Welcome to Occasionalism! As the title suggests, this is the first installment in a very low-frequency newsletter about my work as a musician, with updates about concert announcements and record releases as well as snippets from and discussion of work-in-progress. As a bonus, John Granzow has promised to contribute a series of cartoons under the banner of “Nonce,” because nonsense loves company. (John also gets credit for introducing me to the concept of the hapax legomenon, and thereby indirectly naming this newsletter).
3/14 Tanngrisnir & Vaster Than Empires
Tanngrisnir, my duo with glockenspiel specialist Trevor Saint, makes its Philadelphia debut on Pi Day, opening for Vaster Than Empires. We’re looking forward to playing a revised and updated version of our signature work “Archipelago,” and to sharing a stage with the extraordinary musicians of VTE. Here’s the complete rundown:
Saturday, March 14, 8 pm
Pageant:Soloveev, 607 Bainbridge St
$10/$5 students
https://www.facebook.com/events/996643824047778/
Tanngrisnir: Christopher Burns, electric guitar; Trevor Saint, percussion
Structured in ten scenes, our audiovisual composition Archipelago combines volcanic live improvisation algorithmically edited cut-up visuals. Trevor and Chris perform together with their video doppelgangers, exploring shimmering textures, rapidly evolving sonic and visual patterns, and densely layered polyrhythms. Archipelago uses video to enable the experience of a single musical instant from multiple perspectives, integrating live, prerecorded, documentary, and abstracted materials into a complex web of sound and visuals. Ranging from the spare and poetic to the whirling and vertiginous, Archipelago is a provocative, intense, rewarding experience.
Here’s a trailer with some highlights from the 2016 premiere of Archipelago:
Vaster Than Empires: Erica Dicker, violin; Allen Otte, percussion; Paul Schuette, electronics
A violin subjected to toys, hardware implements and effects pedals; radios, bicycle wheels, and an amplified found-object sound-board; a modular synthesizer stirring electronic effects into a soup of sonic feedback: Vaster Than Empires. Since joining forces in Cincinnati in 2013, VTE comfortably/uncomfortably explores far-ranging textures and sound-scapes from all points along the space-time continuum. With our ears as guides, we sustain a musical relationship by way of an instinctual system in interstellar performance practice.
Erica Dicker (violin) is the concertmaster of Braxton’s Tri-Centric Orchestra. Allen Otte is a percussionist who performs an amplified sound board of his own construction and is a Percussive Arts Society Hall of Famer. Paul Schuette is an improviser, composer, and sound artist who teaches at the University of the Arts.
3/12 Interferometry at SEAMUS
I’ll also be performing Interferometry at the SEAMUS electroacoustic music festival, hosted this year at UVA in Charlottesville, Virginia. My work is slated for Thursday March 12, 9 pm at The Southern (103 S 1st). If you’re curious, here’s a screen recording of a performance from 2019:
At the workbench
I’m working on what I think of as a “sequel” to Interferometry - another software instrument which enables simultaneous, improvised control of digital audio and animation including text. (“Sequel” also implies that it should complement Interferometry well enough to be performed alongside it). I’m currently working on developing the sound engine and the user interface in tandem, searching for sound materials and performance controls that feel satisfying, versatile, and expressive to perform with. It’s a distinctly nonlinear operation - enormous amounts of trial and error, and of building up, tearing down, and rebuilding code - but I’m gradually working my way into some interesting sounds and textures, and even more gradually stumbling towards an interface that inspires music-making.
Today I would describe the challenge as balancing variety with detail. The ideal instrument should provide a broad range of possibilities, to facilitate genuine improvisation. It should also supply the kind of fine control that permits intention and musicality. So how to supply those multiple levels of scale simultaneously, and with an interface that’s reasonably simple to navigate and to memorize?
I don’t have specific and stable answers for this project yet, and I think it unlikely that a generalized solution exists. But as I write this a couple of new metaphors and ideas come to mind… so I’d better wrap this up and get busy journaling and coding. In the meantime, check out a quick audio snippet recorded last week, which demonstrates the current state of the sonic and rhythmic vocabulary I’m playing with.
Nonce
The non sequitur you’ve been waiting for, courtesy of John Granzow:
Thanks for reading, and if you are inclined to spread the word about the Pi Day performance, or about this newsletter, please do!
best wishes,
Christopher
Christopher Burns
http://sfsound.org/~cburns