Vladimir Ussachevsky

More on this 226th weekly Disquiet Junto project (“Compose music for a fictional greatest-hits collection of the electronic music of R. Buckminster Fuller”) at:

http://disquiet.com/0226/

More on the Disquiet Junto at:

http://disquiet.com/junto/

Join the Disquiet Junto at:

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Subscribe to project announcements here:

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Disquiet Junto general discussion takes place at:

http://disquiet.com/forums/

Project inspired by a dream that C. Reider of Vuzh Music had:

http://vuzhmusic.com/

Image of album cover created for this project is by Brian Scott of Boon Design:

http://boondesign.com/

Disquiet Junto Project 0226: Bucky Ball

project dirigent selections

selections

R. Buckminster Fuller

Otto Luenig & Vladmir Ussachevsky
Tape Recorder Music
7CACKLP

One of the very earliest and most important examples of electronic tape music to be pressed on to vinyl (alongside the Radiodiffusion-Télévision Française musique concrète compilations in France and Jim Fassett’s comedic Strange To Your Ears novelty record) this privately pressed 1955 LP was released on a one-off label owned by businessman Gene Bruck to document a custom made performance at the New York Museum Of Modern Art back in 1952.  This facsimile edition of this important LP archives remastered versions of the first recorded unison of Otto Luening and Vladimir Ussachevsky and a partnership that founded the Columbia-Princeton Electronic Music Center at Columbia University in 1959, which would later count Ilhan Mimaroglu, Wendy Carlos, Dariush Dolat Shahi and Alice Shields as its graduates.

The October 28th 1952 performance showcased the debut of the seminal Fantasy In Space based on resampled flute recordings which were manipulated on magnetic tape to create an otherworldly melodic composition, stylistically begging comparison with the early recording of Kraftwerk (made some twenty years later) and bringing a palatable and tuneful alternative to the stark avant garde experiments of their French counterparts.  The mechanical construction of the track was even "performed" on prime time American television to celebrate this groundbreaking approach to modern music.  Alongside four other tracks the full programme comprises further experiments with manipulated recordings of bells and woodwind instruments subjected to mechanical "augmentation, diminution and retrograding" to create pieces that "cannot be played with conventional instruments."  In the following years labels like Folkways and Desto would also plunder this important session as a milestone in electronic music.

For the purpose of this release Cacophonic have also included the seldom heard 14 minute track A Poem In Cycles And Bells For Tape Recorder And Orchestra which was recorded using the same techniques with the Royal Danish Radio Orchestra in 1956 and released via the Composers Recordings Inc. label founded by Otto himself in 1954 (employing Vladimir in an advisory capacity) and operated for forty-nine years - releasing records by Harry Partch, Alwin Nikolais, John Cage and Alice Shields.  Also included on this edition is an expansion of the rare 10" original artwork by legendary graphic designer Ronald Clyne, an early example of his work made before he became in-house designer for Folkways Records rivaling the likes of Blue Note's Reid Miles for some of America’s most iconic record sleeves.

Otto Luenig & Vladmir Ussachevsky - Sonic Contours

Ussachevsky Vladimir Line of Apogee Part 6 1967

Disquiet Junto Project 0221: Morning Music
The Assignment: Compose something — quiet, peaceful, refreshing — you’d want to wake up to.

Took a bit of the opening music from NPR’s Morning Edition. Time stretched various amounts, layered and edited, bit of Borderlands added to create a dreamy soundscape. 

Thanks to BJ Leiderman for the Morning Edition theme music.

I posted a second, extended  version on my other Soundcloud page at:
https://soundcloud.com/project-dirigent/my-morning-edition-extended-version-for-radio-and-very-large-orchestra-disquiet0221-morningmusic

The photo associated with this project is by Alf Eaton, used thanks to a Creative Commons license: https://flic.kr/p/8NUM/

More on this 221st weekly Disquiet Junto project (“Compose something — quiet, peaceful, refreshing — you’d want to wake up to”) at: http://disquiet.com/0221/

More on the Disquiet Junto at: http://disquiet.com/junto/

Creative Commons license granted. 


Dreamscape [disquiet0221-morningmusic]

Ninety-nine percent of who you are is invisible and untouchable. -R. Buckminster Fuller
I have a little familiarity with Fuller, Bucky to his friends, and his theories mainly through an obsession I had of building a geodesic dome home. I wanted to do it myself and I loved the open floor plan and the economy of it. My wife was not going for it and I gave the dream up and got a mortgage and a regular house but I at least I got the big trees I had wanted. I knew he was into math and architecture. I went to this site  http://us.metamath.org/mpegif/mmmusic.html#music that coverts math theorems into midi files and downloaded the midi files for The existence of omega  and Zermelo's well-ordering theorem. I used some synths to taste. I added a drum track and looped around in a conversation with Fuller.  One day I will build my own home and I plan on incorporating many of his ideas. 
More on this 226th weekly Disquiet Junto project (“Compose music for a fictional greatest-hits collection of the electronic music of R. Buckminster Fuller”) at:

http://disquiet.com/0226/

More on the Disquiet Junto at:

http://disquiet.com/junto/

Join the Disquiet Junto at:

http://soundcloud.com/groups/disquiet-junto/

Subscribe to project announcements here:

http://tinyletter.com/disquiet-junto/

Disquiet Junto general discussion takes place at:

http://disquiet.com/forums/

Project inspired by a dream that C. Reider of Vuzh Music had:

http://vuzhmusic.com/

Image of album cover created for this project is by Brian Scott of Boon Design:

http://boondesign.com/

By Marc Weidenbaum


Bucky (disquiet0226)

