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Playing The Field

Every month of 2022, at the Full Moon’s Zenith, dejacusse serenaded The World with synth improvs, soundscapes from the vault and Waves of Gratitude via Radio iBoD/dejacusse. Listening to the broadcast recordings of synth improvs, I felt so much heart resonance as all frequencies flowed like the rivers they ARE!! As I listened deeply, I heard and remembered gestures that rendered shapes and movements in the sonic spectra. This is how I attend to and expand my understanding of The Field.

What is this Field that I am so focused on at this time? The Field emanates from the Audiorigami template, and turns that template inside out and sideways. The substance of The Field is “all of the waveforms,” so the entire sonic spectrum of frequencies is available here. Much of 21st Century science is pointing loudly at the vibrational essence of everything!! The sonic spectrum covers 9 octaves and is present wherever there is any kind of atmosphere, including gases. The Field includes all frequencies equally; it is a level ground for play! Audiorigami began with The Fold, and all that folding landed us in The Field. The Field is vast and continually shifting and moving in many directions. The Field is alive, it inhabits space-time, and – its electric!

Control voltages are a primary initiator of waveforms, while the shape of the wave enhances and diminishes harmonics in sound frequency spectra. Musicians work with harmonics all the time, but usually as a secondary consideration to the production of melody and song structure. Out here in The Field, it is the interplay of harmonic frequencies that takes center stage. It is the folding/unfolding/stretching/pulsating of timbre itself that is our focus. At times, melodies and patterns emerge, and then they pull apart and disintegrate. In The Field, all of the waveforms are available for transmission to audio cortices, so this is a place to begin transmission.

I knew synthesizers were for me when I heard musicians talk about how hard they are to keep in tune! Synthesizers are living beings and as such, they are constantly attuning in the moment. Their sound is evoked via responsive relationships which involve a great deal of allowing. The Field, made up of synthesizers, offers up the frequencies, my role is to shepherd frequencies through all audio cortices (and beyond!) by studying and demonstrating the attunement process as it moves through The Field. How this all works depends on the components that make up The Field.

My first analog synthesizer was the Behringer Nuetron. This semi-modular synth sings via two Voltage Controlled Oscillators (VCO) that can manifest five waveforms, individually AND the space between them, as one form morphs into another. Right away the harmonic sculpting possibilities are indeterminable, because this is living energy! The ways that these waveforms interplay happen in the present moment! Oscillators can be set to a frequency (Nuetron VCOs can oscillate from .7hz to 55kHz) which is then passed through filters, Low Frequency Oscillators, envelopes, gates, delays, and voltage contolled amplifiers (VCAs) – all of which alter the harmonics, the pulse/beat, the duration and loudness of frequencies, even the beginning/middle/end of the sonic life of frequencies! All of these sound modulators can be routed into and through the oscillating waveforms as they throw out particular strands of harmonics. These harmonic strands are the substance of soundscapes.

Layers are added with new components! The Moog Subharmonicon and Make Noise O-Coast were the next additions to The Field. The O-Control serves as a sequencer for the Nuetron and a clock connection between the Nuet and Moogie. The Moog brings 6 VCOs to the pallette, two main and four sub oscillators. Each of the Moog VCOs is tunable and the suboscillators are harmonically linked to them. These oscillators can be further defined by packaging the frequencies in Equal Temperament or Just Intonation scalar relationships, in 8 or 13 step lengths over 1, 2 or 5 octaves.

For Monday mornings broadcast, the Cre8audio West Pest has been added to The Field! The current palette has the WP receiving pitch signal from O-Control and sending wave forms to the Neutron pitch in. The O- Control is also sending pitch to the Subharmonicon, so there is a tentative connection among all the components of The Field. It is daunting, but rewarding!! Kind of like our shared living experience!

Please join me from 1-3 am Monday morning Feb 20th for whatever will happen. Here is the link to the web-player, it is only live when I am broadcasting.

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

Dear Annie Dillard

Who introduced us? One of the loveliest, dearest people I have known. Reading Pilgrim at Tinker Creek in my early 30s, I was swept up into the way you see The World, so I devoted myself to reading all of your writings. (You lost me with The Living, I must admit). In youth, I loved your passionate witnessing of spirit writ large in nature, how easily you are astonished by the details and the vastness of creation, and your aloof, succinct judgements of other beings. You are unapologetic, yet aware of the economic privilege of your life, but seem mostly oblivious to the subjugations suffered by many female voices seeking publication. (Aristotle wrote us off as “birth defects” and Ari’s influence is proving tough to shake!)

