PhD Conference at NTNU University, Norway

On the 30^th 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)

Photo Shoots for Musicians

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!

Bugge Wesseltoft — New Conception of Jazz

Norwegian keyboard ace and experimental Jazz-wizard Bugge Wesseltoft visited Trondheim, Norway, on the 9^th of September 2016. He is celebrating the 20 years’ anniversary for the formation of his project ‘New Conception of Jazz.’ The group has not been active for a few years and Wesseltoft is now playing with a whole new line-up. Last time he visited Trondheim with New Conception of Jazz was back in 1998 when the band had been running for two years. He asked before the show started if anyone in the room were present in ’98, and a few voices around the room made their presence known! Wesseltoft joked that his current band was not there in ’98 — most of whom are presumably in their twenties.

Personally I used to know his name from various collaborations and award shows in Norway. If my memory holds I believe he played with Eivind Aarset and Audun Kleive in the groovy experimental Jazz-project “Music for Science and Fiction”. I saw them live in the mid-90s, and it’s a shame I can’t find any videos or useful information about them online. Then, a decade later, while I was studying Music Technology in Singapore one of my lecturers came back from a trip to Norway. He lent me a record named ‘FiLM iNG.’ I listened to it. And then again. And then again. And then again. And then again. Until it became a part of the soundtrack to an era, and ultimately Bugge Wesseltoft became a part of the musical canon of my life.

The band started off the first set with an experimental blanket of sound in the borderlands between an avant-garde soundscape and John Coltrane’s more etheric moments. —gradually moving into a groove reminiscent of Miles Davis’ ‘Bitches Brew’ and ‘In a Silent Way’.

From where I sat Wesseltoft’s gear looked to consist of an analogue synth, a Mac with a controller-keyboard and a grand piano with a Chaos Pad (or something similar) controlling a feed from the piano mics. One of my friends, a young French lady who is a seasoned pianist, noted how she loved the sound of the grand piano that was on stage (even when the effects were active). A compliment also to the sound engineer that the tone of the instrument was well transmitted.

One of the numbers consisted mostly of Wesseltoft exploring the grand piano on his own. He started off by letting the piano trigger a rattly noise-band that drew the thoughts towards John Cage's prepared piano. Gradually (and naturally) he made his way through choruses, ring-modulations, delays and more. Where delays or samples hung for a long time he would paint harmonies up against them with a broad brush. While with the ring-modulation he used a swift and percussive playing style somewhat reminiscent of Cecil Taylor (I suppose we all would hear different references depending on our own listening). His exploration of the grand piano is a good example of the development in his pieces. One piano-phrase triggers an electronic response, the response triggers the mind of the musician and the dance begins. There phrases and structures may be planned out ahead, but the processing is as much a part of the composition as anything. Perhaps these pieces are more ‘ideas’ than ‘compositions’?

Wesseltoft’s band is not of the ordinary. He says in a recent video that he ended up with an all-female band, in part because of their different approach to music. Compared to the ‘Jazz guys […] they are a little bit less bragging somehow’. Also, the stage naturally looks spectacular with a bunch of glamorous girls setting a Modesty-Blaise-meets-1960's-Mote-Carlo-with-a-dash-of-Viking-princess-vibe.

At the centre-front of the stage we find the drummer Siv Øyun Kjenstad. In addition to playing difficult things (dense playing, active left foot and dancing around with off beats on the ride in high-tempo; you get the idea), she visibly has fun. My above mentioned friend said she really enjoyed watching Kjenstad play, as she smiles with her whole face when she is getting into the groove.

'Cinderella and the mad electronics Professor'

The second set started off with tabla and guitar. Oddrun Lilja Jonsdottir and Sanskriti Shrestha have a new album out on Jazzland Records (Wesseltoft’s label, who is also celebrating its 20^th anniversary this year). (Here is a link to another performance of the same piece that started of the second set.)

During one of the last pieces of the night I thought I heard a familiar piano run. Then I heard it again! Is this... Basie? Then they followed — the tweaked and twisted samples of horn stacks from The Kid from The Red Bank. The track is well known for Norwegian ears as it is the introduction to iconic radio-show Reiseradioen that has run every summer for generations. Apparently the piece is from New Conceptions of Jazz's first album in 1996, but I can’t find the track at the moment so I won’t be able to provide a link.

