The first video

This video is a very rough cut of the first walk from three cameras positioned by Gilbert Halcrow and Ken An. I have chopped them together and added the music we have so far. The long silent bit will be filled!!!

This means we have the combined instruments and voice piece, as well as the rant (as I call it) over music. Note that the rant has only one voice, sadly mine. This needs to be overdubbed many times so we can switch from voice to voice and from solo to mixes.

The cast is a group of year 10 drama students.

Anyway. Here is the video.

Some Sounds

These files represent where we have got so far with the music. I am really pleased with the progress. Some of this sounds absolutely spectacular. I love the waves in which the music comes, and it really fits the movement. Probably some of the music only makes sense if you can see the movement, and we will get that up on the blog soon.
The tracks below have been mixed together and make more sense than the older recordings
This is just the voices alone. Some wonderful sounds, some of it is really beautiful.
It would be really nice to record each voice independently and mix them separately, and hopefully we will get to that stage. There are some (very few) bits where some of the harmony choices don't quite work and perhaps the singers can improve on this by listening carefully.
We now have to add the second half.

This is just the instruments. I must admit to being a bit more nervous about how this would work together. There was at least another track that we thought we recorded, but it didn't appear on the machines. We have lost Tim's second bass track, but we can add others.

Putting them together was tricky as some seem to fit and others don't. However I think this works. It is the sort of thing I like, so probably others don't! Players should listen and see if they can improve or add tracks. We probably need some more, and some of theses could be slicker.

They way it keeps going back to the quiet parts is hypnotic, and really lovely. The crescendo as more instruments come in together works for me too.

And this is both mixed together. I had great fun with this, and I love it. The voices sound better with the instruments behind them. The instruments sound better with the chopped voices. Not sure what a final collage will sound like, but this really makes me feel we can do something. I just have a big smile on my face at the end of it.
Could we ever perform this?

It is the week of 9th September and the project is progressing. Yesterday we got further with the choral writing. See the video below for how far we got. The harmonies are sounding really beautiful, but we trip up over some of the rhythms and the transitions.
Not yet sure about the spoken lines.
Today we hope to get further with the instrumental bit. Not quite sure which musicians will be there, but hopefully we can progress. I wonder if we can get some better recording this time.
I am toying with ideas of overlaying vocal snippits on the instruments. I think we can get some good effects.
Hopefully on Thursday we can do some filming of the movement. I think we will have 5 year 10s from Mhairi's class, and Gilbert has plans for the cameras. Ken is getting us some headcams to go with the bigger shots, so it could be fun to intersperse these.
Can we keep to the rhythm is the question. We need a clicktrack in 4s and 5s! Do I have to programme it. Don't know.

Watch this space for more music and video

Here is some music with Tim, Jeremy and Jason. Jason was playing on the table, the broken table and the dustbin. He thinks this is the reason the percussion is out of time! The bass an guitar sound OK, but I think too cliched, or tuneful if you like. We need to move away from the conventional chord patterns. Please all listen to Tortoise: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5sps7YxLeYM

And go back to Trout mask Replica

And Reich Remixed http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eQIF_QE0TGk

Or electric counterpoint 2

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YsLVWRTTRgM

and 3

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pIF3rKppVWU

Were back and we have some music

This was the first time we have got together after the summer break. There were two sessions. The first was with Jess, Amanda and Olivia. We worked on some of the vocal sections and did a good job with the first four lines. We worked a bit on the next two, but ran out of time and inspiration. There were lost of ideas exchanged, and there is lots more to so. I liked the choices the singers made, and the way they started to listen to each other. This video has a rendition of the first four lines. Sorry it was recorded on a phone, so the quality is not brilliant. Needs separate tracks and mixing.
I am still not sure about that last note on "entire of itself".

The second session was with instruments. We had Jeremy, Jason, Tim, Johnny and Tom.
using the same time structure as the singers we tried to build up each of 5 motifs and then blend them together. The unusual combinations came in and out of phase, moving from elegant harmony to jarring clashes. Tom was the one who really to the inspiration of the Captain to heart!
Recording this on a phone was probably a complete waste of time, but here you go! You can't hear the balance between the guitars, abd the sax and percussion are too loud. It was quite good live!!!!!

Movement trial

I found some randomly chosen students in the playground and did a very rough trial of some of the movements. See the video below.
The way the numbers built up was rather interesting. As anticipated, the crossing in the centre was good.
The difficulties where that the students did not know where to walk to if there wasn't a person there. They said they would need a marker. Also the timing. They didn't walk at the same speed, so a lot of the effect was lost. They suggested that a musical beat would help. It will also need disciplined rehearsal I think.
Here is the film.

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Movement

If you don't know Beckett's Quad, it is a piece of movement for 4 people with some associated music. It was written for TV. You can see it here. I quite like this version because of the Gamelan style music.

Beckett was himself unhappy with the manoeuvre that they need to do in the middle to avoid hitting each other, but didn't take the obvious step of putting in a fifth person and using a pentagram. The maths in his original version is interesting. He uses combinations and permutations to have all possible groups of two and three walkers. The geometrical path is also exhaustive in some way. However there are repetitions.

My idea is to have 5 walkers, use the pentagram. This means each walker will trace the pentagram path from their particular point. We will do these circuits:

1 circuit with no walkers
5 separate circuits, each with one walker
10 circuits with 2 walkers
10 circuits with 3 walkers
5 circuits with 4 walkers
1 with all 5.

