6 days to sign up for RPM Challenge January 25, 2010

The RPM Challenge:

Record an album in 28 days, just be cause you can.

That’s 10 songs or 35 minutes of original material

recorded during the month of February.

Jacob brought my attention to this & I decided it’ll work nicely as a kick in the pants to get me composing & recording.  Sure, almost half of my February will be spent working on a puppet play in Boston — that’s fine!  10 songs or 35 minutes — I’m sure I can do it.

You have 6 days, 4 hours & 23 minutes (says the website as I type this) to decide for yourself if you would like to pursue the RPM Challenge.  Need help making it happen?  Talk to Oddmusic.  We’re interested in seeing new musicks get made, so if you’ve got a project idea, I bet we can make an arrangement for you to use our equipment & get help getting started.

If you’re interested, here’s my rather sparse page on the RPM website.  If my album description tickles you, maybe you can help me make it!  I heart collaborations, so make me a proposal.

Meetings to Make Oddmusic in 2010 January 24, 2010

Hooray for possible doings in 2010 for Oddmusic & friends!  Jacob & I have a brand new set of dry-erase markers & have started Project Clouding about the whats.  Do you have whats?  Are you a who?  Are you excited about talking hows?

Tomorrow night, Monday 1/24 (and the follow Monday, 2/1), we’re hosting a conversation in room 21A of th Independent Media Center from 5:30 to 7pm to Make Oddmusic in 2010.  Consider yrself invited to come for getting-involveds!

An agenda could go like:

5:30-5:40 • pre-meeting schmooze

5:40-6:00 • introductions

6:00-6:20 • project cloud

6:20-6:40 • goaling & making-of-calendar

6:40-7:00 • Oddmusic finances – membership? – & follow-up

7:00-? • post-meeting linger

If this sounds of interest, consider yourself invited!  Feel free to let me know in advance if you’re coming, but you don’t have to.  If these times are totally awful for you but you want to be involved, let me know that too.

See you soon, friend?

Microtonal Radio Hour January 4, 2010

Reposted from Rock Geek Chic:

Andrew Heathwaite and Paul Kotheimer joined William Gillespie on Jay Eychaner and Jason Finkelman’s experimental music show Fanfare for the Speeding Bullet, and they spent an hour explaining, discussing, playing, and performing microtonal music, with an emphasis on just intonation and equal divisions of the octave. You can listen to the MP3 online.

Featuring debuts of recordings of pieces by Paul Kotheimer & a live performance by Andrew Heathwaite on cümbüş.

tonight & tomorrow night: a House Theater! December 11, 2009

A happening assembled by School for Designing a Society & ODDMUSIC U-C, to which you may consider yrself invited:

House Theater Dec. 10, 11, 12: “The Truth about Injustice Always Sounds OutRageous”

Sounds outrageous and outrageous sounds, brought to you by House Theater and UC-ODD MUSIC project. We invite you to an hour and a half “Letter to the Editor” on the system-designed killing of 15 year old Kiwane Carrington Oct. 9 2009 entwining experimental compositions in sound, dance, and poetry performed in a living, bedroom, bathroom of an Urbana house.

You’re invited! You don’t need to know us to come!

There will be three identical performances. Pick one or several:

Thursday, December 10 @ 7:30pm
Friday, December 11 @ 7:30pm
Saturday, December 12 @ 7:30pm

Where: 2106 S. Race St., Urbana (home of Ben Grosser, Kate McDowell, and Jasper)

How much: suggested donation of $5-$10, or pay what you can

Who: compositions by Grosser, Schuessler, Rzewski, Enslin, Simpson, Gaiuranos, Barton, Heathwaite, Parenti, Nix, Michaelis, Lieder,Chynoweth, Cage, Glick, and more…

RSVPs are appreciated but not required.  Drop an email to grosser@bengrosser.com.

UPCOMING: Oddmusic Convergence December ‘09 December 7, 2009

You’re invited to attend, as performer or audience

ODDMUSIC CONVERGENCE DECEMBER ‘09

“metablues, microtones, contraptions, utopia”

on Monday, December 14, at 7:30 p.m.

in the main space of the Urbana-Champaign Independent Media Center.

$5-10, no one turned away for lack of funds.

 

 

a concert featuring responses to invitations:

• 0. ODDMUSIC - What is Oddmusic?  Show us.
• 1. METABLUES - Write a “blues” song which points, instead of at old problems framed in th old language, new problems which demand a new language.
• 2. MICROTONES - Write a piece in an odd tuning (one which is non-redundant with conventional wisdom).
• 3. CONTRAPTIONS – Write a piece for an odd instrument (or a not-so-odd instrument played in an odd way).
• 4. UTOPIA – Write a piece which speaks of alternatives not yet possible in the current system.  For example, a false statement bulletin.

Some performances are already in the works which play with these invitations.  We invite you to add more!  This Convergence will have something of an Open Mic element to it; if you have a piece, or can put together a piece, which attempts to respond to these invitations, please bring it and share it!  Surprise us with your own metablues, microtones, contraptions, or utopias.

If you want assistance making a piece happen, get in touch!