*

My friends and I found it hard to know just what to expect when walking into a Bugge Wesseltoft concert, and ironically, that’s exactly what we got! A groovy and experimental jazz-night with a wide variety of musical influences. We had fun!

Line-up:

Bugge Wesseltoft (keys, electronics)

Marthe Lea (sax, flute, vocals)

Oddrun Lilja Jonsdottir (guitar)

Sanskriti Shrestha (tabla-drums, vocals)

Siv Øyun Kjenstad (drums, vocals)

 

(Pictures for this article by Harald Haltvik and FredrikThommesen)

Snowdrift News — February 2014

1. Music Production

Panorama of my mix-suite by Geir Simonsen.

Readers that have read my blog before might remember a post from a couple of years ago where I was working with a studio in Norway that is developing a small portfolio of local talents. The collaboration has developed, we have invested in some new gear and new artists have gone into the studio. Another project I posted from where we collaborated was on the web-casted release-event for thealbum of singer/ songwriter An-Magritt. On a current project produced by studio owner Geir Simonsen I am recording and mixing. Geir posted a couple of pictures from my own studio the other day on Twitter, so the existence of the project is no longer officially secret. But you’ll have to wait for the single release to hear it and find out what artist we’re working with this time. I will keep you posted once it’s out!

Yours truly mixing for a new single release, by Geir Simonsen.

2. Arts Education in Norway

Another collaboration is the collaboration with Alive Creative Institute, formerly known as Alive Dance. It was Alive Institute that held the initiative for the 2011 and 2012 Skogbrann Festivals that I have written about earlier. Alive Creative Institute is in the process of developing from a regional dance school with some six hundred part-time students into a full-fledged arts institute aiming to cover all contemporary art forms. Alive Creative Institute will in the future have full-time and part-time programmes across a range of topics. My role has been to start the planning of programmes that will fit the vision of the institute. A first generation of documents has been developed that aim to put the academic side of the institute on tracks. Several rounds of planning are needed but a broad foundation for both the institute and the programmes has now been laid.

3. Arts Education in Malawi

As you might have seen, I spent parts of December in Malawi in Africa. I absolutely loved it to pieces! My friend Trev Chi is a renaissance multi talent who works in finance and HR, while managing a portfolio of local artists and running his own photography and video-production company. His company has worked with some of Malawi’s biggest artists including Piksy, Armstrong Kalua and Trumel. Trev brought some of us visiting-musicians-in-town to a local studio and we started dreaming up a new education program for the creative arts in Malawi. Countries like Ghana, Nigeria and South Africa have put their distinct marks on the regional music industry. Malawi has lots of creative talent but very little in terms of established creative industries and arts education. We believe education and creative industries are closely linked. In Norway I recently met a group of exchange students from the Music Crossroads project in Lilongwe. Music Crossroads educate musicians in Malawi, Mozambique, Tanzania, Zambia and Zimbabwe. It is a great new initiative to benefit young talents and the regional music scene.

After my stay in Blantyre we have developed a document that outlines a comprehensive creative arts education that works along with established industries, government sectors and universities in Malawi to develop a new generation of talents, and a more established arts and entertainment scene. The project incorporates every branch of modern performing arts and media/ technology based arts. If you have any questions about the proposal please do not hesitate to get in touch!

Me in Malawi, shot by Trev Chi (scanned from paper in Norway, so any imperfections in image are on myself).

The beautiful Lake Malawi, goodbye for this time!

The Skogbrann Festival 2012

For the second year in a row Alive Dance and its partners held the Skogbrann Festival (Forest Fire Festival) out in the woods South of the Norwegian city of Trondheim. This year we were in a new location close to a large lake. I was in charge of the technical set-up and it was mostly a blueprint of what we used at last year’sSkogbrann Festival. The most notable difference was a new mobile stage on wheels and the logistics operation needed to transport the gear further away from public road. Planning and installation of electric power to the area also had to be done.

