Carnatic Water Music

Last Full Moon Broadcast of 2022

This coming Wednesday, December 7 from 10 am to noon, you can hear the last Waves of Gratitude Full Moon Broadcast for 2022. Each month since January, I have streamed a 2 hour radio broadcast of iBoD/dejacusse pre-recorded soundscapes and LIVE Eurorack Synth improvs during the Zenith of the Full Moon. These broadcasts have been special times for me to share with whomever might be listening all that is in my heart. The improvisations involve deep listening and attunement and responsiveness in the moment! The pre-recorded soundscapes, sound sculptures and paintings are where I get to play with co-horts and co-create in The Field, or put together a more musical composition in Ableton Live. All of this sound activity sparks joy within me! I am deeply grateful to Eleanor Mills and Jim Kellough for their avid listening, playful company and interest in growing their ears. All of the soundscape for Waves of Gratitude 2023 came from recordings of our Tuesday afternoon sessions.

The cycles of the moon have always been important to me. From a young age, I knew I did not want to have children, so when my period came along, it was basically a monthly annoyance! Then in graduate school I explored Wiccan spirituality, which lead me to use the moon cycles to track my menstrual cycles, and I embraced that which had been annoying. All of this to say- in 2023 there will be a Full Moon Broadcast AND a New Moon Broadcast each month. I feel a sense of joyful nostalgia in once again attending to these anchoring phases of the moon that were so much of part of the middle years of this life.

This Wednesday morning broadcast will feature Waves of Gratitude 2021 and 2022, the full album Audiorigami: Meditations on The Fold, Carnatic Water Music, and other soundscapes. The time is 10 am to noon est. Here is the link:

https://www.radiomast.io/station/ffa9c47f-f6bd-4eb9-ad61-c2c636ca88ca/pwa/app

Stop by and have a listen, a move, a vocalization! Improvise like no one else cares!!

National Water Dance 2020

TODAY, April 18th, iBoD is taking Durham to the National Water Dance! At 4 pm today, Jody Cassell will dance with the trees, the breeze, the sunlight and the water to iBoD’s Carnatic Water Music. The original plan was to create a watery container of sound, projections and flora through which Jody Cassell would lead the movement. Several other dancers including some of Jody’s young dance students were excited to perform this event at PS 137 in downtown Durham. Well, you know what happened! With so many cancellations, NWD leaders decided to go ahead with the dance as a streaming event. We will have Jody dancing to iBoD’s Carnatic Water Music at 4 pm this Saturday on Instagram Live from the safety of her home.

Here is some background on National Water Dance drom their website:

National Water Dance is a catalyst that encourages ongoing engagement between dance and the environment. Beginning in 2011 as a statewide project in Florida, it now boasts 65 locations across the United States—in 2018 including Puerto Rico for the first time. With each event National Water Dance recommits itself to the effort of increasing purposeful awareness to drive action on environmental issues, specifically climate change. Supporting the work of participants beyond our bi-annual event, National Water Dance spreads the word on the environmental issues they are tackling through monthly newsletters and social media. Our goal is to realize the power of dance as an engine of social change.

In the spirit of this mission, Jody suggests, through her movement choices, elements of this “engine” that are not as visible as issues. Stillness, slowness, wonder, and (dare we say it!) JOY in being right here and right now and moving! The soundscape Carnatic Water Music articulates and ensounds a few of the ways that water can move! To hear the entire piece go to Bandcamp/dejacusse.

As this large group of dancers in 65 locations across the country create a wave of healing energy directed toward Earth and Water, your attention will amplify the energy beyond all possibilities.

Join us for a five minute healing prayer on Instagram (@movinggrace) or through the National Water Dance Website. If you cannot join us at 4, please bear witness to the dance on Instagram TV. Now, more than ever, it is important to mind what we ourselves are giving our precious time and attention to!

Amplify the healing wave!

