Harps and missed tracks



Met up with Pedro last week was very useful. He reminded me that perhaps there is not so much left to do in terms of experimentation in music but there is still much space to play with context...

He is working on a really interesting piece for harp, which I have always been drawn to. I think it just seems so un rock 'n roll that its kind of punk rock.... if you understand what I mean

Been well into it since I saw a scene in the film "The Haunting" (Dir. Robert Wise 1963)
where a harp plays itself periodically alluding to the ghosts in the film and aeolian harps, structures that resonate in the wind to make a kind of music...



Have really been interested in the harp since seeing Joanna Newsom at the Green Man Festival in Wales in UK. There was an amazing natural reverb caused by the hills behind the site. Was amazing to here harp and voice with 2000 people in total silence...

The Harp here is from the music of the plains so not native of Bogata but Im still into an idea of using it with PD and in 8 channels somehow. I was reminded of it watching TV in Bogata where there are Harp classes on TV!



I am thinking to use the recordings of the city as material that informs the finished work rather than using them directly or a combination perhaps. The gallery part of the final work could be a more musical thing or using specific sounds seperated from the city sound field.

I am thinking of distributing 'clean' recordings of instrumentation or voice back into the city (using cars, trucks and pedestrians) and then recording them again as part of the documentation of the event.

Also had fun trying to record music with Daniel Prieto. He has something in a show called BZZZZZZZ at Fundación Cuarto Nivel Arte Contemporáneo on Jueves at 7PM.

music in bars

Have been experimenting with PD and using random number generators with a panning patch of Daniel's. Am starting to understand PD more than SuperCollider. Its almost identical to MAX/MSP so doesnt take long to start making noises.

Helped out with Andrés at BOGOTRAX where he was showing some Open Source Software. I briefly showed some examples of SuperCollider and PD but forgot to mention Audacity which is a brilliant and useful sound editor. My main example on Supercollider failed however which made me rush through everything...

Were some great lectures there really enjoyed it, a very creative atmosphere.
Unfortunately missed the end of the festival on Sabado. Was ill all weekend, something I ate I think, so missed the final party...sounded fantastic with 60 tents of music outside the city...

Lecture tonight, everything ready. Showing past work and how it has led to the work I am doing here. In some respects my work with the city seems more abstracted... It may be to do with me not using the moving image much anymore? Just sound abstracts things almost immeadiately. I want to try and have a really abstracted part of my work combined with something very human and interactive in some way... maybe the TV channel with Harps could be incorporated in some way.

This relates to what my friend Inti Guerrero is working on at the moment with the idea of radio waves being another topology of the city in addition to political, sonic, physical and social topographies that make up a landscape urban or otherwise...