I did it!!!

I spotted the International Space Station! I walked to a field where I would have little obscurity from buildings/trees, took out my trusty compass, and double checked these directions:

LOCAL DURATION APPROACH DEPARTURE
DATE/TIME (MIN) (DEG-DIR) (DEG-DIR)

Wed Feb 03 07:12 AM 10 above S 13 above SSE

It was still quite dark and since this was the third attempt at sighting it, I took my small laptop with me and turned on the program Stellarium which was able to map out degrees and directions accurately. To be honest, it just looked like a normal satellite. But the point was, it wasn't. It was so nice to watch it go by.

I even waved...

Sounds of the Universe... or are they?

I gave my presentation today, and got lots of helpful feedback. A lot of my classmates seem interested and enthusiastic about what I'm doing, and I've been told to check some things out.

Michael Maier:
German alchemist (1568 - 1622). I googled him and have found something he's written called 'Música hermética', which seems promising.

John Hall suggested I check out Sun Ra and the Arkestra. I listened to a sample and it's very Jazz (I don't like Jazz!) And like the crazy Stockhausen, Sun Ra claims: "I never wanted to be a part of planet Earth, but I am compelled to be here, so anything I do for this planet is because the Master-Creator of the Universe is making me do it. I am of another dimension. I am on this planet because people need me". (http://www.elrarecords.com/sunra.html). Seems interesting but I'm not sure if I'll need this....

Mark also informed me that one of the IT guys had taken a few courses on astronomy so I emailed him and he seems happy to help if I need any information.

Everyone has been really positive and some of the more complicated questions got me thinking. I was challenged about the idea of radio astronomy as sounds. Technically it is light, converted into sound, so it's not really the sound of the universe. I should firstly make it clear that I'm not advertising these sounds as the modern day version of the music of the spheres; the two are very different. Secondly, just because we can't hear this without the aid of technology, who's to say it can't be heard by other alien species (sorry to get all L. Ron Hubbard on you, but why limit what's possible to the confines of human ability when we're talking about the Universe?). This made me think of a radio programme about dolphin echo location and the idea of using sound as a means of visualising something. But humans can't make use of SONAR without technology.

The sounds attained through radio telescopes aren't just converted for the fun of it. Yes, the radiowaves received in the form of light, and this data is used to study astronomy.

But perhaps my stronger argument here is not the notion that we are 'listening to the universe', but rather that we are 'tuned in' to it, and that astronomers also use this converted sound as scientific data - so I am using what astronomers consider scientific data as a musician. It's one to be careful about.

Kronos Quartet

I can't believe I've only found this now!:


Sun Rings (2002)
for string quartet, chorus and pre-recorded spacescapes

1. Sun Rings Overture
2. Hero Danger
3. Beebopterismo
4. Planet Elf Sindoori
5. Earth Whistlers
6. Earth/Jupiter Kiss
7. The Electron Cyclotron Frequency Parlour
8. Prayer Central
9. Venus Upstream
10. One Earth


Just need to get my hands on a recording....

Makrokosmos

This week I attempted to learn Spiral Galaxy from George Crumb's 'Makrokosmos'. I have come to the concrete conclusion that this spiral shaped score is just completely illogical. It just won't do! I don't have a head that spins 360 degrees vertically on my neck.




All that aside, this is a very cool piece, which explores the full range of the piano beginning with the depth of the lower piano and introducing some unusual sounds that are cuased by the objects placed on the strings. It quickly jumps to the higher strings where a haunting and displaced melody (akin to Morton Feldman, I can't help feeling) on the upper middle register is introduced before it descends into a series of falling dissonant chords. It ends with a poignant melody on the upper register, fading out to an eerie end. The depth and harmonies featured in Spiral Galaxy demonstrate a richness of sonorities and the profound notes of the lower register hint at the emptiness and vastness of space that even a huge galaxy can find itself in.

Electro(lux)

Today I was doing some shopping and as I reached into a fridge to grab some milk (it was an aisle of large open refrigerators) I heard a pleasant humming sound emanating from the fridge. The one next to it was also humming and the two created a pleasantly wavering interval. I stood there for a while leaning into the fridges and figured out the interval as a minor 6th but it was by no means a pure interval; other electronic humming behind the two louder hums deraged it. I began then to think about frequences, and the physics of music.

I might use these inadvertent sounds in some of my own pieces, such as creaking sounds of a telescope or perhaps i'll record some friends next time we're all lying under the night sky picking out constellations. I'm still in the experimenting stage with electronic music, because at Queens you were either a BMus student or a sonic arts student. There were few who crossed the divide. But I wasn't going to cover my ears and pretend it was another faction, especially not now.

Remember that sound?!

I've been checking out some electronic music recently (a piece by a composer named Pete Stollery), and was listening to this one piece that dealt with capturing the sounds of this old whiskey distillery that was son to close, and so it was important to record these familiar sounds before they became extinct.

This got me thinking about sounds that used to be familiar to me that are no longer around. I thought about the dial telephone my family used to have, or the familiar sound of a tape deck buttong being pushed on my old hi-fi, the tapping of my mother's typewriter, and the sound of waiting for your dial-up internet to connect. All these once familiar technical sounds are also extinct - even though some of them had only been created years earlier. Technology is moving so fast that these once everday sounds are barely given the chance to be redolent through more than one generation (I've lived in four decades, two centuries and two millenia, and the growth in technology that I've witnessed in my lifetime has been exponential).

Just think of all that oversized equipment and slow powered computers used to man the first moon mission.

I bet that someday, we'll come up with smaller pieces of technology to replace those massive radio telescopes and even the hubble telescope. The problem is that radio telescopes just seem to be getting bigger, so that radio astronomers can reach out even further into space.

There is one noise that hasn't really changed - I guess it wasn't really invented, but rather discovered. Still, the technological means of attaining it are still about. Static noise.

Yes, with the implementation of digital tv, that is one way of making this extinct. But we still hear it through radios. 1% of that noise is radiation from the centre of the milky way. So lets hope that digitalisation doesn't block us out of regularly tuning in to the galaxy (whether we know it or not).

Star Music

Apparently this is what Stockhausen came up with to describe Anton Weberns Piano Variations. I had a listen to opus.21 mvt II, and I get it. There's no clear cut pattern to it and you never know what not you're going to hear next.. A bit like what you see when you look up at the stars.