Make Music New York and MATA present the
2011 Make Music Winter Workshop with Phil Kline!

Congratulations to our winning proposal by James Holt!

James’ work “Thru Line” will be presented in December 2011 by MATA in conjunction with Make Music Winter!
Stay tuned for more details!

James Holt, Thru Line - or - Subway Series

The basis of my proposal is a live and recorded music installation that creates an ‘accidental’ participatory experience for riders of the New York City subway system.

The MTA’s F-train line runs from Coney Island, Brooklyn to Jamaica, Queens, stopping 45 times in 3 boroughs.  In imagining this installation, my original idea was to have a cellist at the middle of every platform, at every stop, performing the Prelude from Bach’s Suite No. 1 in G major.  This is a work that the public may not know the title or composer of but would generally recognize and be drawn into and subway riders would notice that this music remains the same from stop to stop.  Imagine walking into your train station and hearing someone perform music you recognize, then you step onto the train and at the next stop (at every stop!) when the doors open there is another musician playing the exact same music.

Because this Bach movement is also regularly played by guitarists, violists, bassists, and can performed on acoustic or electric instruments, the installation does not have to be limited to cellists necessarily.  Voice  or other obbligato could be added, and a recording of the piece could be played, distorted, and/or remixed for recorded playback instead of live performance in some stations.

It takes approximately 90-minutes to take the F-line from beginning to end so ideally the installation would last at least that long.  The choice of the F-line is a tip-of-the-hat to Michael Gordon’s recent choral work Every Stop on the F Train.

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Thanks again to all of our workshop participants!  All of the submissions were fantastic, and as such, we will leave each proposal on this site as a resource for any community members looking to sponsor their own Make Music Winter Parade!

Steven Rice, Who Does the Earth Think It Is? for carillon, change ringers, electronics, and other players

There are players on the ground and players in the air. High up, Tiffany Ng plays the carillon, bells are rung in English Change Ringing method, and from the belfry, loudspeakers transmit sound played with electronics. On the ground, groups play handbells, drums, pans, trombones, kazoos, jawbones, jugs, speakers, and whatever else they have. The people on the ground start playing at one or two locations and process towards the towers where the musicians in the air are located. Perhaps there are stationary groups that play as the processional goes by. A carillon is a set of bells that are played as a keyboard by a single player in a tower. English Change ringing bells are played in a tower, one person to a bell. People on the ground have compositions written for the number within their individual group. There would be a part for trios, a part for quartets, for quintets, etc. Carillon, Change Ringing, and electronic music all have fascinating and specialized musical traditions that have put them at the periphery of Western concert music- undeservedly so! Witness some change ringers in action by clicking here, and here is a recording of a change ringing “standard”, Plain Bob Major. You can see Tiffany Ng play the carillon by clicking here.

And excerpts of my music related to the idea:

Rice, “Here We Sleep”, conducted by Geoffrey Pope

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Ravi Kittappa, Decantations (March of the Srutis)

The public landscape is littered with many sonic artifacts. Some sounds are man-made and some are natural. Nonetheless, all of these sounds interact to create a wallpaper-like background that often goes unnoticed regardless of it’s complexity, sophistication, or beauty. Much of the time these sounds are perceived as a constant hum or drone. The work that I am proposing takes the musical notion of drones and juxtaposes it amongst the sounds (drones) of urban life.

This work would incorporate the use of both manual and electronic sruti boxes (easily playable indian drone instruments), playback from portable electronic devices, and any other portable instrument that participants choose to play. As long as the object can sustain a pitch it can be used. Participants will be grouped together, each group having a different sequence of drone pitches and led by several sruti box players. The groups will proceed from varying locations within the given area, encountering other groups and the inherent sounds of the surroundings. These encounters will effect a change in the drone pitches of the groups. Instructions for changes in the drones will be made according to other groups and sounds encountered. Uncontrolled sounds that occur in the given area (arrival of trains, church bells, etc) will also be assimilated and immersed within the drones. Ultimately, all the groups will meet creating a large and varying drone resolving to a finish.

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Amina Heckstall, Bringing Africa to New York in December

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Simon Fink, Not Alone

The 2011 Make Music Winter Call-For-Proposals asks for works “suitable for participants moving through New York City streets in
December.” New York City streets in December. Whatever other associations one might have with the New York City streets in December, one could hardly come up with another set of six words that could so poignantly sum up, or summon up, a particular kind of contemporary urban melancholy—the feelings of loneliness and disconnect one can experience most sharply when one is surrounded by strangers in the big, cold city. Not Alone, my proposed sonic public art work, would address and work with this psychosocial issue by providing participants and spectators with ways of sharing and connecting with one another through sound.

What’s going on in the heads of all these people passing by? What are they thinking/feeling/seeing? Participants from the street would be invited to spontaneously record their responses to questions like these. The audio of a participant’s voice would be instantly combined in a collage of the voices of other passers-by speaking about their current mental state, whether it be mundane or profound. This sonic texture would be controlled by a computer, digitally manipulated live by musician participants, and locally projected for all to hear.

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Lainie Fefferman, Jascha Narveson, Cameron Britt, The Gaits

Celebrating the famously urgent pace of New York City pedestrians, we propose to give a voice to their feet!

We intend to create a piece that can be “played” by any size group of iPhone owners.

We will create a downloadable application that will employ iPhone accelerometers to turn the individual movements of a group into triggers for composed samples.  By strapping them to the ankles of participants, (and connecting them to a small, battery powered, wrist-worn speakers), iPhones will become instruments effortlessly played by strolling, sauntering, or sprinting down city streets.

The piece will begin with a group starting up our iphone app and taking a walk together.

