Here is a really nice recording of the second movement of
String Quartet Op. 76 No.1 by The
Catalyst Quartet. For the Jazz lovers out there, I think this one even
contains a Nelson Riddle-approvable chord texture or two for the likes of
Sinatra. Enjoy!
I frequently fall in love with music, but this one
crush-level above the normal. I remember the feeling of picking up a cassette
tape with John Coltrane's "Love Surpreme" at a gas-station after a
really rainy fly-fishing trip in the mountains years ago. This track contains
some of that haunting drive that would play in my mind long after the music had
stopped. Perhaps not as experimental, but none the less.
A descriptive and under-used word for music that has
struck me in recent years is "severity": When a piece of music is
dark, perhaps in a minor key and with a strong sense of rhythm and forward movement;
it has strong elements (melody or otherwise) that you cannot help but immersing
yourself in — but! it does not put you in a dark mood! Rather, it puts you in a
heavy contemplative mood. It unlocks the compartments of the mind that deals
with existence, respect, meaning and perhaps even love. But in the case of
love, in the sense of understanding its foundations; not joyfully, not sadly,
but inquisitively.
Music that brings out the "severity" of life
makes you straighten your back and bend your mind. It makes you neither happy
or sad, but it sets you on a journey in gloomy light through the corridors of
the foundations of the constructions that brings us light — and firm points of
reference for our journey through life.
*
In ‘The Grain of the Voice’ Roland Barthes reflects on
a lacking parameter of musicology. He calls it the grain that you can find in a performer’s voice. The term is more
elusive than, say, harmony and
perhaps a hard term to discuss with objectivity. But it adds to our terminology
something that studying a score cannot lead us to. Likewise, severity is my Barthesian contribution
to terms that might help us think outside the established vocabulary of musical
understanding.
Perhaps there are stronger examples, and perhaps I should
make a whole playlist to explain more properly, but here is at least one
recording that fits the term.
From the
YouTube community we’ve seen a growing number of drum microphone comparisons,
of both conventional pro-level and affordable microphones. These comparisons
are of great value to new buyers and even to more seasoned engineers. In this article
I will share my own current top three pic for dynamic snare-drum microphones. At
least one of the mics should be familiar to most readers, and they vary in
price from average to high as far as dynamic microphones go.
The three microphones have slightly
different profiles: one is the cleanest and clearest; another is the most
trusted both over and under the snare; and the final has a pleasant high-mid
punch for those snares that really should cut through the mix.
Sennhesiser MD 441
This is
perhaps my all-time favourite to capture the top of a snare-drum. The advantage of this microphone is how it positions the snare-sound in the larger mix. My
ears have always perceived it as more tidy and focused in the mid-range than
the trusted SM57, when recording a whole kit. The micrphone includes
a bass roll-off and a treble boost, but there have been different versions in
the past and at least one I know of without the roll-off. This is an excerpt of
what Sennheiser writes about the MD 441 on their web-page: ‘Dynamic super-cardioid microphone […].
Balanced sound. Precise and distortion-free reproduction even at highest sound
pressure levels.’ Those words are very much in line with my experience.
Home-studio owners might be
hard-pressed to cash out for one of these right off the bat, but since it has
been around for a while there will be a few in circulation in the second hand
market. It is also a well worth microphone to save up for in
the long run. Personally, I would rather start off with getting one of these
for use on snare-drum, and wait with getting a whole line-up of MD 421s for the
toms. The rational is simple: How many times per beat do you hear the snare vs.
how many times do you hear toms?
As much as
I have a soft spot for the MD441, I have never been disappointed with the sound
of an SM57. It is easily the most trusted and predictable snare microphone in
history and it is my personal top pick for a dynamic under the snare-drum. It is also my top pick for deep snare-drum
sounds as it produces a really nice punch in the low mids. In addition to being
a great snare-drum mic, it is one of the most versatile microphones you can own. Its most under-valued use may be on voice as the SM58 steals all the thunder
due to its grille. Custom-made wind-screens exist and pop-filters can be found
in most studios.The SM57
has been a top pick for drums for more than half a
century and I guess my grandchildren will one day inherit my own collection
and keep using them as nothing had changed. Which it hopefully won’t. I'm now in my 30's
with no children, so it's not exactly around the corner. That should put some
perspective on what I think about the future of this microphone.