Now, coming into my seventh decade, I am rereading you with less reverence and more astonished laughter – you crack me up over and over again. I appreciate our synchronous presence on the planet. You were dismissed by your elders as a “girl of the Twentieth Century”, which acknowledges you as a Voice of Our Time. I feel you as a sister and twin flame: much of what reverberates you, reverberates me as well. You are very like an older sister in that I don’t think you would like me as a companion, while I would adore you as one. Lucky me – you are there in your writings, and I only have to suffer your disdain when it clearly applies to me.

You see, I go easy, light, effortless and you go hard, dense and high-minded! So.

I have an interesting relationship to your book For the Time Being. I read it four times, and each time I picked it up I thought I had not finished it. Which, given what you write about in that book, makes me laugh. In the summer of 2021, I paid attention and realized when I finished For the Time Being.

The tree with the lights on it! I see lights on trees all the time, but not as enflamed as the ones the girl with her new eyes saw! And the robin dropping straight down off the roof- just stepping off and dropping. The clothes spread out and drying way up on huge trees! The frog slowly dropping its form like a cloak on the water. On and on- you just WoW me!!

So I carry these amazing and inspirational experiences with me from you and your lived experience. Terwiliger bunts one! I say it all the time, it is so fun and slips off the tongue. Your adventures growing up resonated deeply with me, although my parents were not wealthy or quite as adventurous as yours. But they were very lovely and caring. I, too, dissected frogs and worms in the basement. Occasionally I would try to gather a group to explore and create, but it was hard to really engage with others, so working alone suits me alright (to this day).

Holy the Firm is a prose poem with its vivid yet obscure descriptions of the vast beauty and horrific tragedies that make up The World exemplified in one burnt little girl. You rail at and commisserate with God as you wander a small corner of the world where you find yourself at a particular point in its time. I, too, am a burnt little girl. An accident (caused by me, which has always seemed so mysterious), I was about four: I was playing in the kitchen while Mom was making dinner. I pulled open the door of a freestanding cabinet, leaned over the top and lifted my feet to swing on the door. The cabinet tipped, and the french fryer grease came raining down on me and my brother. I didn’t know much about physics then! My Dad put vaseline on me, and they rushed us to the hospital. Interestingly, putting vaseline on a severe burn was NOT the correct procedure at the time, but is now seen as an appropriate healing move. So glad my Dad followed his instincts and not the medical party line of the day.

The burns all healed well. I had a skin graft to my face when I was seven, but the graft location left a bad scar. Seems I scar easily. Only recently have I thought about what it must have been like for my family. They probably had to be questioned by some authority from a government institution. I am sure they felt incredible chagrin, pain and remorse. We rarely talked about it. I found the french fryer in the basement of the last house my parents lived in. It was a bit jarring and curious that it had traveled with us all these years. I do not remember it being used again.So your Holy the Firm brings me face to face with a forgotten part of myself, which is some of your point here.

When I reread An American Childhood last year, it triggered that strange and oh so familiar spark of limerence. Your vividly bold descriptions of how it feels to be a child opened up a place of longing and recognition. Longing and recognition seem to be the roots of limerence. Limerence fueled my lived experience, made life exciting and miserable, and comodified love for me. You understand the giddy rush when meeting a limerent object. You edify the experience so well! My current situation is one of limited limerence and loads of awareness. I have traded highs and lows/ups and downs for expanding/contracting into a vast and singular Presence. You, too, indicate “enough said” on your website contact information page with a picture of yourself with two bandaids over your mouth!!

Thank you for doing the incredibly difficult work of illuminating The World with a delighted reverence and acerbic whimsy. You are a most wondrous traveling companion!

“Timebral Artifacts” Soundscape for Busker’s Day

Studying the effects of waveforms in a sonic environment and transmitting those waveforms to audio cortices is a mission of iBoD. To that end, we have partnered with three synthesizers to explore the ways of waveforms. First came the Behringer Nuetron, which is a puzzle and a playful soundshaper. My first challenge was (and continues to be) getting sound out of it (VCA Bias and Overdrive Level knobs need to be wide open.) Nuet has lots of internal routings and moveable parameters including blending between oscillator waveform shapes, and multiple LFOs and VCFs. Next came the Moog SubHarmonicon, which is extremely fun and responsive and more intuitive. These two are “tied” together by the Make Noise O-Control, which serves as a sequencer for Nuet, and receives clock from Moogie. So that is my crew for this event: Nuet, Moogie, OC and me.

