Australia.

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I’ve now spent several days ‘living’ in Singapore. What a delightful country! Is there a price to pay for the virtually zero crime rate, abundant wealth and ease of living? Of course! But I don’t want to talk of that here.
What I enjoy in this ‘traveller’ mode is observing the details of difference and the the commonality of humans. It seems to me that Singapore has the best of the West without the unbelievable disfunction and corruption. Public transport is cheap as chips and a marvel, food is varied and a cause for social celebration, the sun shines constantly and the people are gracious and polite (but not too much).

Yesterday, my friend Jeff and I went to Sungei Buloh Nature Reserve in the far north-east of the island. Here we wandered through mangrove swamps and saw kingfishers, terrapins, lizards, butterflies and innumerable birds all accompanied by a constant deafening squarking, buzzing, chiruping din the likes of which I have never experienced before. I made some excellent binaural recordings with my trusty Olympus LS-10 and took lots of photographs.
The rest of my time has been spent mainly eating and socialising, which are one and the same here.

I did however go to the Singapore Art Museum which had much to challenge, with FX Harsono, an Indonesian contemporary artist challenging the most. His large installation exhibition seemed to reflect so much of the last four decades of violence and personal tragedies of the Indonesian people.
Tomorrow I am giving a lecture at LaSalle College of Arts.

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Yesterday there was a British Council symposium on ‘community theatre’, which I spoke at. I discussed how we go about collecting and processing sound from the environment.

Today the director of the museum took us for brunch at The Carlton Hotel. This was a great morning but later, unfortunately, the air-conditioning has completely broken down at the Museum and temperatures are rising. This is serious!

The venue is haunted- in fact where I am sitting right now typing this, is the hot spot for appearences of the ghosts- it’s a side stairwell stage right. Naz, who is from the museum and is working with us has told me that he has actually seen the ghost.

Good show yesterday and we have just done our matinee today. The testi, which is the traditional urn at Turkish-Cypriot weddings, refused to smash despite two attempts.

Tonight is the final show.

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We had our first public performance in Singapore last night. The show was well received.
There was a reception afterwards given by the British Council and the Museum. They have completely dealt with the problem of eating food and drinking whilst standing up. A plate that holds your glass, rather like an artists easel.
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This is the Singapore National Museum where Ringside is playing.

Day three in Singapore during the hottest February on record. We are in the final day of rehearsal of Ringside. As always there are challenges, not least of which was that the theatre completely flooded yesterday.
This was mopped away but unfortunately there is a lingering smell…..

There is much interest in our show from the national media and Mem was on breakfast television this morning. They are also making a documentary over the course of our rehearsals. There is a continuous feeling of being watched in Singapore anyway.

Smoking is only allowed outdoors in de-marked yellow boxes which I imagine will be coming to England soon.

I have heard the loud calls of many strange birds though I have been unable to see any of them. I will try recording them soon.

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I’m off to Singapore tomorrow where we play Ringside at the National Museum. Then Melbourne in the second week of March.

I will be keeping a diary of my journey here and will be making field recordings (though I don’t think Singapore has many of those) with my trusty Olympus LS10 recorder, which I will also post here.

So check back soon.