Of equipment we were still based around a Yamaha M7CL with Dante MY16-AUD running into a ProTools 9 rig. I’m very happy with the M7CL, it is packed with functions and does the job well. Some people claim they can get much better sound from other boards, but with the stage-boxes the pre-amping actually sounds quite nice. I also believe there’s a limit to how big a difference it will make with another desk out in the woods of Norway. What you won’t necessarily get from any random desk is a piece of kit that works in damp and cold air at night, contrasted by warm and dry sunshine at noon and still “never sais die.” If I thought it sounded quite good before, it sounds even better after that assessment! The speakers were from Meyer Sound like last year. ProTools was running on a standard MacBook Pro and storage was done on a double WD hard-drive in ‘RAID 0’ set-up through FireWire. 32 lines were recorded at 48 kHz/ 24 bit. All sound-equipment was provided by Norsk Produksjon, while Snowdrift Productions brought some of the recording gear. We had a separate camera-crew through Hamstad Media.

The Skogbrann Festival and Alive Dance has built a strong relationship with Morningstar Ministries in the US. From Morning Star we had David Vallier and Amber Brooks. Amongst the local artists we had the magical little duo Snø, talented young songwriter Marion Winsnes and a dance crew from Alive Dance. Other international artists included Sue Rinaldi and Stephen Lynch aka. DJ Agent M from the UK.

Empty stage in the Norwegian woods at night

Sound-check for DJ Agent M

My Office: The Yamaha M7CL

Nice location for a festival

Reverberant view

Amber Brooks & David Vallier on fire

Updates: April 2012

1. Sound Production for Tour in Norway

City of Ålesund

Photo: Terje Rakke

Week 13 was spent on the road doing sound for a band from a local Folkehøgskole, which is a particular type of school much found in Scandinavia. The school was Rødde Folkehøgskole, which was fun for me cause they used to collaborate with the Folkehøgskole I went to myself many years ago.

The tour went through the inland South of Trondheim and eventually to the town of Oppdal. After Oppdal the tour bus drove on towards the coast to the cities of Molde, Ålesund and some of their surrounding areas. After Ålesund we had an over-night journey in the bus, crossing fjords with ferries and driving through the deep mountain valleys of the coast. A few days later I was back at Rødde Folkehøgskole to do sound for their final show at their own school. What a show! Playing for the home-audience was definitely something special and all we had been working at for a week came together as perfectly as it possibly could.

The band played a mixture of 60’s covers from the likes of the Beatles, modern blues-rock and their own original compositions. No doubt there were some songwriters in the pack to look out for as well!

Thanks very much to the iMusic tour crew for letting me travel around with you for a week of fun! If you want a glimpse behind the scenes, here’s days: 1, 2 (my favourite), 3 and 4.

2. High School Show

Like announced in a previous post March saw another Creative High School Project at the Christian Senior High-school in Trondheim. This time the topic was ‘Justice.’ For one week a great team of almost 160 students took part in making two final shows around the topic of justice. In particular, we narrowed in at the problem of human trafficking and the growing number of slaves around the world in our own days.

The student-group was split into dancers, actors, singers, band, designers, scenography, video-producers and more. An editorial team kept the wires hot in social media to promote the show and presented the whole group with an overview of what the other groups were doing on a day-to-day basis.

The show was received incredibly well by audience, school staff and parents and we got a real sense that the quality of this production was touching new heights. Leading the production was great fun thanks to a very dedicated group of students and a strong team of professional instructors from the creative industries!

For more on the Christmas show, click on this link!

3. And…

Much time has also been spent on writing research proposals and the outlines of a possible television series. More to come!

The 'Music Technology Days' Conference, Norway 2011

 The Rockheim Museum

The Music Technology Days (Musikkteknologidagene) is an annual Norwegian academic conference. In October 2011 it took place in Trondheim’s own museum of rock, Rockheim. It was hosted by the Department of Music at The Norwegian University for Science and Technology (NTNU). NTNU has over the last decade established itself with a very solid Music Technology stream both for under-graduate and post-graduate students.

