CCRMA World Update

ccrmawup2

Today all the sounds belong to a continuous field of possibilities lying within the comprehensive dominion of music.

Behold the new orchestra: the sonic universe!

And the musicians: anyone and anything that sounds!

— R. Murray Schafer

During CCRMA World Update, MUSIC 101 Listening Rooms will feature a curated list of project-based audio works beginning in Winter 2020, most of which have been produced remotely due to the pandemic. The listening rooms are organized into separate virtual listening spaces (breakout rooms) that can be navigated freely at will, much like an installation. The work you will hear reflects the complexity of 2020; issues of loss, isolation, identity, social injustice, climate change, and global and political unrest.

NOTE** Please consider participating silently with your camera off as you navigate between listening rooms.
Headphones/amplification recommended.

Registration for CCRMA World Update is required and can be completed at this link.

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PROJECTS + LISTENING ROOM PLAYLISTS:

Sonic Terrain
Create a 2-3-minute sonic space(s). Is the space “real” or imaginary? Does the sonic space exist in a specific time period or is it timeless? Is it personal or universal? Where are you placing your listener?

Voice
Create a 2-3-minute audio composition that utilizes the concept of voice as a main component of the piece. What is a voice? Who or what has a voice? Is a voice something only produced by living entities? Do machines and objects have a voice(s)? Can a physical space have a voice? How can a voice function like an instrument? How can an instrument function like a voice?

Samples, Sampling, Samples
Research and choose an audio composition that samples at least one preexisting recording/sample. Find the original source. Create a new 2-3-minute audio track using samples from both sources. The piece you submit should be uniquely yours. I.e.: you must contribute to the previous works to create something new.

Beats with Daily Sounds
Create a 1-3-minute percussive composition that incorporates daily occurring sounds. Consider your sound sources and your relationship to them. Consider repetition. Consider habits (personal, social, regional, global, digital, other).

Dealer’s Choice
Reflect on the content of this course and create a 4-6-minute piece of your choice.

 4 Unit EPs
Students enrolled in MUSIC 101 for 4 units will produce and publish an EP in any genre, process, or style. The duration of the entire EP should be no less than 12 minutes, but no more than 20 minutes. The EP can include multiple tracks or one long audio composition. In addition to producing audio, students will also create album artwork and write a short statement (100-150 words) about their overall process and/or concept.

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PARTICIPATING STUDENTS:

W21
Grace Cheng, Oscar Cortes, Michael Crinot, Dominic DeMarco, Malachi Frazier, Bryant Huang, Asher Hensley, Russel Lacara, Yujin Nam, Slava Naprienko, Maiya Mao, Cindy Ramirez, Eli Shi, Camilla Wickman, Selina Xia, Ryan Yu

F20
George A, Noah Bailyn, Andre Brilliant, Daryl Budiman, Andrew Conkey, Mitchell Garmany, Trace Guzman, Ian Gunther, Tasha Johnson, Luke Mann, Hannah Santos, Zachary Shand, Josue Solano Romero, Dahlia Suiter, Ryan Wixen

SP20
Zach Argo, Omar El-Sabrout, Mark Endo, Julie Fukunaga, Emma Hard, Kao Hmong Lee, Bella Khuu, Parthiv Krishna, Dija Manly, Jewel Matanane, Rick Melucci, Cameron Most, Michael Murakami, Sam Petersen, Ashwin Pillai, Danny Ritz, Aspen Stuart-Cunningham,Tim Wu, Jack Xiao, Asia Zhang

W20
Victoria Chiek, Jorge Cueto, Elliot Dauber, Griffin Dunaif, Joey Freidman, Ani Prabhu, Luke Miller, Will Mitchell, Megan Lu, Federico Reyes Gomez, Jack Ryan, Eitan Weiner, Jennifer Xiong

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4 UNIT EP STATEMENTS + LINKS:

W21
Slava Naprienko: Evolution – A
00:12:06

At first I wanted to make an album using only the single note A produced by a pure sine wave using a virtual instrument Operator. But soon I realized that the only thing I can do with one note is panning, changing the volume, some audio effects, and rhythm. Practically, it was closer to percussion. So instead I decided to add note after note to the A minor scale throughout the composition. The composition was evolving as I was adding more and more notes. At the first part of the melody I had only one note playing rhythmic patterns, but at the end I had melodies and harmonies. Evolution A happened.

