Yahoo Tuning Groups Ultimate Backup tuning Warren Burt's "Laptop Symphony"

There was a presentation of Warren Burt's "Laptop Symphony" last
night at Engine 27, and I thought listers might be interested in
reading about it, since Burt is very involved with Erv Wilson's
theories, and has written quite a bit about them in 1/1.

I enjoyed his presentation, but was really more intrigued with his
approaches than with some of the actual music produced. I realize,
though, that part of this is, of course, my OWN biased viewpoint --
but, of course, everybody has one (!)

This little article is intended for the New Music Connoisseur
magazine so it is, essentially, copyrighted by ME until they publish
it, so please don't distribute it -- not that anyone might want to.

I hope it wasn't too critical of Warren Burt... he's quite a nice
guy...

WARREN BURT -- Antipodean Collection: A Laptop Symphony (2000).
Engine 27, 173 Franklin Street, (Tribeca), NYC. Saturday November 4,
2000, 8PM

If you haven't already heard (literally), there is a new performance
space in town, Engine 27, located in Tribeca on Franklin Street.
This new space, open just since September 2000, is mighty slick.
Thereis considerable financing behind this place which looks like a
long, rectangular loft, and is actually a reconverted old firehouse
thathad been in disuse since the early 20th century, when fire
engines could no longer squeeze through the door designed for
horse-drawn vehicles. It has had a thorough "makeover." Carefully
placed and attractive protruding acoustical panels in square blue
shapes hang on the walls, there is plenty of computer-controlled
klieg lighting, and four large hanging speakers lend "surround sound"
on all sides. In addition, there is powerful computer equipment
controlling EVERYTHING, sound and lighting. The space also owns a
significant amount of equipment not currently on display. Seating is
arranged with folding chairs, soany seating configuration is
possible. Engine 27 is, basically, the concept of Jack Weisberg, who
arranged private financing, but the composer Joel Chadabe, known for
his electronic music expertise, and Bernadette Speach, a composer
with exceptional organizational and promotional skills, are also
closely involved. The focus of the space is specific:
electro-acoustic music. It will be something to watch, or rather to
LISTEN to!

Saturday night's program featured Warren Burt, a computer composer
born and educated here in the U.S., but who has been spending most of
his adult life in Australia, successfully landing composing grants.
And it is true, Burt really does use his laptop to create most of his
pieces. He has many different computer programs running on this
laptop, a Pentium II, and he creates a wide variety of compositional
"scenarios" with it. Personally, I find this conceptual variety the
highpoint of Burt's presentation. He sets up unusual "backgrounds"
for compositions, each quite different. Unfortunately, he has a
tendency to let the computer do much of the active composing within
each scenario. Frankly, computers aren't really great composers
without significant human intervention. They don't seem to know how
to stop repeating themselves, and can't distinguish a great musical
moment from a mediocre one. For this reason, in my own esthetic
anyway, strictly computer-composed music ends up sounding a bit
static. ("Bit," get it?)

The Antipodean Collection consists of nine different recent works,
essentially unrelated, but put together in one big piece because Burt
wants them that way. He sees it as a "symphony" with nine different
movements. They seem to work as a set since together they're long
enough for a concert program, and they are varied -- pieces with
sampled "words" alternating with pure "instrumentals." In fact, the
variation of approach and explanation BETWEEN pieces seemed even more
interesting than the pieces themselves. Burt has an engaging
personality, and explains the different approaches with relish. He
is the master of the computer SETUP, creating interesting
POTENTIALITIES for pieces with his hardware and software. After that,
the computeris often left to its "own devices" with varying results.

The first "movement," of this "symphony" was "1. Milk Bottle"
dedicated to Annea Lockwood, who was in the audience. Ms. Lockwood
has a work, which I have not heard, that uses milk bottles as a
generating source. I found Burt's computer manipulation of the milk
bottle sound fascinating. He also did a lot in "real time,"
sensitively mixing the channels together just like performing a
"real" musical instrument in public. Unfortunately, the sound of
these milk bottles seems somewhat grating -- a little like a
fingernail against a blackboard. (I think I might prefer cardboard
containers the next time.)

Movement two, "2. Some Physical Virtual Sensuality" had Burt moving
his finger on the laptop trackpad to accompanying electronically
sampled vowels and consonants. Not too much more to say about this
one.

"3. Brisbane Nocturne" had perhaps the most developed and interesting
sounds of the lot. It sounded a little like Charles Wuorinen's
electronic music on Prozac. Oh, I suppose there wasn't quite as much
development since, again, the computer itself did most of the work.
It was announced that this piece was in 13 equally tempered tones per
octave. For all you microtonal fans out there, please note that
13-tET is one of the LEAST consonant scales as far as low-integer
ratio sonorities (just intonation) are concerned. This added a bit
to the "fabricated" or "unnatural" effect of the piece, but made me
wonder a little bit about Engine 27's advance publicity of a "just
intonation drone..." (A very "au courant" idea, but I didn't hear
any such piece.)

Several additional movements followed including "4. VoiceChords II"
with improvisational jazz chords responding in turn to each press of
a keyboard button, "5. Debussy Cloud" where a short phrase from a
Debussy prelude in sampled piano sound was computer-manipulated, "6.
Looking Towards Antarctica," a "noise passacaglia" (need I say
more?), "7.Fractal Follies" where computer generated fractals play
games with one another, "8. Five Tango Permutations" where the
pitched voices of poets reading their own works loop together and,
finally, (whew!) "9. Ten Windy Oscillators" a big noisy culmination,
created from pitched filtering of actual storm sounds. (I thought
those storm windows might come in handy...)

In short, Warren Burt's "set ups" -- his knowledge of computer
possibilities and the variety of sounds and approaches that can be
realized using computers, samplers and MIDI sounds, is captivating.
He has MANY creative ideas. However, the computer is not really
always such a good "composing partner" for him. He lets it do the
composing in most cases and, you know what? It frequently makes some
pretty dumb choices!

Joseph Pehrson

Warren Burt's "Laptop Symphony"

🔗Joseph Pehrson <josephpehrson@compuserve.com>

🔗David Beardsley <xouoxno@virtulink.com>

🔗Joseph Pehrson <pehrson@pubmedia.com>