Music Machine 41 version of Yann Tiersen's Ker al Loch from samples on soundcloud. Video / score of this version can be viewed at: https://youtu.be/y137-2yubmk - more about how the piece works can be read here: https://bit.ly/mm41 #kerallochremixcomp #yanntiersen

Ker al Loch (music machine 41 / Simon Belshaw mix)

In association with Exeter Contemporary Sounds and nonclassical I developed a version of Music Machine 1 for live performance. We workshopped the piece at Exeter University Music Department and then performed it at the nonclassical event at the Bike Shed Theatre in Exeter.

This recording is a live performance that was part of Exeter Library's Fun Palaces weekend on Saturday 1st October 2016. The performers were a wide mix of people and a range of ages. We spent a while discussing the piece, had a quick trial run and then performed this version.

Music Machine 1 Exeter Library 1 - 10 - 16

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Music Machine 34 begins with all performers playing together a simple chord progression. As the piece progresses the progression is stretched and becomes disjointed, there are longer silences between the sounds. The performers use a web-based score to provide instructions, it is never the same twice. It has been described as 'a delicate trio whose fragility is emphasised by the slow expansion of its periods of silence: Morton Feldman enters the digital age' and as having a 'wonderful sense of patience and harmonies rubbing together.'

Music Machine 34

Music Machine 29 has two versions; one is intended for live performance and the other for computer performance. Both work in the same way. It consists of two parts and works in the following way. The first part plays a C major scale (both ascending and descending) and arpeggio. The second part remembers each note that the first part plays and stores them in a list. It will then choose a note from that list to play back simultaneously with the first part. Occasionally the programme will delete (forget) some notes from the list and then start remembering again. There is also the chance that notes will be sustained allowing chords to build up.

Music Machine 29

This is a new recording of music machine 29 recorded during the current lockdown restrictions. I've changed the instrumentation to strings from wind and have lengthened the piece. I think that it works well and is calm and meditative giving the listener an opportunity to relax and unwind.

Music Machine 29 was composed for the Sonorities Festival 2014. The theme of the festival was 'Remembering and Forgetting'; Music Machine 29 works in the following way:

    Music Machine 29 consists of two parts. The first part plays a C major scale (both ascending and descending) and arpeggio. The second part remembers each note that the first part plays and stores them in a list. It will then choose a note from that list to play back simultaneously with the first part. Occasionally the program will delete (forget) some notes from the list and then start remembering again. There is also the chance that notes will be sustained allowing chords to build up.

music machine 29 (2020 edition)

Simon Belshaw has studied composition with Gavin Bryars, Andy Hugill and Nick Atkinson. He completed his PhD at the University of Hertfordshire with Gavin Bryars in 2005.

He has had pieces performed by the Schidlof Quartet, PM ensemble, Gemini, Double Image and 3 Orm (amongst others). His music has been used for the video ‘Round and Round’ which was shown on Channel 4, the film ‘The Times Were Never So Bad: The Life of Andre Dubus’ and in advertising. 

He has had his own ensemble (the Belshaw band), which performed his music in both traditional and original settings, from concert halls to shopping centres, arts centres to open air festivals (including on three occasions the Bristol Community Festival at Ashton Court). The band ranged in size from an ensemble of five to one of fourteen players.

More recently he has produced multimedia installation works using sound, music and video. Two of these works, ‘Palingenesis’ and ‘Transition’, have been part of either the Exeter Autumn or Fringe Festival. He has also recorded music cds under the names Safe Harbour and the Wessex Melodica Orchestra and these have been featured on BBC Radio Bristol, BBC Radio Devon and PhonicFM.

For the past few years he has been working on a project entitled Music Machines. These Music Machines are small computer programs that generate music, each machine explores a single idea, some are simple, some more complex. All are generated by the computer within established parameters, all run continuously until stopped by the listener and all are different each time they are played.

simonbelshaw

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