The interactive wall of Norwegian recorded music

At Rockheim you can test your DJ'ing skills

Yours truly behind an old SSL mixer from Fagerborg Studio in Oslo

The Music Technology Days is predominantly held in Norwegian language, but receives talks in both English and the other Scandinavian languages close to Norwegian. In addition to Norwegian papers and projects, the 2011 conference also saw a collection of presenters from Sweden, Germany and the UK and at least one visitor from Iceland. The evenings had a number of concerts by students and staff from NTNU and there was plenty of time for mingling and looking around the museum.

Below you’ll find a complete list of the presentations that took place. Most Norwegian and Swedish project titles have been translated for the purpose of this post, but originally there were a mix of English, Swedish and Norwegian project titles. Titles translated from Swedish are marked [S] and translations from Norwegian are marked [N], this to clarify when the titles are my translations of the authors’ works. I have written a few lines about the works I took most note of and have provided as many links as possible (some of the links will inevitably be in Scandinavian languages). These are my personal comments, so for further information about the presentations I encourage you to contact the respective presenters or look up their works. I would also like to stress that there is no quality-judgement between those I have written about and those I have not. Some of those I have not written about were on the borders of my areas of competence so I’ll leave it up to someone better suited to comment.

You can find the official programme for the event here. It is in Norwegian, but has all the links provided by the university in it.

Svein Berge ‘Harpex’

Svein Berge has collaborated with Natasha Barrett on developments in higher order Ambisonics. I’m afraid some of the technicality behind what they do is beyond me, but one of the ideas is to split up auditive happenings into different frequency bands and make Ambisonics process them more like we know the human psyche does. The system sounded very natural when demonstrated. As I am more likely to be on the user side than the developer side I found it interesting how you can pan around in a sound-sphere by using a simple interface. The results sounded incredibly convincing and if you use headphones it can also be used with a head-tracker.

Håkon Kvidal and Sigrid Jordal Havre both are or have been undertaking research in Norwegian schools on the use of modern music technology:

Håkon Kvidal ‘Music on tablet computer’ [N]

Håkon Kvidal of the Norwegian Academy of Music has years of experience in working with music technology in education. He has also contributed with research and texts on a national level for a long time. Currently he is conducting a study where he uses iPads with a selection of apps to deliver a music module. The apps are easy to get into and create an entry point for digital literacy in music and sound, but have little in common with a traditional musicological approach. It will be an interesting space to watch since the field is totally new.

Sigrid Jordal Havre ‘Play to learn’

Sigrid Jordal Havre has undertaken a research project where students could use computer technology to jam with each other or play music on their own. The software used was jam2jam and it allows you to create a musical output by using a selection of software instruments. The software allows you to work as a group and rearrange other people’s choices or grab their instruments. In the first sessions this lead to a lot of digital fighting between the students (everyone tried to grab the drum-kit etc.) As the project progressed this gradually changed and the students became increasingly interested in developing a product together. All sessions were recorded on video and have been meticulously dissected.

Maja Bugge ‘Invisible – scenic sound-walk for children’ [N]

Maja Bugge has created a project at a public library where children can come and take part in a show where all the audio is presented on headphones. The stage is the whole library where they are lead around by the narration and various actors. The project comprises narration and sound on the headphones, and dancers and actors at the premises. The story is created as a mystery and the children are in a way taking part in solving it as they explore the whole space of the library in the hunt to solve the riddle. Children were used as “consultants” in the making of the experience.

Gary Bromham ‘Man in the machine or machine in the man – the ever changing role of music technology in popular music culture” (Keynote, day 2)

A grand tour in the history of modern music production covering topics like technology developments, recording media, the sound of different types of equipment, the loudness war and much more. With Bromham’s extensive background from music production this was probably one of the most exciting talks of the whole event, but one that would be hard to sum up in just a few lines…

Professor Gunnar Ternhag ‘Building terminology in the taught subject of Music Production’ [S]

Musicologist Gunnar Ternhag points to three main spreaders of music production terms in education: Software, books and lecturers. He has studied the quantity of terms are in use in a number of music production softwares and he also argues that these softwares are often more effective in establishing lingual terms than the lecturers are. Books, which are often written in English present foreign terms that you may or may not wish to hold on to. Ternhag presented his method of testing and choosing effective expressions to communicate the desired knowledge.