Audix i5
This is the
only microphone on the list that I have not yet used, but I have heard it in a
number of comparison-reviews and come across it in articles from the industry-press. Sound on Sound did a great
review of this microphone. Their article also tells you about the diversity
of sound-sources this mic can be put to use on. It is intended to compete with
the SM57 and they are closely comparable in price, and certainly not too far
from each other in sound. Perhaps not surprising from Audix, the sound has slightly
more high-end snap than the SM57. It also appears to be a tad clearer and more
open sounding.
For high-pitch drum-sounds and piccolo-snares,
this is the microphone I find most interesting on offer right now. Think about
those haunting, piercing snappy snare-sounds in fast-paced funky grooves that
keeps playing inside your head and prevents you from sleeping at night. This is
what I would capture them with!
That this microphone is not in my own
collection yet is just a temporary deficit. It is irrevocably on the
purchasing-list!
A Pinch of Inspiration
Here’s one of my favourite YouTubers, Rick Russie,
making great sound with a mix of Shure and Audix close-microphones. He has
chosen one SM57 on the snare:
His set-up was a Hammond B3 with
both a short and a tall Leslie. On his left side he had several keyboards
running into a laptop and/ or a synth, and on his right he had drum pads.
Dr. Lonnie was stretching the
envelopes of time and harmony from the very outset of the show. It was hard to
know exactly where you were in time or texture, until it gradually became
revealed to you. I tried to both take in the enjoyment of the sound and listen
for the clues that reveal where the music was headed. One was gratified
instantly, the other as the works unfolded. Dr. Lonnie’s style allows for highly
experimental and very groovy pars to run over and into each other. He can take
the listener back and forth between these two shores like waves — and just as
naturally.
When Lonnie walked on to the stage
with a cane I presumed he needed it (which for all I know, he might). What I
didn’t know was that old men with walking-sticks could play as fast as this. At
one point he rose up and looked a bit like Gandalf — that’s when we found
out that the cane was in fact an instrument! At first it seemed more like a funny
curio, but as he kept playing it started making sense. Seeing him wielding his
cane it was impossible not to think of Gandalf on the Bridge of Khazad-dûm!
I had a chance to speak with him
after the show and told him that the Hammond Organ was one of the really
important sounds of my own childhood. It could literally make me get goosebumps
everywhere! My father had a friend with a Hammond he had re-furbished himself,
and I remember the ground vibrating when I stood next to the Leslie. I went on
to sing a lot of Gospel and Jazz and the sound of the organ stuck with me. Dr.
Lonnie also used to sing Gospel when he was younger, and so did his Mother and
siblings. The organ always stood out to him. When hearing it, he said, it was
like electricity went through his body like a spear! He put a real emphasis on
those words and I believe his experience of the sound goes beyond what most of
us can fully understand. He isn’t just a musical legend who helped define how
we hear this instrument, but the sound of the instrument might have connected
so strongly with something inside of him that he himself might not have had
much of a choice but to pursue it.
The band
Jonathan Kreisberg (Guitar), is a firework
between lyrical passages and rapid breathtaking runs. His tone is incredible,
even through a PA in a concrete room on an old shipyard. It’s not rare to come
across nice guitar tones per se, but at this level it is.
Jonathan Kreisberg
Johnathan Blake (Drums). Blake is often
the rails that Dr. Lonnie’s experimentation rides on top of. But Blake’s triplet-arsenal
and his abstracting of metre also makes him an integral part of the
experimentation. If the word ‘firework’ was to be used for only one of the band-members
it would have to be him.
Johnathan Blake
Till next time!
After the show Dr. Lonnie and his band hung
around on stage. They were clearing cables and packing up, and all were approachable
for conversation and picture-taking. Mark of true gentlemanly down-to-earth-ness!