Sounding Board

My curiosity about sound is completely engaged by exploring modular synthesis. So far my understanding is often inarticulate and mystified! But thanks to Suzanne Ciani, True Cuckoo, Andrew Huang, Ultrabillions, Hark Madley, Lisa Belladonna, Caterina Barbieri, Moogfest, Bram Bos, and Kim Bjorn’s book Patch and Tweak, I am evolving a different way of creating soundscapes and perceiving the world. This is the stuff of life! Waveforms modulating waveforms, waveforms shaping waveforms, waveforms reflecting, refracting and bouncing around and through us. Energetic matter begins and ends on a wave.

I am focusing my Artists Residency here at home on improving my mixing skills and building a sounding board. The mixing skills are put to the test making the recording of Carnatic Water Music that iBoD will release in the next week. As I mixed this recording I received helpful suggestions from tutorials by Jason Moss, HarkMadley, Mathew Weiss. These skills are a forever work in progress. As for the sounding board, there are currently three main ingredients: Elektron:Model Samples as main sequencer providing beats/patterns and midi triggers to the Behringer Neutron. Audio out from both of these units into Audio Tracks in Ableton Live. Ableton will provide drones, loops, and AAC/EG clips which can process audio from either unit. I can do Master recordings in Ableton as well.

Even though I want a modular system, I will work with what I have now, and learn, and be ready when my modular system appears. (Make Noise modules are the ones that I want- doo doo do do)

The Model Samples and I are getting on fairly well. I am learning the architecture of the menus, watching people perform with it to see what key combos they use, and setting up some patterns. The samples available “in the box” are very cool and I am curating my own samples as well. Every sound is potential material so it is daunting.

The past few days, I experimented with some patch ideas in the Behringer Neutron. I have gotten alot of growling out of the synth, but no sound that I liked. There is one simple patch I use: the Sample and Hold into Delay Time. When the Delay Mix knob is raised and the S&H knob is turned up, there are lots of odd, random pitch artifacts that I enjoy hearing. Today I patched the Osc Mix into a Mult, then ran Mult 1 to the OD(overdrive)IN, and Mult 2 to Pulse Width 2. Tuned the oscillators to consonant pitches. Slowly turning the Osc Mix Knob opens a whole realm of timbres. When the OM knob was all the way to one side the tone could be made clear and bell-like. With the Oscillator shapes in the square or tone mod shape, the Pulse Width knob seems to act as a filter.The Mod Depth and Envelope Depth can be brought in. This is where I am not sure what is happening – there are changes in the timbre of the tone from the synth. And what exactly is depth? There is alot to play with depending on where the Osc Mix dial is tuned in.

The third part of this is creating Audio Animation Clips/Envelope Generators within Ableton. Envelopes shape the amplitude and modulate the pitch of the sound. Audio Animation allows the Envelope parameters to move over time. Here is the post on how audio animation can be created in Ableton: https://wp.me/p5yJTY-vL I use filters to sculpt out harmonics and add texture to the sound of the Model Samples or the Neutron. So far, I am experimenting with banks of filters to sculpt out or boost particular harmonics then perform a finer tuning with some EQ. I am listening for a diverse sonic spread, then tuning it in, then spreading, and finally fine tuning.

The adventure continues!!

National Water Dance – NOT Cancelled

With all of the rescheduling of public events local, national and global, there is one event that will go on next month. National Water Dance 2020 will happen as scheduled on April 18th 2020 at 4 pm EST. This biannual movement choir in honor and healing of water will take place across the country all at the same time and streaming across the web. This announcement came from NWD last week:

WE ARE STILL DANCING! Wherever you are on April 18 at 4:00PM EST, alone or self-quarantining or with a small group in an open space, we will begin with the shared gesture and end with the shared gesture and your personal movement will fill in the middle.

We are fortunate to be living in the digital age – as we are asked to observe *“physical distancing,” we are able to close that distance by linking together through social media.

This challenge is forcing us to re-evaluate what we are doing and how we are doing it. Let’s find that deeper meaning in our dance, whether in a group or alone. We can dance wherever we are and livestream it on Instagram and Facebook. 

