[29.3.07] Back to Lucier and teapots

In the past couple of weeks I have re-acitivated my status as a post-graduate student at Adelaide University. Though I had considered my life as a student to be officially over after last year's debacle, a handful of people managed to coerce me back into the fold. The research on Alvin Lucier re-commences!, complete with rocks, teapots, stairwells and the University's resources at my disposal. The provisa is of course I am undertaking my study as a part-timer and I won't complete my degree until around December 2008. This means plenty of research centric posts over the next 18 months. Hooray for you dear reader!

[2.2.07] Rocks, Mouth and Delay #1 mp3

Here's the first of my little forays into rock music :). I have recorded myself playing rocks by cupping a flat one in my palm and striking in with another. I can control the resonance of the struck rock by putting my cupped hand up to my mouth, by opening and closing my mouth I can control the resonance and respective pitch of the sound. On this recording I have recorded two tracks of myself playing the rocks to my Tascam 424, then upon playback I routed a digital delay effect send and altered the delay time and feedback settings in realtime. It does sound a little bit clunky, but should give a fair representation of this technique, the delay is used to make the process a bit more interesting.

Rocks, Mouth, Delay #1.mp3

[30.1.07] Rock, stone, pebble, etc.

Over the past month or so I've taught myself how to 'play' rocks, stones and pebbles. Inspired by the activities of the acoustic shaman Akio Suzuki, I've found that these materials can create some very interesting sonic results when the right discipline and focus of listening is applied in conjunction with a resonant space. I've made some audio recordings over the past couple of weeks, but my server is giving me grief - hopefully the situation will be rectified in the next couple of days, with some description of my playing techniques. Stay posted.