When walking, (when the accelerometer senses rapid changes of speed), an individual’s steps will become an ever changing, uniquely personal rhythm.  When standing still, (when the accelerometer senses a lack of motion), an individual will trigger one of a bank of drone notes, meant to combine harmoniously with the standing-triggered drone notes of others in the group.

The piece will culminate with the individuals of the group meeting in a large open space and standing still until their drone samples end.

Possibilities to be explored include:

• employing the GPS system built into iPhones to have the triggered sample sets change as a function of position in the city (as an individual crosses the street, his/her steps could change suddenly from tin whistle toots to car horn blasts)

• using as samples recordings of the exact city locations to be traversed during the “playing” of The Gaits

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Jennifer Jolley, Press Play Parade

Have you ever wanted to participate in a parade but didn’t have the musical talent to participate?

I originally created “Press Play” as an audience interactive sound installation using audio tape, percussion, toy instruments and children’s tape players. For that project, I orchestrated a previously composed fugue (the 6-voice Ricercar from Johann Sebastien Bach’s The Musical Offering) for basic child-friendly instruments, recorded the individual parts to tape and gave interspersed audience members playback devices with the six different parts (or voices) on tape. On cue, each audience member with a tape player “Press(ed) Play,” and the fugue unfolded around them, creating the effect for the audience members of being a part of a complete musical ensemble.

For my “Press Play Parade,” I will rearrange excerpts from Tchaikovsky’s The Nutcracker, record the individual parts to tape, and give parade participants playback devices. Not only will each audience member “Press Play” at the same time, but some will also be given children’s percussion instruments to play along. Now, who wants to be drum major?

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Tom Peyton, Bell by Bell

Bell by Bell will create the opportunity for anyone to take part in creating a coordinated, unique, soundscape as part of Make Music Winter. Through the distribution of 100 bells and the guidance of a team of conductors, the piece will shimmer in the streets. Each individual will contribute to the creation of the atmospheric piece through carrying out one simple act: ringing a bell.

The piece will begin by distributing a bell to each attendee. These bells will be tuned to 10 pitches with the various pitches mixed up among the crowd. The bells will be color coded with, for instance, C corresponding to red, D to blue, etc. At the front of the procession will be a group of conductors each with a colored flag. When the conductor with the red flag raises his flag everyone with red bells will start ringing their bells and so on for each color. Through this system of visual cues, chords, melodies, and percussive clanging will constitute an engaging performance for both participants and observers.

I plan to compose a piece that will take full advantage of the possibilities of mobile bells while also carefully considering the complexities of cuing participants. I am especially excited by taking advantage of the full voice of the ensemble with broad, lush chords played at high volume contrasted with thinner chords slowly moving through smaller clusters of pitches. These instruments and this structure lend the opportunity to pair soothing, contemplative passages with boisterous, celebratory climaxes.

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Danielle Schwob, Cristina Spinei and Jakub Ciupinski, No Strings Attached

(in collaboration with Blind Ear Music and SYZYGY NEW MUSIC)

Picture an ensemble of sixteen musicians standing in a public space in New York, each wearing headphones and concentrating on a laptop in front of them as they play.  A queue forms close by, snaking its way around the perimeter of the installation to where a single person stands, facing the ensemble with his hands resting on a screen that is mounted in front of him.  He touches a button and almost instantly hears the melody of the wind section shift, watching the musicians as they respond to his command like puppets at the hand of a puppeteer.  Moments later he begins adjusting a fader and listens as the percussion section diminuendos to an almost inaudible volume, allowing the sounds of the city to seep into the sonic landscape.

Composers Danielle Schwob (SYZYGY NEW MUSIC), Jakub Ciupinski and Cristina Spinei (Blind Ear Music) propose No Strings Attached: an installation that seeks to examine the line between autonomy and heteronomy in relation to live performance.  Using Blind Ear’s unique software and musicians from the SYZYGY NEW MUSIC Ensemble, participants will work with musical material inspired by the master/slave dynamic of the performance setting, manipulating parameters such as tempo, dynamics and instrumentation and triggering elements of the composition as desired.  Each will hear his or her creative choices realized by live musicians in real time, and will experience the singular thrill of interacting with an ensemble.  The end result will be a rich cloud of sound that hangs over the New York streets and bears the collaborative stamp of its inhabitants.

Example of the Blind Ear Software!

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Aaron Einbond, Field Guide

Sounds from New York’s natural spaces – parks, air, beaches, waterways – will be recorded with an emphasis on sounds that are hidden, rare, difficult to access, outside of daily urban life.  The resulting recordings of wind, birds, insects, waves, and human outdoor activities will be re-organized into virtual spaces based on their timbre.  These “listening-maps” will contrast with the cartography of the sounds’ actual sources, presenting an alternate auditory geography of the city.

Listeners will download a selection of mp3 files and corresponding pdf “field guides” to their own iPods.  A given soundtrack and map will direct the listener to a starting point to begin a walking tour while listening to the recording through headphones.  However the tour will be planned to create a new audio map, in contrast and counterpoint with the live sonic input of the city.  Sonic logic will replace visual logic in leading the listener through the New York street grid. The contrast will be further amplified by the superposition of summertime natural recordings with the gritty wintertime setting.  Fellow-listeners might cross paths on the walk, or encounter non-initiates with headphones who are unaware of their involuntary participation.  The listener may follow as many tours as desired, until breaking out in favor of the free-improvisation of daily life.

The work will bring into focus the City’s own identity as an interactive soundscape in constant evolution.   Field Guide encourages all to hear everyday motions as compositional actions that bring the urban installation to life.

What the Blind See (2008-2010) sound installation [stereo excerpt]

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