BlackBox

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So, I will take this opportunity to introduce you to my musical side. I wasn’t always a programmer ya’ know .

My love with music started sometime around when I got my first record – an honest-to-goodness record – of the Star Wars Film track. I loved it! Then I saw a presentation of the orchestra at my elementary school and that was it. I wanted to play the Viola, it had such a deep and rich sound to it.

We didn’t have a Viola in our family, but I had some Great Uncle or something who had played and left his Violins with my Grandmother. So, my mother said I could try the Violin and if I didn’t like it they would try and get a Viola. The rest is history, I spent 8 years playing the Violin. I was never the greatest, but I wasn’t bad. I played in the Albuquerque Junior Orchestra then Symphony, then I played in the Youth Orchestra for 3 years. I took many private lessons and began to realize that I had a little bit of talent and if I really wanted to make it I needed lots and lots of practice. I kindof made a decision, if I couldn’t be great or make a lot of money then I probably didn’t want to dedicate enough time to make it a career.

When I was younger I also sang (before my voice changed) in the Albuquerque Boys Choir. I also was selected to play a part of one of the drummer boys in Carmen. Before I ever think about singing again I need some voice lessons to retune my ears.

But I still love music, especially electronica and some experimental electronica. As soon as I get my studio setup again I will begin making some mixes and hopefully recordings. Stay Tuned…

This time around we’ve got 2 Gun Mojo and X23 back in the house along with Special Guests Battery of Digits givin’ us some cool soundscapes to groove to.

• Battery of Digits – Electronic Soundscapes
• 2 Gun Mojo – Improv Electrobreaks
• X23 – The Battling Laptops

For more information on future String Theories, check out Tucson Underground

I am so excited by this, Cia and I have been working on putting together an electronica showcase featuring the talents of local (read Tucson and possibly Phoenix) electronica artists. She let me know that she received word from Vaudeville that we are on for Thursday shows starting in September, Yaaaay!

Some of the artists will probably include (waiting for confirmation):

• Not Breathing
• Metrognome (see asimetrix.com for most of these guys)
• X23
• Regulated Complexities
• Debbie
• xotek

Probable DJ’s

• AZSessions crew
• Me, if I get my act together in time for one of these shows

I was watching TechTV’s Big Thinkers today and they had on Tod Machover of MIT’s Media Lab. He was talking about this new project he had which was designed to help kids play and compose music. One of the cool items that they had on were the BeatBugs. These things rock! I want one so bad! But, unfortunately no one makes them yet.

So, what is so cool about the BeatBugs? First, they are incredibly easy to use. Tap them and they remember the rhythm you just tapped out and play it back. Not only that you can play over it with more rhythms. They also have a built-in speaker, but I would of course replace that with an audio out to feed into a mixer. In addition they have these sensitive feelers for even more individuated input. Very cool! Now here’s the other cool part, you can network multiple bugs together to compose, using others’ rhythms and tweaking, playing over, etc.

This fits in with my personal philosophy of using interesting things to make cool music.

Circuit Bending is another unique way of using existing electronics in ways they may not have been meant to use. This includes modifying (or modding) things like Speak ‘n Spells, Teddy Ruxpins, and the like to output their sound to a regular audio-jack directly, or in actually putting controls onto or into the device to control how it makes noise, er sound.

One of the things I love about Circuit Bending is that you can do pretty much whatever you want with whatever you want. Want to take a “Cow Says Moo” and be able to force it to say that phrase over and over whenever you want. Or be able to modify the sound – “bend” it to change pitch or time-stretch it? Chances are you can do it with a little tinkering and playing.

One performer I’ve seen use this stuff is Not Breathing. He falls into what I would call experimental electronica, along the same vein as Matmos and Jay Lesser. He recently moved back to Tucson from Seattle, we are very lucky to have so many electronica artists who call Tucson home (I’ll hit some of them up later for mini-interviews). Bottom line, there are tons of cool toys out there, some you buy and some you make, you make the choice . Maybe it’s time for me to borrow my friend Jim’s soldering iron and start playing .