Dr. Lonnie was last in Trondheim six
years ago. ‘It’s been a while’ he said while stating that he hoped it would not
be as long till next time. Though if Trump became President he promised to be
back earlier. While I don’t think Trump has been even half as bad as the media
wants us to believe — Dr. Lonnie and his band are very welcome to move to
Norway at any time!
On the 30th
of March this year the Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU),
held a conference titled: ‘The added value of a PhD –
for all sectors of working life’. The
audience were mainly: PhD candidates, supervisors and alumni, employees from
all sectors including NTNU and other interested parties.
The stated
goals of the conference were
Raise
awareness of the added value of a doctoral degree in all sectors of
working life.
Help
to boost recruitment of PhDs in the job market through increased insight
into the added value of a doctoral degree.
Strengthen
the reputation of our PhDs as highly relevant to society.
Increase
PhDs’ awareness of their own skills, what they can bring to the workplace
and the challenges they can help solve.
Help
PhDs improve their ability to market their expertise and the advantage of
a doctoral degree over a first degree.
The
conference reflected the main focus of the university well. It is a university
with a long technical tradition; hence, engineering and science took centre
stage. For creatives, you had to look under the radar to connect to the relevance.
For me, hearing people’s stories of how their research has influenced the
directions their careers have taken; and mingling with others, were the main outcomes.
Amongst the attendees there were also people who were doing education research.
Mingling was accelerated by dividing the (pretty huge) number of attendees into
groups towards the end of the conference for round table discussions. Different
tables dealt with different questions. The outcome of the discussions was
written down, collected and presented to the whole room towards the end. The tables
I attended were composed both of very seasoned people in the higher part of the
age-bracket, and younger people. This worked particularly well to widen the
perspective of the groups.
What would
I like to see in similar conferences in the future? I would love to see a better
inclusion of arts and humanities. I do not mean to trouble neither artists nor
engineers with the particulars of each other’s interest fields. But people who
study learning have something to teach engineers who manage organisations, historians
have things to teach anyone who digs deep into any matter, and so forth. And
perhaps a final note for a conference in English would be to find a keynote
speaker somewhat more fluent in English? ;-)
At any
rate, a day well spent by the river in Trondheim while meeting old and new friends
over food and round-table discussions.
The conference was held at Royal Garden Hotel Trondheim. (Image Credit)
Here are three new mixtapes for you to dance and party to!
The tracks are a mixture of Funk, Soul, RnB, Hip-Hop and some pop-vibes. For
anyone who heard the DJ-sets I used to do in the UK the blend should be
familiar! I’m at my happiest when I get artists like James Brown, Alicia Keys,
Q-Tip and Lion Babe to fit side by side like they were always meant to be that way.
There’s something magical in crossing the boundaries of generations, style and
time while maintaining an illusion (or a truth?) of musical ‘oneness’. One of
my greatest joys as a DJ was when I managed to sneak one of my own tracks into
a set while the dance-floor and party was ‘business as usual’ — made me feel
like I would belong side by side with my heroes for a moment. My internal
imagery shows pictures of people dancing on Soul Train when I work on these
tapes. I know I sometimes go outside of their repertoire, but I still hope Don
Cornelius would be proud!
Playlists are on the Mixcloud page if you click on the
links. Hope it makes you want to dance and have fun!
High
quality pictures are needed for anyone who is producing music or promoting an
artist. This blog-post shows you the pictures from a recent photo-shoot, and I’ll
share some reflections around the process. I initiated this shoot, and seen from
my angle it had three components: an artist, sourcing a high-end photographer, and
finding a visual expression that fitted the artist. The artist was Oda Kveinå Tonstad, and the photographer was Theodor Haltvik With (both might be
familiar to regular readers).
Planning and process
1. The
pictures from this shoot was for general use rather than for a song or album.