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Malachi Frazier: Memos
00:12:11

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Divyesh Khatri: Winter
00:16:29

This Music 101 EP reflects on my inspirations in the music world. Though I am mainly a hip hop beat maker, the beginning tracks draw heavy inspiration from film and tv scores while also combining elements from Nick Mira’s style of “emo rap” production. The third track is my own attempt at venturing out from my comfort zone of hip hop and exploring scoring for myself. This track is supposed to encapsulate the fast pace of my winter quarter while also capturing a certain “lost” feeling I had after coming down with Covid pneumonia and experiencing a winter storm. I really enjoyed creating mood shifts through quiet, more ambient sounds, and I employed this technique on the second half of the EP. The final songs symbolize my “resurrection,” or overcoming of the obstacles in front of me.

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Cindy Ramirez: In A Year
00:12:09

The concept of my EP is the stages I experienced during quarantine; hence, the name: In a Year. We have been inside of our houses for a year now, and a lot has changed for me in that time. My first song represents the quick period of elation I felt at the fact that I was at home with newfound freedom and time. During this time I felt like I was living the life I wanted to live because I was learning new things and simply vibing heavily—for lack of a better description. I would go out longboarding and blasting music in between my senior year classes, which had become significantly easier.

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Eli Shi: Sonder
00:15:28

Originally, I just wanted to use the EP project as an excuse to connect with some old friends in a meaningful way. At the same time, I approached it like a qualitative research project: not arriving with a hypothesis or a vision, rather just a methodology. After interviewing my friends using the questions below, I looked for motifs. Sadly, there were few motifs that I found interesting. By interesting, I mean unique to my friends. However, there were a few interesting thoughts or images, mostly about their relationship to the environment, and so I chose to center the EP around Earth. Additionally, people seemed to have a nice time reminiscing on their childhood, and so I turned that into a piece. The result was interesting: I realized a good number of my friend’s positive memories have something to do with nature, and the project became cohesive. For the titles of the pieces, I took words that I like from www.dictionaryofobscuresorrows.com/

  1. What’s your earliest positive memory
  2. What’s your earliest negative memory
  3. What do you think your life might look like in 2 years, 20 years, and 40 years? Can you try and describe the scene?

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F20
George A: 11.08
00:18:08

A lot of how I think and a lot of what I do is the result of the influential voices around me. And during the process of developing this EP, I think I was subconsciously exploring the question of where my artistic voice fits in the larger picture of my influences—digging into the intangible ingredients that cause me to think the way that I do, and trying to identify or discover my voice, which feels so heavily dependent upon, but instinctively different from the sounds and styles of my inspirations. I used sampling to reflect this idea and created a project that I think is more like a buffet of ideas and questions rather than a list of statements and answers. Conceptually, 11.08 feels to me like an elaborate, semi- abstract sonic journal entry.

But in less pretentious terms, 11.08 is a sample-based beat tape.

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Noah Baylin: Insert Coin
00:13:07

For my electronic portfolio, I chose to compose a set of video game music tracks designed for a standard NES platformer. As such, it conforms to the limitations of NES hardware (and can even be exported to an NES game via Deflemask). Additionally, each track is a variation on the main theme, so they could all theoretically fit in the same game with differently themed levels.

The NES hardware limitations dictate that a particular track only has room for 5 simultaneous tracks: 2 square waves, 1 triangle wave, 1 noise, and 1 track of samples that must be less than 8 bits. I’ve experimented with different ways to use the noise track and the sample track to create drum noises. “Main Theme” has drums in the noise track entirely, while Boss Battle! has a bass drum kick in the sample track. However, most other tracks utilize a combination of those two channels for rhythmic effects.

There are also many limitations to effects, rhythms, and especially track duration, which is why the music is designed to loop several times. Each track plays for 2 minutes before fading out, which simulates the space the players will be in when they hear the music during a 2-minute long level.

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Dahlia Suiter: HALF, AGAIN
00:12:47

While making this EP, I thought a lot about telling the same narrative through different sounds and emotions. It felt similar to the way that we process what we go through, with bouts of sadness, joy, anger, and fear repeating again and again. It’s all so cyclical even when we don’t want it to be. I try to figure out the narrative around my voice in half, again – how it’s been used and how it’s been hushed; how it can be both genuine and artificial. I hope that whatever came from this feels messy and honest, like a memory.