More than ever the world needs our hope and energy. Let’s move forward together and flood the social media networks with our dances on April 18th.

My crew at the idiosyncratic Beats of Dejacusse (iBoD) had big plans to create a watery like container at PS 137 with live plants and flowers by Lee Moore Crawford, and space for movers and viewers. Now we have constrained as we must, so will feature Jody Cassell as Durham’s National Water Dancer streaming live from her home. Jody will move to a recording of Carnatic Water Music, which will be released by iBoD on Bandcamp in April a week before the event. We will keep you posted as to how to link to the performance and pre-order the digital EP.

Mark your calendars for Durham’s National Water Dance April 18th at 4 pm.

Carnatic Water Music

Susanne, Eleanor, Jim and I have been soundscaping together for 5 years now. During that time, we have all grown as deep listeners and sound painters. I am grateful to play with people who can tune into the sonic environment, their own voices and play the waveforms. We are soundpainters not musicians. Sometimes even we get confused.

The first time we played together publicly was at the Won Buddhist Temple Bazaar in October of 2014. And the first piece we played was Carnatic Water Music. (This soundscape is based on a Carnatic Indian scale that is included in Michael Hewitt’s book, Musical Scales of the World.) We played over and around what is now the first section of Carnatic Water Music while the rains poured down! We were actually in a tent, but the Zoom recorder was out in the rain with a raincoat over it. The recording has rain patter on it, which sounds like scratches on a vinyl record. I really like this recording! (We appreciated the company of Linda Carmichael singing/playing ukelele at this event.) Here is an excerpt:

Carnatic Water Music Nested

After this performance, we played CWM frequently at public events. This is a long-form soundscape that we play for 20 to 40 minutes. As time went on, I added some new sections to the piece so the players and listeners would have greater variety of the sonic spectrum, and to vary the pace a bit. Now when I listen to Carnatic Water Music I hear different energetic aspects of bodies of water, from lolling rivers to waving oceans.

The next stop for CWM will be as the main theme for The Space ReSounds of Water, a pop-up dance installation to be performed on April 18th. The performance is Durham’s offering for National Water Dance 2020. Here is a write-up about the event:

Since 2016, National Waterdance has brought attention to water issues through synchronized dance performances in multiple locations. iBoD and dejacusse want 2020 to be the year the Triangle joins the dance.

The Place ReSounds of Water is a sound, dance and visual art performance piece conceived and performed by iBoD in 2019. We would like to expand on the piece by creating The Space ReSounds of Water, a space/container with video projections, and with healing flowerscapes by Hana Lee, a soundscape by dejacusse and iBoD, and dance movement by Jody Cassell. The performance will take place as a part of the National Waterdance event on April 18 2020 at 4 pm.

The performance will run from from 4-6 in a space where the audience can come and go. This is a meditative performance that can be engaged with on many levels. While some of the movement may be choreographed, most will be free flowing improvisation the audience can participate with. Outside the venue, we will invite local water and environmental organizations to offer education and actions we can take to protect our waters.

To prepare for this event, we are making a really good recording of Carnatic Water Music. We have played this piece so many times, as soon as it begins we fall into a lovely sync with the soundscape. We are recording in the SunRa Room, which is a lively, if not acoustically perfect, space. As of now we are playing through the soundscape and recording on a separate track each time. Afterward, I mix the recording and put it out dor feedback from the group.

Last week, I recorded one runthrough into a track in Ableton and the second runthrough into a track on the H6n. The Ableton track had the most presence and was easy to work with in the mixing process. The trick is to get the right balance between our live playing and the looping soundscape. Today I discovered several recordings we made through the H6n- might be able to tuck some of those in the mix somewhere. We did our final two takes last week, so now I go to work in earnest!

One of the several works-in-progress happening as Winter sets in. Come Spring, iBoD will release Carnatic Water Music as our first extended play download!

