TAK-TAK...TAK...
Ensemble Modern and Plásticas Sonoras (Dedicated to Dorinha Kampela, minha mãe/ my mother - e/and Baiana, como/as Smetak...) My piece’s title comes from both, a nickname that Smetak was kindly addressed by Gilberto Gil (a great Brazilian songwriter from the Tropicalist movement of the 1960’s) and an allusion to his own metier as a luthier and builder of innovative sound-producing objects/sculptures/ instruments. The title spells accents and a dynamic motion, emphasizing the hybrid character of language itself and in particular, of everything that was of Smetak - this benign
“Bruxo” (sorcerer) - interest....  Has the music started already in the title...? - might be an interesting Smetakian question..!
The Plásticas Sonoras can be seen in two very distinctive ways. From one side they are objects without ‘restrictions’ that embody a new type of relationship not with traditional music but sound itself. They do not come with a guideline as how to “properly” play them. The very playing becomes an invention of the performer. They can be played by many performers at once (see his ‘Pindorama’), etc. From the other hand they are embedded in an aesthetic viewpoint, since timbre itself implies a formal commitment to a specific sonic outcome and consequently, a formal, view.
Thus, in order to “escape” the “Smetakian trap,” his creative volition, I decided to expose and subvert somehow the formal constituents of his instruments, their technical ‘limitations.’ My aim during this composition was to create a new kind of virtuosity that has in common with western instruments the fact that an engaged musicianship is being constantly assessed in order to show the instruments’ plasticity. Thus, I deployed new techniques for their manipulations reinventing a repertoire of gestures for them. That way I could create a “Cadenza” for the VINA (Smetak’s most prominent invention) that is extremely virtuosi in demand but keeps the uniqueness of the instrument, its iconic difference, visible and functional to the music... As a common feature of my own music, I always try to avoid exposing instruments as part of an innocuous circus where they would be just a mere gimmick, or “effects’ makers”. My score is a reflection of complex processes in order to safeguard and subsume all its materials to the same compositional demands. I also treated the Western instruments using Smetak’s hybrid approach. The piano and the percussionist II make up for one unique instrument: both play the same piano; the guitarist and the flutist have percussive instruments to prolong their own gestures in other directions... The Smetakian “Chori Sol e Lua” although built for a cellist type of player, is performed here by a guitarist.
Finally, I wanted to subsume the whole Smetakian concept of a cosmic instrument, creating a kind of “vibrating entanglement” of all the musicians. For that I built what I called the “Elastic Tree.” It is a visually enticing scenario. However, my intention was to link all the musicians through elastics that vibrate with percussive instruments when shaken, maintaining a basic musical priority. This vision came to me as I contemplated Smetak’s instrument “Pindorama.” A bamboo structure that spits from its head or top (like a Medusa) “plastic capillaries” whose end exhibit small flutes. This instrument, played by many musicians at the same time, is somehow a powerful metaphor for our time of divisions of all sorts: financial, racial, religious, political, aesthetic, national, etc. I think that the Elastic Tree functions as a Smetakian icon, where Smetak ceases to be seen as an alien or marginalized figure within our common history; an Icon that, I hope, reverberates (and alerts), within the unchanged climate of our primitive culture
- where a utopia is a form of dystopia and earthlings are the true aliens... ©Arthur Kampela 2017 “The Smetak Project” DAAD/ Ensemble Modern 12 de Julho 2017 (NEW VERSION EDITED BY MARTIN HERRAIZ)

Downloads

Tak Tak-Tak for the Ensemble Modern / Smetak Plásticas Sonoras - Sala São Paulo - Arthur Kampela)

Ben Lieberman is a composer, guitarist, singer, producer, patent engineer, and proud cat parent whose musical interests and endeavors span the gamut from emotive folk and love songs to psychedelic rock and noise-based improvisation, to microtonal chamber music and Musique concrete.

Ben’s chamber works have been performed by Sirius Quartet, City of Tomorrow, counter)induction and members of Bang on a Can All-Stars and Asphalt Orchestra. His fixed media piece, Aftergrowth, with animation by Bradley Turner, was selected to be included in the 2019 Echofluxx Festival in Prague. Ben was recently recognized with a Merit Award honor in the 2020 Division 1 Tribeca New Music Young Composer’s Competition for his string quartet, Amulet. In his chamber music, Ben strives to bring the ecstatic energy and rhythmic grooves of rock to bear on harmonic worlds that draw from jazz, spectralism and extended just intonation. Ben received an MFA in music composition from Vermont College of Fine Arts in 2019. His composition teachers have included Arthur Kampela, John Mallia, John Fitz Rogers, and Michael Early.

As a guitarist and singer-songwriter, Ben has performed throughout New York City as well as internationally. His performance credits include the Late Show with Stephen Colbert, Roulette, the Whitney Museum, the Roundhouse in London, and the KigaliUp festival in Kigali, Rwanda. Ben’s performance project, LIEBS, takes shape in any variety of form and sound. His solo shows veer from the entirely improvised — where jazz-inspired runs give way to heavily effected waves of droning guitar feedback — to intimate acoustic serenades. As a band, LIEBS traverses terrain that has been described as “mystic rock.” (In as much as a genre label can impart anything of import, this one feels close enough to the mark.) LIEBS’ debut EP, phantasm, is scheduled to be released Spring 2022.

If you're interested in working with me on a project or commissioning me for a new piece, please reach out at benliebermanmusic@gmail.com.

Quote :

...They taught us that art is about expressing yourself—that you have to have something to say. That's not true—you don't have to say anything at all...

John Cage


TRAMPELFÂD
Laboratory for Contemporary Electronic Experimental Music
 ( LCEEM ® )  
founded    by Max Elzholz
https://www.youtube.com/@trampelfad

Experimental-Improvisation-Sonification-Data Bending-Alchemy-Probability-Computer-Stochastic-Science-Abstract-Generative-Unpredictability -Aleatoric-Music

..and yes ...Fuckoff AI in ART

Joshua Banks Mailman is a theorist, analyst, critic, philosopher, performer, technologist, and composer of music, teaching at Columbia University, and previously at NYU, UCSB, U of Alabama, and U of Maryland. A graduate of University of Chicago (AB) and Eastman School of Music (PhD), he researches musical form from flux, temporal dynamic form and is published in Perspectives of New Music, Music Theory Spectrum, TEMPO, Music Analysis, Sonic Studies, Leonardo Electronic Almanac, and others journals and books. He is co-chair of the Analysis of Post-1945 Music interest group of the Society for Music Theory. 
	He developed interactive technologies presented at the 9th Sound and Music Computing Conference (Copenhagen 2012) and International Conference on Music Perception and Cognition (ICMPC) and European Society for the Cognitive Sciences of Music (ESCOM) (Thesseloniki, Greece). www.joshuabanksmailman.com and http://soundcloud.com/joshua-banks-mailman

experimental abstract electronica
modular live sessions

Originario de El Oro, México, estudié el bachillerato y la licenciatura en la Universidad Autónoma del Estado de México. En 1997 obtuve el Premio Nezahualcóyotl de Poesía por «Caja de resonancia y otros poemas», otorgado por la Coordinación de Difusión Cultural de la UAEM y el Plantel Nezahualcóyotl de la Escuela Preparatoria; y en 2022, la primera mención honorífica en el XIX Premio Atanasio G. Saravia de Historia Regional Mexicana por «Oro sobre dorado». Desde mayo de 2014 soy coordinador del Foro Aurense de Historia y Estudios Regionales y cronista municipal de El Oro desde octubre de ese mismo año, cargo que ocupo como titular en la Amecron desde abril de 2015. En septiembre de 2018 fue publicada mi guía de viajeros «El Oro, pueblo mágico». Además, he sido editor, ensayista, librero, fonotecario, programador musical, guionista radiofónico y de mi trabajo como corrector –iniciado en el año 2000– destaca el cuidado editorial de «El gallo de oro y otros relatos», de Juan Rulfo (2017)