I wanted to give a quick plug for my MMNY performance! I am going to be spending all of June 21 running around picking up equipment and setting up for Gradient vs. Drone, composed by good friend Eric Frederic. The piece examines the relationship between rhythmic and melodic consonance and dissonance through a pair of drums sets and programmed tones. As one pair of drums and tones stays constant in pitch and tempo throughout the piece, the other pair slowly modulates up creating varying moments of friction and connection between rhythms and tones. Check out the video below to whet your appetite, although the version that we have been working on for MMNY will expand on this, most essentially by further accentuating the dualities of the piece in space.

Gradient vs. Drone will happen at the intersection of Allen and Stanton in the center of the pedestrian mall. We’ll play the piece twice, first at 5:30pm and then again at 6:30pm. Hope to see you on Tuesday!

One more SXSW tidbit.  I shot this quick video of Brooklyn-based Lucius’ performance (mentioned in my previous post). The blend of the two young ladies’ voices and their comfort in unorthodox confines really grabbed me.  They’re trying to get their second album all the way funded, so help out if you can!

My 3rd trip to South By Southwest was really, really intense.  Every day felt like a week.  Besides playing 6 Wallpaper shows in three days (with the likes of the Hot Tub, Astronautalis, A, B, and the Sea, Angie Mattson, and Bleubird), I don’t think I could have taken more music and more sound.  People were out in droves, the days were hot and muggy, and unfortunately the gear did not lug itself.

One of the defining traits of SXSW in its current form is the overwhelming number and density of bands in the main festival area.  It was impossible to escape the din of musicians pounding away at instruments and belting it out into microphones.  This volume (in both senses) was both great and terrible.  You always had a chance of randomly stumbling onto something really interesting or exciting but at the same time the sound of band after band, whether you want to hear them or not, began to desensitize me to a means of expression that can be so special.  This made me think of how MMNY gets density and location just right.

While there was sometimes too much to take in, moving through the streets did give me opportunity to appreciate new soundscapes formed out of ever-changing components.  Pausing on the corner of 7th St and Red River focused the buzz of the crowd on the street with the low drone of a nearby metal band and the high-pitched melody of a folk singer, accented with the pulse of helicopter blades overhead and a receding siren blocks away.

This fluid relationship between sound and space also applied very directly to the connection between interior and exterior spaces of the festival.  Exterior spaces were not only activated in their own right but were also integrated into interior spaces.  For example, every time I passed by the Bat Bar with their stage directly in front of their 6th St. windows, there was a crowd both inside and also spreading onto the street, the bands enveloped on all sides by the audience.

Being at SXSW reiterated the potency and importance of MMNY’s site-specific approach.  There is something very powerful about musicians adapting to new, unexpected environments and thus recontextualizing how the space and its potential are understood.  SXSW was at its best when performances tapped into this relationship between performer and unexpected space.  One of my favorite sets was from Brooklyn’s own Lucius, who I saw playing in a dusty parking lot, stomping on top of a picnic table in front of a truck selling Japanese street food.

UPDATED: Fixed typo

[We're happy to introduce everyone to Tom, the first of what is an expanding roster of Make Music New York bloggers.  Welcome, Tom!]

I am really excited to be a blogging for Make Music New York because it brings together two of my passions: musical performance and  the vitality of New York City public life. I am a drummer and an urban geographer and have been playing in bands and wandering around cities for a long time. Leading up to June 21, I will be covering the experimental and rock side of MMNY and profiling past and upcoming performers. I’m also planning a performance for the big event that I’ll talk more about as it takes further shape!

I believe deeply in the power of activating public spaces in innovative ways through the arts and love being a part of recontextualizing environments through projects and performances. Two of the more rewarding performances I have been a part of were events that featured lots of drummers playing in public spaces: 88 Boadrum in Williamsburg and 40 Drummers for the 40th anniversary of Earth Day. Recently, I organized a pair of companion, site-specific percussion pieces, Play Grounds and Fire Escapes, as part of the Bring to Light and Conflux public festivals. And along with some collaborators, I am developing a spatial listening experiment series called Group Listening Alone.  Our first event was last December; a group of us simultaneously listened on headphones to the entirety of Steve Reich’s Music for 18 Musicians while exploring the Main Concourse at Grand Central Terminal.  We found a number of resonant connections between the piece and the place and really valued the opportunity to simply look, listen and focus.

Looking forward to sharing thoughts and hearing from everyone. I am headed to SXSW next week and will report back shortly on how Austin utilizes their public spaces during the festival!