This meant that we didn’t need to analyse any musical material to match with the
visual expression. The pictures were to be used for professional online-use,
and near-future music-releases should they come. The process was initiated with
me compiling pictures of artists and styles that I felt represented Oda as I
knew (and wanted to see) her. If I had produced a specific musical work (album,
iTunes-single, etc.) I would have held on to the central coordinating role
between artist and photographer (some music producers will want to give this process
away; you’ll know for yourself). Theodor compiled my pictures into a mood-board
while he and Oda both worked on their own compilations of images. Creatively
this is where I left the process. Oda felt some of my pictures represented her while
some were discarded. She came up with her own compilation of pictures that
added new influences to what we already had. Theodor received our input and stretched
some of them one step further, since he saw hidden potentials as a
professional.
2. Oda and
Theodor finalised the mood-boards and agreed on clothes, locations and a date. I
believe a contingency plan was hatched in the event that the weather should
turn unsuited for the outdoor-part of the shoot.
3. Photo-shoot.
I rocked up for the studio-shoot; firstly, to make sure the key elements I
wanted on film was captured, but mostly to create general mischief! :-)
Some
thoughts on the process
- Oda is an
accomplished dancer and some of the images are taken to capture this.
- Shots included
both profile pics and whole-figure for different use.
- If you’re
a management, studio or record-company working with an artist for the long-haul,
it is useful to have a portfolio of pictures from the duration of the
collaboration. Ideally, get the first pictures done as soon as you start
working with the artist (perhaps even in the studio, practice room or in
everyday settings).
A selection of headshots for profile-pictures
Behind the Scenes/ 'General Mischief'
Yours truly having some fun with Theodor’s Smartphone :-)
In the 1930’s Oda worked for Walt Disney Company
under another artist name. Some of her old
friends came to visit her at Theodor’s studio :-)
Oda and Theodor at Work
I
really liked the eye-contact between Oda and this dinosaur!
The National Conference on the Use of ICT in Education and Learning was held in the city of Trondheim, Norway, from the 11th
to the 13th of May 2016. The conference took place at Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU)’s science and technology campus, Gløshaugen. The
conference is an event for working teachers, pedagogy students, ICT companies,
governmental offices, publishers and researchers/ speakers delivering a packed
program of presentations. I spent most of my time looking through the stands, but
also had time to attend a few presentations. In this blogpost I’ll highlight
some of the things that caught my eyes. It won’t be a complete overview over
the whole conference, but in keeping with this blog: the blend of technology
and creativity, and also technical education-facilities will be central.
This
blogpost will be segmented into two:
1. The post
you are reading will deal with publishing, networking, trajectories and
reflections around ICT in education.
National
broadcasters NRK (Norway’s version of the BBC) and TV2 have taken a great leap
into the education sector by creating online platforms that lets pupils and
students tap into the companies’ wells of recorded material. Comprehensive new
material has also been created to address the need of Norwegian schools. I have
not yet used their platforms, but judging from presentation, TV2 seems to hold
the leading edge. The companies are operating as publishers (as opposed to
traditional media-companies) when delivering services in the education sector.
Using
platforms where extensive video-material covers (at least in the long run) the
entire school curriculum has obvious advantages. Topics like modern history and
social sciences are perhaps the areas where these platforms are most self-explanatory.
However, content for topics like mathematics, science and language also seems
to be well developed or under way. I do however, feel that a word of caution is
in order. Norway is politically a country that for many decades have embraced
left-of-centre politics. This has trickled into its media-coverage, and it’s a
well-known fact amongst media-researchers that the media in general covers
current events with a slight left-bias. Looking back at my own education it
took me many years of travelling and higher studies to un-learn many accepted
truths from my school-years that were clearly politically biased, especially in
social sciences, but also in history. I’m all for presenting both sides of the
story from a neutral middle-ground and if I have one concern with Norwegian
media-companies now educating minors, it is an accentuation of an existing
political bias. I am not trying to advocate removing certain views from
schools, but rather complementing them in a more neutral and holistic sense.
