Compositional Strategy

For the Sydney, Sam, Spencer group, the last rehearsal was our breakthrough.  We started out with two crates of cables, instruments, half a dozen or more different colored boxes with various knobs and buttons (not sure how guitarists use them as pedals, but perhaps they have unusually dextrous toes), and upon encountering a technical impasse proceeded to spend the next hour recording really random stuff (speaking nonchalantly about mundane things, vocalizing wordlessly, clicking pens, knocking metal water bottles, inviting faculty cameos) and sampling it in real time using the Ableton square board thingy.

Methodologically, we didn't have one beyond the rules governing how to use the board (add new tracks one at a time in a grid, play at most one sample from each row at a time, and stop adding new tracks when the visible board is full, although that last one seems to be a matter of convenience and not an actual rule) and simple directives such as only sample mundane text with no tone, only sounds but no words, or anything goes.  At this stage we are following our individual impulses and seem to be pretty good at riffing off and collaborating with each other.

As rehearsals continue, we will be able to codify our choices, but it's too early in the process to start editing.  By the end of October we are hoping to be able to sample motion captured in real time using the video equivalent of the Abelton thingy, thus allowing dancers to interact with their past actions selected and replayed by other people.

Once the media are in place, we'll be able to curate the content and create a work that transcends the cool things we can do as a team.