Next Sunday, December 13, the day before the Convergence, we’re holding Office Hours as usual in th Oddmusic Oddstrumentarium (room 21A of the IMC).  We’ll be working on pieces then, and welcome your participation in that.  Bring a desire, and we’ll work on something together! 

Music is ours to odd.  Odd is ours to music.

Much love, Andrew.

Recently visited links November 18, 2009

Elliot Cole, a Houston-based composer and friend of mine. Take a poke around his website and you’ll find a wide variety of interesting projects.

Christopher Bailey, a Boston-based composer and friend of mine. His piece for 19-tone pianos Walking Down the Hillside at Cortona and Seeing Its Towers Rise Before Me won the Martirano Award in 2009 (Honorable Mention), which means it’s being performed this week at the awards concert…by me(!) and Juri Seo, a doctoral composition student at U of Illinois.  Wander through his page and you’ll eventually find a sneak preview of the piece.

macrotonal edos November 11, 2009

Out of the infinite set of “ways to tune”

• take “scale” (a finite set of definite pitches)
• take “octave repeating” (at every octave, copy the structure exactly)
• take “equal divisions” (like a meter stick)
• take “macrotonal”

& you get “macrotonal edos”. “Edo” stands for “equal divisions of the octave” – as opposed to, say “edonoi” – “equal divisions of a non-octave interval”. As microtonal means (by a literal definition) “incorporating steps smaller than a semitone” (but is often used more broadly to mean “incorporating pitches unavailable in standard 12-tone tuning”), “macrotonal” can mean “incorporating steps larger than a semitone”.

“Macrotonal edos” refers to a finite set of scales which includes 1edo, 2edo, 3edo, 4edo, 5edo, 6edo, 7edo, 8edo, 9edo, 10edo, & 11edo, & nothing else.  1edo-4edo & 6edo are available in 12edo (the common practice monoscale that most of us don’t recognize as chosen), so that leaves us with 6 macrotonal edos that demand new thoughts by new composers.

I mention this so that you might know something about the talks talked at the Microtonal Composition Study Group that continues to meet on Thursdays from 5:30 to 7 at th Oddmusic Instrumentorium at th UC-IMC (room 21A). (You continue to be not excluded!) At least one participant has taken up th invitation to try these tunings out for composing (Snow Leopard has begun some work in 7 equal divisions of the octave) & at least everyone present can now say that these scales are possible.

A wee dandy chart that I made for comparative consideration:

nine things October 26, 2009

Nine things I remember from recent office hourings:

1. Picobot lessons for Mary Ann(e)!
2. Ukulele lessons for Alicia!
3. Music theory lesson for Robbie Bob!
4. An otonal organ, its electronix fixed & carefulled over by Ben!
5. A piece of paper that says “AAAUGH!” referring to th current state of an accordion on loan!
6. A photographer from th Buzz asking us to pose with our oddstruments!
7. A crash-course in finger-hole flute for Angie!
8. A pile of toy piano parts & some head-scratching!
9. Experimental music files from our friend in Hong Kong!

Bamboo-legged PseudoTimp September 27, 2009

by Rob Scott

I retrofitted a 40-year old bass drum with bamboo legs.
Now the instrument may be played standing up. The pitch of the drum may be adjusted by pressing with two fingers on the head after striking.

After removing one of the two sets of lugs, I filled the drill holes with bamboo pegs, which now hold the six bamboo legs.
No new holes were necessary. Nor were glue, nails, or screws.

Update: The flexibility of the bamboo legs, combined with the minimal contact area of the feet, led this instrument to “walk around” (literally, moving a few inches across the ground each time it was struck) during play. I braced the legs and wrapped the feet in some wool from an old sweater, so now it stands still. The wool also served to remove some of the buzzing and rattling sounds. (RS, Oct. 2, 2009)

microtonal composition study group September 25, 2009

ODDMUSIC U-C is hosting a “microtonal composition study group” every Thursday from 5:30 to 7pm during the “fall semester”. We’ve had one informal & one formal meeting, with 3 & 5 participants, respectively. We want to open our doors to those who would find this of interest.

I use the word “microtonal” to refer to tuning systems outside of [our culture's monotuning of] 12-tone equal temperament – the standard piano/keyboard/guitar tuning which divides the octave into 12 equally-spaced intervals. Since pitch systems are potentially infinite & 12-equal refers to one of them, “microtonal” covers a great variety of sounds & tools.

We’re meeting to explore some of these systems together & to use them to compose.

If you think you’d be interested in:

• composing music with an emphasis on alternative pitch structures
• generating & sharing new distinctions to speak about pitch (including distinctions best described mathematically)
• expanding (maybe breaking) your “ear” in good company

…then please get in touch with Andrew Heathwaite about getting in on future conversations. (Or surprise us some Thursday by showing up at Oddmusic at 5:30 – room 21A in the IMC.)

Andrew’s email: [convert words to letters] gee tea are pea kay tea at yahoo dot sea oh em.

Andrew’s digits: 217.365.9496.

Please pass this along to anyone you know who might be tickled.

Thanks,
Andrew