Description Across Discipline

As a tech major, I’ve noticed that the daily work of a performance major is very accommodating. Often times Ben and I will throw Merryl a new track idea, and within a matter of seconds Merryl will have the key and general vibe of the song down, soloing to her heart’s content. Ben and I struggle to do this in reverse, when Merryl has a track for us, because we have to build patches, place notes in a piano roll, and make loops instead of just being able to play right then and there. I can imagine that this might be frustrating for Merryl when she is ready to go but has to sit around and watch us on our computers. I always knew that set-up is a long process for tech people, but now that our time is being compared to a performer which is not nearly as long, I see even more clearly now how long we really take! Ben and I have started attending outside rehearsals about 30 minutes to an hour before Merryl comes so that we are all ready at the same time.

Performance

When my group performed in front of an audience for the first time, we were as prepared as we wanted to be musically but not technically. We performed in ways that we understood were not ideal nor productive, and because of this I felt much of our feedback from the audience focused on that. Many people suggested things we already planned on doing and did not focus much on the things we wanted feedback on, such as how our piece worked musically or what we could do to improve our use of techno with the flute. Even still our group benefitted from performing in front of an audience, for we needed to get together a cohesive idea to present. Before that class period we were still dealing with many hypotheticals and “what if’s”. I think we are all glad to have contributed something cohesive and somewhat “final product”. So far I have contributed many compositional ideas but have not been able to perform too much because we did not have clock at the time. Now that should no longer be a problem. Moving forward, my group needs to focus on getting our technical stuff down so that our feedback isn’t almost 100% about things we already are aware of. 

Performance Reflection

Even though we just gave a presentation on Tuesday, I thought it was so helpful to finally present a concrete idea and have feedback from our peers. I really liked Sydney's idea of using my cello to create the synthesized natural sounds, instead of using a computer to do so. That idea had never hit me until she mentioned it and she was totally right-- I do have a treasure trove of sounds that I could create. I can mimic chirping birds, seagulls, squeaking mice, firetrucks, and the sound of me chomping away at my cello (though neither of the last two would probably fit in with the "nature" sound).

The presentation was also a wake up call because it made me realize how much time we lost experimenting and how little of this project we actually have. I was also a little embarrassed for my group/disappointed in myself when Professor Gurevich asked if I felt like I had a voice in this project because I honestly thought I did since we did come up with this project together as a group but it clearly didn't seem so from an outsider's perspective. It really made me rethink my role in my group and rethink what I have/want to invest into this project. But I think following Sydney's advice of incorporating my cello into the mix is a great start to making my voice more present.

Performance Reflection

Tuesday's performance felt a little awkward for me. We've been working really hard on our piece, and it felt strange to finally show it to people. I caught myself feeling a bit self-conscious at times (as a mover, not as a violinist). I am really relieved that people seemed to enjoy it, and understand the basic message that we are going for. I thought the feedback we got was very respectfully phrased, and helpful.

I know that the more we perform this piece, the better our communication will become. I feel like I can contribute more in terms of communicating/communing with Jeff and Molly when we  perform. I think one way we can improve is to simply run the piece a lot more. As we move ahead in the upcoming weeks, I think we will focus on expanding our beginning section, as there seemed to be a general agreement that it was a bit short. We also have to plan out the end of the piece, as we were improvising on Tuesday.

Performance reflection

After Tuesday's performance, I felt that there was much more room for growth in each section of our project. Collectively, a lot of time was spent experimenting with movement and to come up with a routine that would allow everyone to contribute from a dance and musical perspective but in the performance space, time went by much more quickly than we had felt even in rehearsals of the performed material. That said, I think it was a fair assessment to say that the opening material could be expanded upon from a perspective of choreography and from a musical standpoint in terms of the backing track.

The feedback about researching what musician/movers do in their performance was a great idea and I think that will supplement further development of our movement vocabulary, especially for Daphna and myself.

Overall, I think everyone's contributions to the group were valued and were well represented in the presentation. There is obviously more to come - we didn't want to reveal everything right away!

Performance Reflection

Yesterday was your groups first opportunity to coalesce your piece into a coherent whole. What did you learn bringing all of the parts together and forming them into something concrete? Reflect on your individual contribution; what did you contribute that was unique? Did you feel your contribution was valuable to the whole? What do you and your group need to focus on going forward? Due by Friday at 11:59pm.

Setting up is the thing that I notice most about what techs have to do. The prep that Kiran has to go though with patching and connecting. To get the process of her Tech to the speakers. With AJ, I think that we go through things that are similar in regards to the physicality.  The repeated use of the body. The sway and process of start, stop and listen are a necessity. We are have come to a big picture of what we want and see our process of micro to macro. We feel as though there is still room for exploration out of what would be our norm. This is where a happy place is forming. Have you have been on a journey and know the destination is just up around the bend? That is where we are in the process. Like any good stew it starts out with a rue. Then you add the trinity. After that you have a good stew a brewing.

Description Across Discipline

I haven't actually seen Jonathan perform with anything other than a couple rocks and a bowl of water yet, but the fact that I have seen him play a couple rocks and a bowl of water is enough to have learned something about the performance practice of a percussionist. I've come to realize how versatile percussionists can be and how many types of instruments and sounds they are able to master. It seems like our piece is heading in the direction of using nothing but natural objects as instruments, so Jonathan will have to learn entirely new instruments within a relatively short period of time.