Sonic Landscapes is an Audio Diary.  I'm here in a remote part of Australia, getting a sense of place in very unfamiliar territory by listening, building instruments of found objects, making an installation about sound and place at the Old Birrega School, which is near Narrandera, New South Wales.  Im working with Vic McEwan and his CAD FACTORY project. There is a blog you can connect to on my website or that of Cad Factory.  These sounds go with the blog.  

Sydney Airport, Limbo of Non-place

Sonic Landscapes is an audio diary.  I'm here in a remote part of Australia, getting a sense of place in very unfamiliar territory by listening, building instruments of found objects, making an installation about sound and place at the Old Birrega School, which is near Narrandera, New South Wales.  Im working with Vic McEwan and his CAD FACTORY project.  There is a blog you can connect to on my website or that of Cad Factory.  These sounds go with the blog.

Dawn, Where Am I?

Day One and i walk out onto a big plain with a single large tree to listen to the wind, which sounds different here. Large, orchestral, and of course the trees are also different. Listening to the wind is endless, varied, never repeating. As a compositional form it is an arc, with a dramatic contour like a story or a film or like nature itself. Machines are more like loop compositions, steady state on or off, add this one subtract that. Perhaps if we listened to more nature and less machines we would compose music based on arcs?

Loops and Arcs

Mho Salim asked me to set this prayer of healing written by Bishop Grey to music when we visited the spiral cave on the Yampa river.  It is for our friend Isolde, for Mary-Ann's father, for our families and friends in need of healing, and for the many people in distress whom we do not know but are all part of the family of man.  We recorded it on the Yampa, and then again in the TANK in Rangely Colorado.  All these lovely people helped and sang and spoke.  Mho Salim, Lois LaFond, Samantha Wade, Michael Odland, Xandra Odland, Barb Rossner, Bruce Odland.

Sangreal Healing Hymn   by Bishop Grey

1. 	Love Divine that didst begin us 
Hopefully thy Sign we hail 
By the Blood of Life within us,
 Be in truth our Sang Real.

Sign of Faith and fellow-feeling,
Send us strength in times of need.
Grant us now the gift of healing,
Hold out hopes of health indeed.

2.	Keep us in a state of fitness. 
Since we ask to aid thy cause.
 Let us live to work and witness 
All the wonder of thy laws.

Sign of Faith. . . 

3.	Show us how we are related 
To each other as one sole 
Which is made and meditated
 By thine own essential Whole.

Sign of Faith. . . 

4.	Thus if one of us is ailing 
In the very least degree, 
By so much the rest are failing 
To achieve full unity.

Sign of Faith. . . 

5.	Therefore we that have sufficient 
Health ourselves will gladly share 
What we have with those deficient, 
Or in need of special care.

Sign of Faith. . . 

6.	We thy single cells are praying 
For correction of disease. 
Set us straight without delaying 
Send us at least some sign of ease.

Sign of Faith. . . 

7.	Thou the blessed Blood that bore us, 
Set us free from every pain. 
Cleans us, cure us, and restore us
 So that we may serve again.

Sign of Faith . . . . .

8.	Let thy healing power suffuse us 
With its curative effect.
 Fail us never, nor refuse us,
 Lest we perish through neglect.

Sign of Faith . . . . . 

9.	We, who seek the Supreme Union, 
Merge our presence into thine. 
Share with us the Great communion, 
Mix our water with thy Wine.

Sign of Faith . . . . .

10.	Hear us, help us, send thy healing, 
To those needy in distress.
 Here we ask thee while appealing,
 For thy Power to come and bless.

Sign of Faith and fellow-feeling,
Send us strength in times of need.
Grant us now the gift of healing,
Hold out hopes of health indeed.


Sign Of Faith- words, Bishop grey, music, Bruce Odland

Just back from 2 months in Brazil with no piano I sat with no
thought in my head in front of my old Knabe baby grand keyboard.
Looking out the window on the brown grass - a sudden return to
winter from the tropics. Whatever muses were in the air flowed
onto the keys, through the sounding board and into my binaural
microphones - more like automatic writing than improvization. Just
mild edits later, here is a gift for the season that is, the season that
was, the season that is becoming.
I could call it “The World that Was” or “The Way Forward” or both,
as I’m now influenced by Robert Musil’s “The Man Without Qualities”,
an inspiring novel for undertain times of change. (I was unprepared
to sing the lines the muses whispered in my ear, but did my best. I
do feel it important to face the times with courage.)
So rather than a disappearance into a vault, I choose to share
these musings, which flowed out in an hour and a half, for any or no
reason, but that they are of this time, of this place, of these long
moments we are living through. And like the message in a bottle
that they are, you must decide to keep or release the sounds thus
encapsulated in ones and zeros.
“The World that Was” Bruce Odland December 2017

03 Santa Lucia

02 Which Way

01 The Window

January 8, 2020:  Sitting, gazing out the window without a thought in my head, "2020 "started to stream through my fingers at the piano.  Recorded one after another in an hour, these are the vibrations of the times as they flow through me and my piano.

Perhaps

Ways Of The World

Sand In The Machine

Spinning A Tale

Hope After Hope

Happy Spring Equinox, yes, the birds still sing.

In the last days I have been impossibly sad, and unable to focus.
My friend Mary-Ann advised to dial back on constant news feeds, stay informed, don’t binge the horror,

So today was better, and as dusk fell, I sat at the piano, searching, as is my won’t. 

Im sharing what I found in a small twisting melody, just trying to stay with its mutations as they developed.
As always these are one take reflections of a blank mind. 

It announced its name as “Reaching for beauty amidst the chaos"

Reaching For Beauty In The Midst Of Chaos

Last night midst the corona virus, I had a beautiful dream.  My son Michael had made a musical signal language to communicate with his friends across a large lake.  It sounded algorhythmic, and carried information.  It combined in my mind with a vernal pool with the call of frogs making babies.  I woke with the melody and went right to the studio to make this cut, "Lake Babies" which makes me calm and happy and energized.  I think of it as a positive communication environment as much as it is music. Share if you will. Bruce.

Lake Babies

Bruce Odland — sonic thinker, composer, and sound artist — is known for his large scale, public space sound installations which transform city noise into harmony, real-time. In 2004 he and Sam Auinger (O+A) altered the harmonic mix of the World Financial Center Plaza using the moon, tides, harmonic tuning tubes, and cement loudspeakers ("Blue Moon"). O+A has changed the sonic character of many public spaces around the world. Bruce Odland's many collaborations include work with Laurie Anderson, Dan Graham, Andre Gregory, Wallace Shawn, Peter Sellars, Joanne Akailitis, Robert Woodruff, Tony Oursler, Peter Erskine, and the Wooster Group. He has contributed ideas and energy to projects in theatre, film, dance, public art, festivals, radio, and museums. His "Sounds from the Vaults", a playable orchestra of virtual instruments for the Field Museum in Chicago, won the Gold Muse Award from the Association of American Museums.

BruceOdland

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