JHBB Improvisation: Ableton Live & Akai APC

On 18th May 2016, I did a short talk and performed a piece at the TDE Research Student Conference. The conference was held in the John Henry Brookes Building, at Oxford Brookes, and was for research students in Architecture and other disciplines under the school of Technology and Design for the Built Environment. The Music department is now within this school, which suits me and my interests perfectly!

To give you some context: I had an archive of sounds (field recordings) that I recorded in the John Henry Brookes Building (JHBB) over the Summer of 2014 when involved in the 'Sound and Space' project, and I wanted to 'perform' the sounds live in an improvisatory way, in the building itself. Using Ableton Live 9 and a hardware controller, I was able to improvise a ten minute piece based on and using, field recordings taken in the JHBB.

In my mind, I wanted to be using an Ableton Push controller, with its 64 pads and potential to manipulate audio; but I hadn't one at that point and so instead I used my travel studio: the Akai APC Key25. This I have taken on tours with me and had great times making music in hotel rooms and on the bus. It allows me to play music by triggering clips, scenes, and also to mute, solo, mix, and manipulate audio effects and software parameters by hand without using a mouse. It also has tiny keyboard and fits in a bag.

DJ the pace: detailing the Frideswide Square sound map

The main drive of the talk was about how collecting sounds in the built environment allows us to play with 'place' and 'space', and (using Bourriaud's Post Production as a context) how you can essentially 'DJ' the place. I gave examples of sound maps online, and how when you can mix two sounds together at the same time you create something new. This concept was also linked loosely to Italio Calvino’s Invisible Cities

My piece was improvised, and ‘open’. I like the idea that there is no monolithic version of it. I like also this kind of democracy of (a) place, discovered and uncovered through sound, and I want to play with this more in giving people the opportunity to DJ a location sonically - creating their own version and discovering new interpretations of place as they go.

Performing the sounds of the JHBB

As you can see I had the session projected up behind me, so the performance could be viewed as happening in real time! 

Building Site Slice

Monday, 1 August 2016

Here’s something I did using Ableton Push 2

In Ableton as with many DAWs you can ‘slice’ a sample into many different parts, creating a palette of sounds from which new sounds and patterns can be created. Very often people use intros to a pre-existing track, or the entire song, even. For this one I used a field recording: this means sounds recorded outside of a studio, in the place where the sounds ‘naturally’ occur.

I tend to find myself making field recordings around building sites (!). This one I recorded on 29th Sept 2011, I think I was in Summertown in Oxford. 

Sliced up into Ableton, and using the Push 2 controller, I’m able to re-imagine the sounds in rhythmic and harmonic ways. I made this track in minutes, then went back to pick up and tweak the arrangement. It’s rough, but you can see here how you can take a general field recording of construction and turn it into a musical piece. I haven’t gone overboard with either the quantisation or the melodic content, instead just content to noodle with the sounds I had.

The original field recording was about 30 seconds but sliced up and playing around with the sections I have made a 3 minute piece. Listen to the sliced version before the original, it’s more interesting that way!

Original field recording: