Showtime and reflection.

Two hours before we were due to perform I found I was lacking inspiration in playing my instrument. I found that I wasn't coming up with anything new, exciting or different everytime I went to play it. After having a bit of collaboration with Ryan and Seamus, I found that my instrument works quite well when played by two people and the scale allows for it nicely.

Come time for performance I started out playing it solo and then invited Seamus who so kindly went up on stage for the third time that night to play duet. And in fact, I am seeing and discovering over and over again the benefits of the nature of the many levels of collaboration that occur within our group, not just in the final performances but in the nature of the shared studio space. As our ideas and projects develop, we learn from and offer our individual talents and skills to those around us. Seamus, being quite naturally and by developed skill a musical had a lot of offer to the class but even as our instruments neared their finished state, we began to experiment in playing with each others instruments hence we all learned more about our own.

As usual, I was amazed at the range of different ideas and shapes and forms we had all explored to each come up with something different and unique, often reflecting our interests and existing skills. The final result I think left us all quite amazed at what we had achieved. The range of musical ability was greatly varied in the class but the overall level of performance I think, as was the consensus, greater than what any of us were expecting. Even those who weren't used to the nature of performance were proud of what they had created that they managed to come through as confidence.

What else I found really interesting was that where I'd seen some of the instruments develop from concept to finished product, there were a few I hadn't seen at all so even at the end I saw new object and ideas emerge. On top of that, one of my friends came along to the performance with her little brother and two of his friends in tow (they'd been enticed along to 'a free music thing in town') so it was also exciting to see that reaction from people the outside who were seeing it all for the first time with not a lot of background knowledge on what the project was all about. All of them were from quite musical backgrounds and really enjoyed it. I could tell that at first they were having the same sort of reaction I had when I went to see Phil's performance but they soon got into it. My friend said that she even felt inspired to go home and make something.

A lot of constructive feedback came from crit the next day. Feedback to mine was again the logistics of the upright position of the stand and that it would've been more successful in terms of playable ability if the bottles we horizontal and more spaced apart. We discussed my concept and that the stance I had originally taken on the marketing effect of Coca Cola ended up being more neutral one rather than any strong statement. Suggested ways to improve this would be to have perhaps one odd bottle out to allude to the monopoly of Coke or to link it back to the effect on the consumer, as I had looked at with the Coca Cola robot presented by SWAMP, perhaps by use of my impliments I hit it with such as a syringe. I definitely feel my design could be improved in many ways if ever chose to, whilst taking this feedback, from my personal experience playing it I'd also increase the scale of it so that it could be played by more people.

Overall I found this project a bit more challenging that the other, just because it was outside my sphere of skills. I was forced to think of design outside my usual focus on purely the visual to think also about the sound. Though it was suggested and encouraged we use Solid Works when developing our designs, I chose not to use it as by that point I was feeling too rushed for time to try pick up a new piece of software but I do see it's potential and that it would've been helpful. I am keen to learn it for future projects, especially as I would like to experiment with using the 3D printer at some point, if appropriate to a project. Otherwise, there was a less of a focus on the digital side for this project compared to the other as really it was only Ryan and Zac who chose to manipulate digital aspects to create sound while everyone else focused on the acoustic, with the occasional contact mic. I enjoyed having performance as a part of assessment and hope we have more like this again.

Preemptive performance post

It is performance day and this week has finally brought together a a myriad of interesting noises as the instruments have begun to reach completed states. We started to experiment with sounds with some improvisation activities which linked back nicely to the introduction activities we did where we paid attention to the sound around us and began to think about how we could add to this sound on the basis of listening.

We started by listening to the existing sounds in the greenroom and then we had to add something. This activity was a lot more successful when we turned out the lights as we became disengaged from the physical to focus more purely on the sounds, and hence we able to communicate and res pond more successfully. It also enabled us to escape any self consciousness. What resulted was a composition of sounds of movement, interaction with objects arou nd us, vocal sounds and some even began to incorporate our instruments. Other activites included just the use of vocals and holding a note for a breaths length which created some beautiful harmonies.

I was glad I went along to Phil's performance last week as I felt I had a better understanding of the approach we are supposed to now take with our instruments, as well as a better understanding of the way in which Phil's group were able to interact without verbal communication to create cohesive sound. It was a similar sort of effect we began to achieve in these activities an d it begun to get me excited again about this performance.

My instrument is more or less in a finished state but given enough time or another opportunity, there are still ways I'd refine it. Some of the bottles are unable to hold the compression for a long period of time and I always have to retune it. Three or four of the bottles leak completely and are unable to hold any compression so James discussed with me the need to calculate for a 'failure rate' when designing and constructing and have some spares on hand. Both James and Phil discussed with me the physical logistics of performance with my object in that it would be easier to play if the frame was horizontal or if the bottles are on an angle. I see the point they are making but for this performance I am going to stay with the vertical stand as it is more in keeping with my concept and my original focus on something which is more physically performative.

Now that we have the performance space available to us, I was able to start thinking more about this performative aspect in terms of using the space. I have experimented with setting up lighting with a red gel behind my instrument with the rest of the room in darkness so that the light shines through the bottles and the frame is mostly obscured. I will be behind the instrument but will attempt to set up the light so that my movements are shown by long shadows thrown on the ground. This is what I have to experiment with before tonight as well as becoming more familiar with my instrument and the tools I have developed to play it with.