Blog 2

I suppose I could start this entry with a bit of what I've been listening to recently. Taking this class has given me the opportunity to discover and rediscover a lot of different music. Being honest I have changed my listening habits a small bit to incorporate a bit more electronic music this semester. Listening to new music as well as music I used to listen a while ago. I recently rediscovered one of my favorite albums the other day, fat boy slim, "You’ve Come a Long Way Baby." In my eyes Norman Cook, aka fat boy slim, has to be considered one of the best DJs of this generation. Listening to "Right Here Right Now" really made me remember how much I loved this guy and still do even today. The video is also pretty sweet.




I also picked up Bloc Party’s new album. Despite not being strictly electronic and considered more alternative a lot of their newer stuff has shown a new wave of electronic improv in their music.

Listening to "Intamacy", Bloc Party's new album got me thinking about one of the sound unbound articles on improvisation. Vijay Lyer's article, "On Improvisation" got us going on a good conversation about the essence of improv the other day in section. We talked briefly about Miles Davis and his improv techniques before live performances but how today these so called "improvisations" have since been written down and tabbed for others to mimic. There was a lot of different opinions as to whether or not a live performance of improvisation should be documented and recorded or should it just be left alone only to be appreciated by the lucky few who were present to hear it. I took the view that the recording and documenting of these improv performance was actually a good thing. Music is something that should be shared whenever possible so why not have these performances documented. I know from listening to albums of live music that there is nothing better then hearing a group improvise on stage, even if I couldn't be there to hear it at least if its recorded I still have the opportunity to appreciate it.


Looking forward to working on our next assignment, radial seems like a lot of fun. Even if I have to work with these clowns.

Assignment 1- Ringtones

So these are my two ringtones. The first one is a sample of throwing about 10 ping pong balls down a staircase in some sort of rhythm. I think the sound ended up being pretty sweet so I figured it would be useful as my first raw sample.

The second was a lot more fun to work with. I used a sample sound of beer cans being dropped off a table of which I took what I though was the best 4-5 second segment. I used this segment to create my second ringtone. I started with a fade in using an s curve and then started reversing which I though gave a pretty cool sound. I used a lot of cutting and pasting of what I though was the most interesting sounds in the sample. I also experimented quite a bit with changing the gain, increasing tempo in parts, normalizing parts of the sample as well as using silence in the middle of my ringonte. I then repeated the pattern and finished with a simple fade out. Anyway here are the samples, hope they're not too hard on the ears.

Ringtone 1- http://www.easy-share.com/1903483279/conor.dooney-ringtone 1.mp3

Ringtone 2- http://www.easy-share.com/1903478096/conor.doooney-ringtone 2.mp3

Electronic Music and Me

So my experience with electronic music started when I was about 12 years old. Back then all my friends and I used to listen to nothing but dance and trance. I used to own a lot of compiltaion dance cd's such as cream anthems and euphoria. I'm not sure if these compilations are big in the US but back when I was younger they would contain artists like Paul Van Dyk, Darude, Tiesto,Faithless, Paul Oakenfold and others alike. Listening to these artists was alot of fun, you could just turn it up real loud and just enjoy it. It was hypnotic and these tunes would just be embedded in your head for weeks and weeks. A lot of these songs are actualy quite simplistic musically as well, I mean most of these artists are using simple scales to create something entirerly new and interesting. Keeping things simple in music can often be the best at times. My friends and I kind of got serious about buying turntables and stuff but I think it was just a bit of a phase at the time.





As I got older I kind of moved away from the whole dance scene and started listening to a lot of indie alternative. These days a lot of alternative artists are strongly linked with electronic music so I think a lot of what I still listen to is still very electronic. Alterntive bands like the Klaxons, MGMT, the Killers at times (particularly their newest album), Bloc Party, Daft Punk, etc. Some of these bands aren't strictly electronic but a lot of the stuff they produce is heavily digitalized to give it that sound. Judge for yourself,




I think I made this transistion from Dance to this alternative electro genre just from a spectator point of view. Going to see artists like Chemical Brothers or MGMT playing live is just unexplainable really.





Some of the new bands I'm listening to more these days include Ratatat and more Daft Punk. Even listening to some old Paul Van Dyk in class last week also made me realize how big a fan of dance music I still really am. I think its hard to say what I really like about electronic music, I think the fact that it sounds really good at all volumes is big thing for me. There's dance and trance you can turn up really loud and enjoy where as there's quiter stuff like ratatat which you can just have on the backround and relax to. The last two weeks have also given me a greater appreciation for the creativity and flair that goes into creating music electronically. Trying to make a gong sound into electronic music using the frequency programme was something I really enjoyed which just gave me that greater understanding for how impressive some of these artists really are.

1st Post

This is just a first post. My name is Conor and I'm a freshman in Silliman. I just attended our first section this evening from 5-5.50. Just wanted to post this and make sure everything is up and running. See you in class on Monday.