Let’s see what the future brings, but for teachers who use these platforms this
is currently something one should look out for! To end on a positive note, the
tools that have been developed by these media-giants seems packed with
interesting content. The companies express a work-in-progress attitude, which
tells me there will be more development of content (perhaps also on the
delivery-platforms) in the very near future.
Views from around the conference-
area, and the stands.
Other Publishers
BS Undervisning (translates ‘BS Education’) provides a platform for
coordinating sales and use of both printed and digital media. They have over
1500 digital learning resources in their catalogue and sports some of the
biggest names in Norwegian educational publishing as collaborators. Amongst
other things they provide a service that lets you search and link to the online
resources that your institute subscribes to. BS Undervisning is part of a larger corporation that provides goods and services for libraries and places of learning.
One of my
personal favourites was Norwegian publisher Gyldendal’s stand. Gyldendal had
resources, tools for teaching and assessment in one place through their SMART programme. What caught the attention of the music producer in me the most, was
that they are now offering guitar-course videos through one of their online
platforms. They don’t have immediate thoughts on developing their music-teaching
content, but were very open to the idea. As a ‘Sound and Music Production’
lecturer I used Lynda and AskVieo/ MacProVideo for students in vocationally angled higher education.
These are great resources as a supplements, and sometimes even as radical
improvement from traditional printed resources! It is therefore really good
news for the future of music education in schools to see creative and artistic
content becoming available alongside theoretical topics. Gyldendal seems to be
a publishing house to watch for this sort of development.
Professional Network
for teachers and Online Safety for students
‘Senter for IKT i Utdanningen’ is an organisation that was set up under the Royal
Norwegian Ministry of Education in 2010. It can be translated ‘Centre for ICT in Education.’
The centre is there to help lift the quality of ICT use in kindergartens,
schools and for pedagogy students. In addition to working with the quality of
ICT-education, the centre focuses on internet safety and the training of pupils
to exert good judgement in ICT-based interactions. They are one of the
initiative-takers behind the webpage and printed material for http://www.DUbestemmer.no/.‘Du bestemmer’
translates ‘You Decide’ and is a resource that deals with healthy conduct, law,
plus positives and negatives a person encounters when interacting across the
internet. The ‘Centre for ICT in Education’ also provides research and
initiatives that it goes outside of this blogpost to cover. These include
development of regional leadership in the school sector and help with finding
the right digital resources for use in education.
‘Klassetrivsel’
is a term that describes how pupils feel (positive or negative) about their
class and their social interactions. It is an online tool for teachers that can
assess how students feel about their every-day life and social interactions in
school. It provides feed-back to teachers that helps them assess and address
the experience of being a pupil in their class. It started as a project at a
school in 2007, and is now a tool available for all Norwegian schools who
subscribe to the service. Their webpage is: http://www.klassetrivsel.no/
Creative Software
Creaza is a platform
where you can make mind-maps, video and audio presentations, and cartoons.
Let’s say, the teacher shares a mind-map with the students. The students pick
up the mind map and follow up with their own research. In the end a multimedia
presentation is produced by the students over a topic given by the teacher. The
tool is very well geared towards creative responses to assessments and
incorporates ICT-skills in a fluid way. The video and audio editors looks
familiar for users of Mac-software. I don’t believe tools like Creaza can take
the place of reading and writing in a traditional sense, but it is a very
diverse ICT-supplement. It is diverse in the sense that it covers all the bases
of muli(ple)-media in óne platform — this should make it easier for the
teacher, who don’t have to relate to three or four different software-packs but
who rather can relate to óne. Creaza has won several awards and I encourage you
to:
1) Look at
their web-site, as the different tools
included in Creaza is described in a very accessible way by clicking on the
banners under the ‘Product’ banner. There is also a Creaza-blog that keeps you
up to date on news about the software.