As his wikipedia article says:

"Fuller associated the word Dymaxion with much of his work, a portmanteau of the words dynamic, maximum, and tension to sum up the goal of his study, "maximum gain of advantage from minimal energy input."

For this piece, I created a self-composing Pure Data patch using several oscillators and random number generators that fed into each other. The result is mathematical complexity from a small number of inputs. 

The result was recorded into Audacity, the most interesting parts chopped out, then played via a software sampler with a steady bass drum beat with a chorus effect and EQ. 

||||

More on this 226th weekly Disquiet Junto project (“Compose music for a fictional greatest-hits collection of the electronic music of R. Buckminster Fuller”) at:

http://disquiet.com/0226/

More on the Disquiet Junto at:

http://disquiet.com/junto/

Join the Disquiet Junto at:

http://soundcloud.com/groups/disquiet-junto/

Subscribe to project announcements here:

http://tinyletter.com/disquiet-junto/

Disquiet Junto general discussion takes place at:

http://disquiet.com/forums/

Project inspired by a dream that C. Reider of Vuzh Music had:

http://vuzhmusic.com/

Image of album cover created for this project is by Brian Scott of Boon Design:

http://boondesign.com/

Dynamic System [disquiet0226]

Travelling - Climatron (disquiet0226)

This experiment sonified a buckyball molecule’s mass spectrum.

Mass spectrometry measures a chemical mixture's components by plotting the charge intensities of its various ions, creating a characteristic spectrum. I took the spectrum of buckminsterfullerene, C60, a molecule nicknamed “buckyball” that resembles Buckminster Fuller’s geodesic domes and was named after him. I scaled an analysis of its mass-to-charge ratio plot to show frequency vs. amplitude, creating a matching spectrum in the audible domain.

I then made a wavetable from a short excerpt of Fuller saying the words “mathematical possibilities” and assigned a bank of oscillators to read through it, creating a timbre directly from Buckminster Fuller’s voice and the molecule that bears his name (which, incidentally, is one of the largest objects to display wave/particle duality). I sequenced multiple layers of this texture, with filters, panning, and reverb added.

molecule spectrum adapted from this data (converted to frequency/amplitude pairs from JCAMP-DX format): http://webbook.nist.gov/cgi/cbook.cgi?ID=C99685968&Mask=200

sample taken from this video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o6yaSLipeWg

----

More on this 226th weekly Disquiet Junto project (“Compose music for a fictional greatest-hits collection of the electronic music of R. Buckminster Fuller”) at:

http://disquiet.com/0226/

More on the Disquiet Junto at:

http://disquiet.com/junto/

Join the Disquiet Junto at:

http://soundcloud.com/groups/disquiet-junto/

Subscribe to project announcements here:

http://tinyletter.com/disquiet-junto/

Disquiet Junto general discussion takes place at:

http://disquiet.com/forums/

Project inspired by a dream that C. Reider of Vuzh Music had:

http://vuzhmusic.com/

Image of album cover created for this project is by Brian Scott of Boon Design:

http://boondesign.com/


buckyball spectrum [disquiet0226]

Disquiet Junto Project 0226: Bucky Ball
Compose music for a fictional greatest-hits collection of the electronic music of R. Buckminster Fuller.

This is an early tape piece created by Fuller in the 1950s; a collage of electronic sounds and musique concrete from the period when he was influenced most by Cage and Stockhausen. There are moments that are reminiscent of Oram, Babbitt and Varese. 

The title “Pentagonal Transmigration” is a Fullerism referring to the movement along the edges of intersecting polygons. Specifically, the movement from one adjoining vertex to another. 

Analysis:
Fuller based the structure of the piece on the idea of interconnected polygons where sounds follow the movement between adjoining vertices. Each vertex is associated with a unique sound. Movement from one vertex to another causes a short segment of sound to be heard. 

[Created from excerpts of classic electronic music pieces of the era. Composers include: Cage, Stockhausen, Varese, Ussachevsky, Messiaen, Babbitt, Barron (Louise and Bebe), Maxfield, Oram and Xenakis. A total of 20 sounds are played in a Pure Data patch that follows the path of adjoining vertices in a 20-fullerene. This was done twice, the second time following a different path. Edited in Audacity.]

Creative Commons license granted.

More on this 226th weekly Disquiet Junto project (“Compose music for a fictional greatest-hits collection of the electronic music of R. Buckminster Fuller”) at: http://disquiet.com/0226/

More on the Disquiet Junto at: http://disquiet.com/junto/


Pentagonal Transmigration [disquiet0226]

Sonic Contours

Disquiet Junto Project 0238: Magnifying Contact
The Assignment: Record a piece of music, emphasizing the sounds of production over the music itself.