Mercury Retrograde (or don’t fight it, surrender)

Right in the midst of the most recent Mercury Retrograde, I decided to dive into MAX MSP, a visual computer coding program for controlling sound and light for performance. After downloading the software, I started a class online and was working with some patches when my computer audio stopped functioning. No sound out of the computer. Then the computer and sound card stopped talking. All of this right before an iBoD rehearsal when we were recording Carnatic Water Music.

Using the Windows Troubleshooter, I discovered the problem “audio services not responding” and that this problem was “not fixed”. Online, there are multiple fixes for this message. After cancelling our recording session, I tried all the suggested fixes several times – from inspecting the Services to make sure Windows Audio and Windows Audio Endpoint and all their dependencies were automatically running to entering very specific commands into Command Prompt as Administrator. The first thing I did was update the ASIO4ALL audio driver, so no problems there!

After several days of trying different fixes, I was able to get the computer and sound card talking again! Ableton Sets and Projects were now audible! Yayyyyy! But the computer would not play audio WAV files. Outside of Ableton, audio services still not responding. Finally, I uninstalled the ASIO driver and uploaded the driver for the soundcard. I have a Native Instruments Komplete 6 soundcard, which has been a great device. (I had audio dropout problems with the NI driver about a year after I purchased it, which was when I switched to the ASIO driver and all was well.) Well, changing back to the NI driver solved the audio problems completely and I am back to sounding again!

A friend mentioned Mercury Retrograde as I was working through this process. Dang, I forgot about that current astronomical phenomenon. If I had remembered, would I have done anything different? As things turned out, it is very good that I did not! While I got thrown off of MAX (for the moment) I redirected my energies toward creating synth sequences in Ableton. Since purchasing the Behringer Neutron, I have been unsuccessful in getting Ableton set up as a sequencer for the Neutron. The Neutron has processed audio signal, but never midi signal. Low and behold the NI Komplete 6 driver allowed Ableton to see the midi ports for the Neutron. Suddenly, I was hearing the synth voice and all the modulators. When I made a patch or tweaked a knob, the sound was changed as I expected it to be! WoW! I feel like this is the first time I have heard the instrument’s true voice!

Today I am working on a soundscape for the next Human Origami Jam at ADF Studios in Durham on December 6. Very excited to finally get going with the Neutron.

This is what I will make in the soundscape!

The Acoustic Scale

So my adventures in harmonics continues with a foray into Dr. Michael Hewitt’s book, Musical Scales of the World. (This book is a wonderful resource. Carnatic Water Music is based on an Indian Carnatic scale from the book.) Hewitt includes scales from India, Thailand, Africa, Greece, and Eastern Europe in the eight chapters of the book. My favorite chapter is entitled Synthetic Scales and Modes, which is made up of invented and found scales.  In this chapter Hewitt discusses the Acoustic Scale, so named because it is based on the harmonic overtones that are present in the atmosphere of any room. (See post on Nature’s Chord at http://wp.me/p5yJTY-iH)        WoW! Just WoW.

So the Acoustic Scale is made up of the overtones from the first four octaves of the harmonic series. This scale mixes the raised fourth of the Lydian mode and the flatted seventh of the Mixolydian mode. According to Hewitt:

The acoustic scale is also sometimes called the Lydian dominant scale, due to the prominent dominant seventh chord on the first degree (C E G Bb). The presence of this chord can give Lydian dominant music a powerful sense of unresolved dominant tension. When persistently denied resolution, this tension can be harnessed to create a powerfully expressive force.

The scale is also referred to as Bartok’s scale as it was the basis for many of his compositions. The scale came into favor with contemporary classical music composers of the late 19th, early 20th Century as they moved away from the major/minor pallette of the Common Practice era. I am excited to see this scale identified. It is the scale of TRIC (Terry Riley’s In C). From here on, I will refer to this as Nature’s Scale, so as not to forget that this is a pattern of intervalic relationships that exists in the atmosphere and is imbedded in every sound we hear.