In my own
teaching experience, I’ve worked with higher-/ vocational education. We used
softwares like Cubase and ProTools which are professional tools from the
creative industries. Creaza, as far as I can see, belongs in primary and
secondary education. The ICT-skills acquired from Creaza should be easy to
transfer to professional platforms when pupils/ students reach a higher level
of studies. I believe I would find it easier to train higher-education students
who are familiar with platforms like Creaza on professional platforms. Apart
from the obvious use in a modern classroom, I can see two other uses for
Creaza:
1) Students
who struggle to follow regular teaching for various reasons. Creaza is engaging and forces you to create, and not
just respond like to a computer-game. It also looks particularly good at
creating ‘narratives.’ Work with narratives is no foreign thought in pedagogy
or social sciences. In 2012 I wrote about the research of Electro Acoustic composer Louise
Rossiter, who
explored the use of Electro Acoustic composition as a therapeutic tool for pupils
from troubled backgrounds. The results were positive. Creaza is not an Electro
Acoustic composition platform, but if used in similar ways I’d expect results
pointing in the same direction.
2) Use for
adult learners with limited skills, either in: 1) ICT, or 2) the topic of the
class (including language). A good example would be for teaching immigrants
with limited language and ICT skills, and limited skills on local society.
Creaza would combine an intuitive ICT platform, and basic use of language in
presentations; while allowing the learner to feel success in making a good
product while still not in full command of the language. (As opposed to a
presentation where everything is resting on language.) Examples of interaction
and aspects of society can be animated in the simple-to-use Cartoonist
application.
As this
software caught my imagination I’ll add a quick YouTube video just to give you
a visual idea of what it looks like:
Trajectories in ICT
New Media Consortium’s (NMC) Horizon Project has published a
rapport about the trajectories the use of technology in Norwegian education.
The rapport was published in 2013 and covers 2013-2018. It analyses the matter on
three time horizons: one year or less, two to three years, and four to five
years. The Norwegian rapport is a collaboration with The Norwegian Centre for
ICT In Education. NMC have done rapports on several countries. Here
is the link to the Norwegian rapport. NMC runs a conference
and the website has a blog with
their current news.
Is ICT The Way?
ICT is
certainly a buzzword in education right now, but can we trust that ICT-tools
really can take over for traditional learning tools? I think the answer is both
yes and no. A future with more ICT and automatization clearly needs a workforce
who is able to address the new tasks. But I’m also worried that we sometimes
are over-emphasising the constantly changing technical aspects of the future at
the expense of the not-so-changing human aspects of the future.
I guided in
the Norwegian mountains for many years and I remember a study from the early
2000’s stating that children who attended ‘outback kindergartens’ (close
proximity to outback, and much use of outdoor activities. Norwegian expression
is: ‘friluftsbarnehage’) were better at a range of things, including
problem-solving than children from inner-city kindergartens. Studies like these
remind us that modern society is built on harnessing the potential that exists
at the core of creation and of the human mind. Basic inter-human skills will
not be addressed sufficiently through online platforms for collaboration, and
the future will not be secure for job-seekers in decades to come just because
they are proficient at today’s technology. With a growing number of companies
not just addressing, but also helping to create demand for new technology in
education we have to constantly evaluate whether we are developing the human
potential in pupils and students as much as we develop our ICT-skills. I’ll
underline this with an example from one of my own areas of study, Music
Technology. I go to trade-shows and know several distributors and manufacturers
of music production gear. Every year there are new equipment-releases and
you’ll be constantly reminded you need the new products to really stay at a
current professional level. However, most of the classic albums we teach in
music-history classes are more than a decade old, and hence the technology is
practically from the stone-age in the world of the technology-manufacturers.
But tomorrow’s musicians, music educators and producers won’t be much effective
if they can’t play low-tech wooden guitars, collaborate in bands and appreciate
the potential in the tools at their disposal. To put it to its edge, I believe
in a future where the most adaptable persons can chop down trees for fire-wood,
counsel someone in trouble and write with a pencil; while operating technology,
making global interactive collaborations and assessing the deployment of the
tools they have available.
*
Thanks to NTNU for creating a meeting-ground for an
impressive array of educators, researchers and ICT industry! This was more of a
meeting-ground and an ideas-exchange, than an academic conference in a
traditional sense. I’ll be going back!
