Tuesday April 16 * 2-4pm * $10-20 * REGISTER
Benjamin Miller's Graphic Score & Found Sound Workshop
“A demonstration and exchange of ideas on creative sound-making using graphic scores, found sound and external operations.”
Composer-Musician Benjamin Miller presents this Hands-On experience in creating Music in connection to Visual Art. Previous music or art skills are not necessary!
Benjamin provides old-school technology [analog cassette tape loops, Casio SK1 8-bit sampler, 4-speed record player, transistor radio] to capture Found Sound in real-time utilizing paper, plastic, metal, voice, found items on location, anything! as Source Material to compose from.
Step One is for Participants to draw/paint on an 8 ½ x 11 piece of paper while listening to Music. Paint, paper, music (CD) provided by Benjamin. The resultant visual representation is then interpreted as our original Graphic Scores to produce Sound. By incorporating external operations; dice, deck of cards, stopwatch, superimposition of images, etc., we formalize simple structures with set duration from these “paintings.”
Through mutual collaboration, Participants create, interpret, perform and record their original Picture Music (graphic scores). Recordings (MP3s) are made available to all participants who offer their email.
Discussion: Discuss history behind what is considered Found Sound
Collaboration: Invent and interpret Graphic Score
Sound Sources: Cassette machines, transistor radio, record player
Action: Determine Events using pitch variation, dynamics, range, intermittent vs. constant etc.)
Sequence: Order of Events using chance operations *
Duration: Time frames are assigned to Events using chance operations *
* a Conductor may be appointed to improvise sequence, duration etc.
Workshop begins with 20' Presentation touching on influences from Psychedelic Rock (Interstellar Overdrive), Aleatory Composition (John Cage), Free Jazz (Sun Ra), Arnold Schoenberg (12-Tone), Edgar Varese (use of siren), Noisescape music (my multiphonic guitar).
A member of seminal art rock bands like Destroy All Monsters and The Glenn Branca Ensemble, Ben Miller started his recording career as a teenage member of Sproton Layer, with his brothers Roger and Laurence. Ben Miller has also recorded with M3, GKW and as Ben Miller/Degeneration. Utilizing extended techniques, prepared objects and implements, and an array of processing, his approach to the electric guitar on In the Moment is almost like a polyphonic sound generator, fully apart from the tradition of Chuck Berry, Clapton and company. Alien tongues, ambient soundscapes, the sounds of mechanization and technology breaking down all emerge in the masterful manipulation of sound by Miller. A native of Ann Arbor MI, he currently leads Porcelain Hammer and Empool and Sensorium Saxophone Orchestra.