Open the case, assemble the instrument, check the reed, wind up the metronome...

Got out my bassoon and recorded the first thing that came out. I wanted to start the piece with the sound of the bassoon fading into a dreamy texture. I captured a few notes and stretched them to make a long A minor drone to go under other sounds.  The minor second (e to f-natural) ended up sounding really dark and mysterious. Layered the notes and faded them in and out using the envelope tool in Audacity. 

I went back and recorded a bunch of key clicks and instrument noises and stretched them a bit to blur the sound. They came out sounding like gasps! Added an intro and ending.

This turned out sounding really different from my original plan but I went with it. A bassoon in need of exorcism. Use headphones for maximum heavy breathing. 

Recorded on a Zoom H5. Edited in Audacity. 

Thanks to carroll27 on Freesound.org for the metronome sound. 

Creative Commons license granted. 

More on this 238th weekly Disquiet Junto project — “Record a piece of music, emphasizing the sounds of production over the music itself” — at:

http://disquiet.com/0238/
More on the Disquiet Junto at:

http://disquiet.com/junto/


The Performance, "Strumento Infestato" for bassoon and processed sounds [disquiet0238]

Black Rain [Gomel 1986]
Submitted to Naviar Records/Clouded Lands Gomel 1986 project.
 
Artillery shells carrying silver iodide explode over Gomel seeding clouds to precipitate radiation from the atmosphere before it drifts towards Moscow. It was described as black rain. Alerts and news bulletins follow. The final voice is Gorbachov's announcement of the disaster. 

You Tube news compilation excerpts were from NewsFromUkraine.  Distant artillery sounds thanks to: Aegersum on Freesound.org.

Black Rain [Gomel 1986]

Naviar Haiku 190, Disquiet 0295
Poisoned Waterhole, for 2 pianos (naviarhaiku190)[disquiet0295]

For Western Riverina Arts and the Crossing Streams project.

Poisoned Waterhole:
Violent disregard echoes.
Keenly felt today.

Poison Waterhole Creek near Narrandera owes its name to a tragic story (one of many) which happened when Europeans claimed the land, 200 years ago. In the 1830s, several groups of Aboriginal families used to camp by the waterhole. Annoyed and eager to get rid of them, the local homestead owner poisoned the waterhole, killing many of them.

Haiku by Peita Vincent https://www.frankandearnest.com.au/our-story. Image by Jason Richardson http://bassling.blogspot.co.uk.

Poisoned Waterhole, for 2 pianos (naviarhaiku190)[disquiet0295]

To listen (and watch) R. Buckminster Fuller's complete and uninterrupted lecture series "Only Integrity is Going to Count," comprising 7 hours, 10 minutes, and 44 seconds, please click the following youtube link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N3QzD8QC4ko

R. Buckminster Fuller -- Only Integrity is Going to Count (CD #1, Track 1)

R. Buckminster Fuller -- Only Integrity is Going to Count (CD #1, Track 2)

R. Buckminster Fuller -- Only Integrity is Going to Count (CD #1, Track 3)

R. Buckminster Fuller -- Only Integrity is Going to Count (CD #2, Track 1)

R. Buckminster Fuller -- Only Integrity is Going to Count (CD #2, Track 2)

Thin Snow Scatters On the Wind (naviarhaiku256)

Naviar Haiku 256

Thin snow scatters on
the wind, melting as it falls
Cries for help for light 

Robert Hayden (1913-1980) published his first book of poems, Heart-Shape in the Dust, in 1940.

Even though he was interested in African American history and often expressed his concerns about race in his writing, he didn’t want to be identified as a black poet. William Meredith wrote about him: “Hayden declared himself, at considerable cost in popularity, an American poet rather than a black poet, when for a time there was posited an unreconcilable difference between the two roles. There is scarcely a line of his which is not identifiable as an experience of black America, but he would not relinquish the title of American writer for any narrower identity.”

Thin Snow Scatters On The Wind (naviarhaiku256)

Naviar Haiku 257
Daybreak (abstract)
daybreak;
from the middle of the rain
a skylark song

haiku by Uejima Onitsura https://terebess.hu/english/haiku/ryokan.html
picture by Aaron Burden https://unsplash.com/@aaronburden

Daybreak (abstract) (naviarhaiku257)

Disquiet Junto Project 0362: Operational Surrealism
The Assignment: Make a piece of music informed by a key text from the art movement.

The Sewing Machine and the Umbrella for Piano and Percussion disquiet0362

Particles of Me for Mallets and Strings (naviarhaiku270)

snowing
through the blizzard
particles of me

haiku by Alan Summers www.callofthepage.org
picture by Ian Battaglia https://unsplash.com/@ianjbattaglia

Particles Of Me For Mallets And Strings (naviarhaiku270)

Audio excerpts from the Music & Arts Library exhibition, on the 3rd floor of Butler Library, Fall 2012