Tape Loop #1

How I made it to the age of 35 without making a tape loop I have no idea. OK, so I do lots of lo-fi looping of one kind or another but tape is a must.

I started small, both in terms of the format (cassette) and the length of the loop. I used the mic in on my dictaphone to create a layered loop, including some heavy rumbles from my Delfy SSVC-1 and feedback from my Genelec 1030A speakers. It ends with a nice tape pause, courtesy of my dictaphone. I added the tiniest bit of reverb.

More tape loops soon, for sure! Enjoy…

[audio:https://www.mrunderwood.co.uk/audio/tape-loop1.mp3]

Missing out Birmingham

Today I tweeted: “Hmmm, what is it that makes bands miss Birmingham on their tours? I have no idea how it works but I’d like to play a part in changing it..!?”. From the responses it seems there is a lot of interest and frustration surrounding this. I already knew this but my interest was sparked afresh by yet another band I’d like to see avoiding Birmingham (or anywhere close) on their UK tour.

So, what’s going wrong and is there anything I can do to help change this? I imagine it’s a VERY complicated issue. Does Birmingham have the venues? Do the band promoters suffer Birmingham blindness for some reason? Are some promoters in Birmingham failing to book stuff they really should? I imagine it’s a mixture of all these issues, and more!

I don’t know what will come of this but I am willing to put in some time to help change this, however marginally. I’ll be happy if I can make just one more band book Birmingham on their tour. The thing is I have NO idea at all how all this stuff works. Who should I talk to? What processes need addressing? Who, what, where?

If anyone reading this knows how I might proceed, pop in a comment to this blog post and I’ll follow it up. I am not trying to suggest I can do better than anyone else, I just hope that an extra bit of help might result in some change…although, then again, it might not.

Process music

I don’t know what it says about me as a musician that I have such affection for process music. I have written and performed a number of process pieces over the years but my lust to explore them further has been reawakened through reading Andrew Ford’s “Illegal Harmonies” whilst on holiday. This inspired me to write the following process piece. This is only really me putting a toe back in the water but I intend to research and build on this area during my sabbatical.

Natural Score

Take a stereo field recording of any length, of an urban or rural environment. Each prominent sound in the field recording is used to score a piece for multiple instruments / sounds. The range and rhythm of each sound is used to define what instrument / sound is used and how it is scored. Record the score as it is “performed”. Place the various instruments / sounds in this recording in the opposite position in the stereo field as the sounds in the original recording. The final piece is created by mixing both recordings, fading from the original field recording to the scored recording, crossing at exactly 50/50 amplitude at the midpoint of the piece.

Obviously, the key is to get on and record these pieces, which I will do…but as I said, this is about me putting a toe back in the water of writing such pieces, to get my mind thinking in the right way again.

I must thank my father for his part in forming this passion of mine. I was lucky enough be surrounded by such things in my childhood and I even remember a couple of trips to the library to investigate specific pieces more closely.

Lastly, I wanted to include the original hand-written score to Steve Reich’s Pendulum Music, which I have been known to perform for Optical Theremins and torches.