Ternhag runs a well-recognized programme in Sound and Music Production (For English, click here) at the Dalarna College in Sweden. There is currently a new book out that he has authored together with a number of Scandinavian music production academics. It’s called “På tal om musikproduktion,” that from Swedish translates into “On music production,” or more literally “Talking about music production.” It is a collection of articles that touches on a variety of topics in music production.

Andrew Scott ‘Listening, learning and teaching’

Andrew Scott has done a study of how people traditionally have learned a craft and how various philosophers from antiquity till today comments on different modes of learning. Scott takes a particular interest in apprenticeships and argues strongly for a practical real world approach to learning.

Professor Øyvind Brantsegg ‘Listening skills and DSP’ [N]

Professor Brantsegg and his team have together with an Irish and two other Norwegian institutes developed a system for web-based studies to train and test students’ knowledge of DSPs through listening. The system is used as a part of NTNUs regular DSP module, but it can also be delivered as an online module. For the regular students the concepts are still taught in the classroom, but with the additional web-based training they’ll have more opportunity to dive into the world of sound in their personal study time. The system is also automatically correcting your performance. If you continuously mix up chorus and flanger it will suggest you spend more time studying the sound of those processes. This feedback mechanism multiplies the time the lecturers put into each student.

Ola Nordal ‘Arne Nordheim’s Ode to the Light’ [N]

Arne Nordheim was one of the great 20^th century profiles in Norwegian arts music. Ola Nordal is currently writing his PhD thesis on Nordheim at NTNU in Trondheim. In his talk Nordal examined one of Nordheim’s works; how and why it was created and it’s public reception and legacy. The work was created to play continuously from a sculpture called ‘Ode to the Light,’ or ‘Ode til Lyset’ in Norwegian from 1968. You can read Ola Nordal’s blogpost from the conference here.


Tone Åse and Andreas Bergsland ‘Voice meetings – a meeting between performer and researcher’ [N]

Musician Tone Åse and researcher Andreas Bergsland, both of NTNU in Trondheim, has teamed up to examine the audience response from Åse’s vocal/ electro acoustic performances. Tone Åse was one of the concert-holders the night before, so most delegates had already seen her perform before the talk. Their research showed that what you aim to communicate is not always what comes through, and they looked at ways to develop her performance to better communicate with audiences. Seen from my more commercial angle, I think it is a brave move of Åse to develop her art along with the audience-feedback provided through the research. Åse and Bergsland have some valuable lessons to teach us in the area where new and groundbreaking arts meet an audience.

Gerhard Steinke ‘The Subharchord story’

Steinke joined the East-German radio in 1947 as a sound-engineer and was one of the developers behind the Subharchord instrument. His presentation was a very entertaining and in-depth history of the instrument and the state of the current surviving instruments. –One of which (albeit currently not in playable condition) is placed at the Ringve Museum of music and musical instruments in Trondheim, where he travelled off to after the conference. Mr. Stenike will be releasing a paper on the Subharchord in German at some point during 2012.

Professor Øyvind Brandtsegg ‘Hadron’

Hadron is a synthesizer plug-in created by Brandtsegg and his team at NTNU. It performs several types of granular synthesis and has an easy to use interface that allows you to morph between these types of synthesis. Hadron has the capacity to be a useful tool both for commercial music producers and experimental sound-artist looking to create new sounds.

Natasha Barrett (Keynote, day 1): "Ambisonics, spatial ontology and invisible music"

Claus Sohn Andersen: "Resirkulator"

Gary Hoffman: "Bringing music back to music technology"

Tor Halmrast: "Pass for ørene ... ørene lukkes"

Jøran Rudi: "Questioning the authentic - soundscapes as social constructs"

Hans T. Zeiner-Henriksen: "Musikkteknologi som autentisitetsmarkør"

Simon Emmerson (Keynote, day 3): "What is live about electronic music?"

Alex Gunia: "Live electronics / 300 acting spaces"

Notto J W Thelle: "Making Sensors Make Sense: challenges in the development of digital musical instruments"

Professor Anne Danielsen: "Samspillet mellom live-musikk og digitale musikktjenester"

Mats Claesson: "The Kjell-Tore project"

Arnfinn Killingtveit: "Undervannshode"