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!