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Ryan Wixen: U && I
00:12:16

This EP came out completely differently than it would have before I took this class. The concepts we studied and the projects we did transformed my approach to making this. At the start, I was planning to make four jazz/pop songs. Then as we learned about field recording, noise, sampling, synthesis, and vaporwave, these ideas and techniques changed the way I approached making music in the DAW.

I began this composition using a workflow I developed in the Sonic Terrain project. I recorded sounds in my bathroom like the sink, toilet, clock, drawers, and doors, loaded them into my DAW, and listened through, picking out interesting, usable material. I also recorded a simple arrangement of a jazz song of mine, “You and I,” which was the musical basis for this piece. Then, combining skills from the beats and sampling projects with the concept of slowing things down from vaporwave, I stretched and contorted my source material into the final composition. It was very rewarding to apply what I learned from the class in this culminating project.

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Luke Mann: Prolonged Adolescence
00:17:32

I started this project with the intention of creating an EP that revolves around coming of age. More specifically I wanted to reflect on common emotions felt by people around my age. Hoping to improve my sampling, I spent a while listening to physical vinyl records and online tracks, eventually using samples in each of my tracks. The finished product was a collection of hip-hop and R&B styled beats. Although I was satisfied with the musical tape, I decided to add extracted vocals from songs that I enjoy and that match the feeling I was going for with each track. On Summer, I use isolated vocals from a Vince Staples track to set a theme of passing memories. Leo’s Track features overcast verses by my roommate Leo. Sunshine Interlude is a quick interlude made by sampling D’Angelo cover of Everybody Loves The Sunshine. The final two tracks, Nas’s Track and Streets bring the album to a conclusion, each similarly consisting of beats made by me with sampled vocals.

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Mitchell Garmany: Two Seven Off
00:12:03

This EP started as a look into how I could use various money- and gambling-related sounds – shuffling cards, dealing, coins landing on one another and spinning to a stop – within the context of various beats. As I looked for additional sources to flesh things out, I ended up drawing from various films: Tall in the Saddle, The Sting, Pulp Fiction, Wall Street, and a short film titled Behind the Ticker Tape; various songs: Pink Floyd’s “Money,” The O’Jays “For the Love of Money,” Dire Straits’ “Money for Nothing,” and the soundtrack to Behind the Ticker Tape; and my own compositional efforts. Ultimately, the EP ended up winding its way through themes of gambling, retro video game aesthetic, capitalism, and death. Along the way, I dip into microtonal harmonies and vaporwave-ish sound. While there are apparent divisions between some of the works, the entirety is intended as one listening experience.

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Daryl Budiman: Roses
00:16:50

The Roses EP is chronologically constructed to signify a special storyline. The extended play starts off with Milan Intro, which offers an upbeat old-school-inspired track to initiate the story. In this piece, I intend to challenge myself by experimenting and harmonizing different musical genres including hip-hop, jazz, and indie–which I believe puts me out of my comfort zone of predominantly chill R&B music. The EP is then followed by Moonlight, which I would simply describe as a “pretty track”. Moonlight revolves around R&B, trap, and lo-fi. The main intention is to create a dreamy and romantic atmosphere, while also allowing the audience to experience the rhythmic structure of the song. Moonlight is then followed by Brooklyn Interlude, which creates a more dynamic and exuberant atmosphere, serving as an upbeat interlude between two calmer pieces. The highlight of this piece is the falsetto vocals that I’ve freestyled over the track. The fourth piece, Trapsoul, revolves around what the title suggests, Trapsoul. This track represents my main production focus, which includes signature pitched-down background vocals. The EP is then finalized with the finishing touch of the Osaka Outro, which represents my intention as an artist to say thank you and goodbye to those who have listened to my EP. This track experimented with voicemail-inspired commentary and vocals and revolves around the concept of lo-fi production.

 

SP20

Julie Fukunaga: mGv_dj
00:10:53

Soundscapes of hold music and MRI scans

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Omar El-Sabrout: el nar ba2et dokhan / the fire became smoke
00:16:26