I wonder how long this will take?

Musically we can give each walker a refrain on a different instrument. This can be added afterwards to the video. We would get every possible combination of the sounds. Hopefully some rather interesting clashes.

For the 10 circuits of 2, I would use: 1&2, 3&4, 5&1, 2&3, 4&5, 1&3, 2&4, 3&5, 4&1, 5&2
For the three, we use their negative. How will the walkers remember this?

Can we film it in several different locations and cut it together later?

Maths footnote.
The shape may be the most interesting geometrical figure there is. Certainly historically. For the Pythagoreans it held within it the secret of the universe. They kept its dark secret to themselves and killed the two people who discovered it. It is possible to date the beginning of disciplined abstract thought from this moment. The discovery that it is not true that "All is Number" shook the sect, and in turn, the world. In my view the most important discovery ever made. I may be overstating this a bit.
Of course, as well as the Golden Ratio and the discovery of the irrational, the shape is the simplest rational sided shape, having exactly 2 1/2 sides.

Poetry session

This was new for me.

I wanted to get some students to cooperatively write a piece of text that can be used in the performance.
The text will be spoken, or shouted or declaimed or ranted in some way. This will probably occur over some hopefully rather disjointed music.

What did we do?
Well, hijacked a year 12 Literature class and shared access to a google doc of the text by John Donne. We discussed the poem briefly and all the students wrote comments. They then responded to each others comments and added more.
I took the final text from the doc and gave a very minor editing, which took no more than 15 minutes. Much of the editing was to remove some of the longer sentences and split them into choppier phrases.
Here is the final piece, which I think has some broken internal rhythm. I am very pleased with the text and I am sure we can use it.

No man is an island   

           

entire of itself;

No one is self sufficient, entirely,

entirely self, entirely sufficient, entirely self sufficient

no man is isolated

Why Man

Are men united

Are women segregated?

Are women inferior to men? Superior to Men, equal to men, the same as men, different to men?

When did he write this?

Did women have no place in the world?

Do women have a place in the world?

Will women have no place in the world

What about now?

Everything an individual does, it ripples across the community

Like water ripples round an Island

Like water ripples in  puddle

Like water ripples in a ripple

A ripple on a ripple

Some people live as islands

Do they choose to live as islands.

Do they have a choice

Can they have a choice

is seclusion an impossibility?

Can they function without other people

If they can’t function with other people

every man is a piece of the continent,

a part of the main;

We don’t live in isolation

sense of community

community of sense

We are interconnected,

We are together,

Only together

only together can we make a difference

Sense of unity

Unity of sense

You can be separated into groups

You can be separated into countries

, but you’re still part of the continent

if a clod be washed away by the sea,

Europe is the less,

land

piece of land

every piece of land

every piece of land is important

one man gone makes the society weaker

Why Europe

the only continent? Is Europe the ‘main’?

origin of Western civilisation

Western sillivisation

If a clod breaks off

washes away

continent is less

so the people are less.

So when one man dies,

whole of mankind

is lessened by that death

everyone is important to the group

regardless of nationality, or race, or cast, or gender, or sexuality, or politics, or religion

the tiniest difference matters

every action is important

affects all of us

as well as if a promontory were,

promontory means like outcast

like cast out

like on the edge,

like off the edge

No matter how isolated we may feel, we are still united as one

Is a promontory

someone who stands out

from  the crowd?

What happens if we reject him/her?

What does that say about us?

as well as any manner of thy friends

 “promontory” and “friends”, juxtaposed

Outsiders should not be your friends?

Or Outsiders should be friends

Do we prove the point?

Do we disprove that point?

or of thine own were;

no individualism - collectivism,

we are all interdependent

importance of cohesion

any man's death diminishes me,

because I am involved in mankind.

if one gets affected everyone affected

impact on a collective has an effect on an individual

Affected Collective

Alliteration

death and diminishes

highlights the notion of the collective being affected if one dies

the human collective vs. individual

Collected Affective

‘Diminishes me’

we are part of the community

A loss will affect us all.

Diminish, reduce to nothing, become one of the invisible people

we should all be personally involved with each other
our duty to protect each other

Is our belief in caring for mankind simply a form of tokenism? Do we just tick the boxes at Island School?

Does mankind simply refer to our species or does it symbolise the abstract connection we have between us?

And therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls;

it tolls for thee

 “It tolls for thee” short, sharp death

Bells ring for the collective,

not for individuals-

We are the bells, and together we can make something.

Bells should not ring for one person, but for everyone.

Bells call for death?

Another’s death is also one’s loss

The loss of one person is a loss for everyone

There is always something you can do to help others

Don’t think about whether you’re important

everyone is as important as everybody else,

equality.

The bells bring people together-

for a funeral or a wedding

important as everybody else,

equality.

The bells bring people together

for a funeral or a wedding

Whistleblower on the run

Hawaii to Hong Kong

Hong Kong to Moscow

Moscow to Ecuador

do we isolate him because of his actions,

because he is a promontory,

or do we protect?

Protests in Brazil

Protests in Turkey –

connections between the two

Small group of people

then the entire country

Promontory. The bells toll.

Liu Xiabo

what is happening in our own back yard?

Are we aware

Does his situation connect to ours...

potentially?

Do we care until it happens to us too?

Promontiry

Bells

Bells Bells