Using internal and external routings, iBoD explores the shifts in timbre and rhythm presented by the synthesizers. These instruments make sound from oscillating frequencies shaped by waveforms and envelopes, which are the basic building blocks for timbre (and EVERYTHING, but THAT is another story, which can be read in the links below). All of the action is triggered, directed, and massaged by control voltages. Sparks of electricity drive the whole show, which makes for alot of unpredictability and maleability.

A friend asked me “What is timbre?” Yes, we are all familiar with rhythm and melody, but timbre is a kind of behind the scenes aspect of musical sound which isn’t as easily apprehended because it is so essential. Timbre is the “dna” of sound presented in harmonic code. Our brains decipher these codes so we can discern a foghorn from a racing engine from a baby crying. Please read these previous posts where I offer my understanding of timbre:

The Law of the Octave

Nature’s Chord

So that is what I will be playing with on Saturday. Since my favorite part of symphony concerts is the settling in and tuning that the orchestra does before they start the program, Timebral Artifacts will begin with some tuning and retuning of parts, followed by propagation and meanderings until an undercurrent of structure appears. When this happens, I will play Native American flute in call and response play with the synths.

iBoD will play from 2-2:45 pm. See map of Sculpture Garden for exact location (2a)

I hope you will come and listen!

Sprays and Whispers

The Shadowbox Studio: special edition monthly experimental performance series (sponsored by The Bi-Peds) is starting up this Thursday, July 8th. Jody Cassell will improvise movements to some of her deep learnings from a spiritual guide. Shana Adams and dejacusse will contribute to the sound environment in which she will move.

This performance sees a return of the Novation Launchpad iOS app. Here is what I wrote several years ago when I first discovered this incredibly fun app. https://dejacusse.blog/2018/01/07/dejacusse-soundscaping-tool-for-2018-novation-launchpad-for-ipad/ This time around, all the sounds have a swishy, shimmery quality. There is a lack of tonal character as I am interested in sculpting this “noise” into voluminous sprays tapered to rhythmic whispers. The sounds are sleet falling, steam, and other bits of manipulated noise from the samples that come with the app. The Flanger filter will bring out some spikes of tone which can create a sense of muted voices. Also planning to use the Stopper filter to fade things in and out slowly and quickly.

This is the sound of the ethers from which everything emerges and to which everything returns in a neverending feedback loop. Shana Adams will weave her vocalisations in and out of the sound. Together with Jody’s movement and the ambient sounds, we will make magic!

While my journey with sound seems to be taking me away from physically performing, I look forward to shaping sound with Jody and Shana on July 8th. Here are the deets:

Shadowbox Studio: special edition 2200 Dominion St. Durham 27704

8 pm. Bring chair and sustenance. Masks will be required inside

Experiments in Human/Audio Origami: Entanglement

Glyph by Carol Vollmer

Glenna Batson and Susan Sentler have continued their exploration of the visual-somatic signifigance of The Fold through a number of intensives and workshops on-line during the last year. I attended a weekend intensive and found it to be an amazing healing experience which drew people from all over the world. I enjoyed participating in their Deep Dives. Since sound is so compromised on Zoom, sharing of sound explorations in The Fold has not been possible. Until Now!

About a month ago, a new sound folding idea was suggested by Cathy Moore, who has attended a number of Human Origami Jams over the years. Cathy is a retired lawyer, community activist, and dancer. She also lives with Parkinson’s Disease – actually she dances with PD. Cathy is interested in the science of Parkinson’s and some recent research suggests that one of the factors in PD is misfolded/clumped/entangled proteins at motor synaptic junctions. These alpha-synucleins are responsible in part for triggering and stopping movement, both of which are hallmark PD symptoms. So Cathy suggested we work with the idea of entanglement.

My own felt sense is that entangled folds might feel crowded and tight at first. We are enmeshed in a network of folds where beginnings and ends are less clear and accessible. There is some holding/resistance in entanglement that constrains the fluidity of The Fold. The dampening of movement creates more stability, perhaps? And while there is a sense of being caught up in entanglement, there are many nooks and crannies to be explored as well.

The soundscape begins from a place of deep muffled constraint around which arises a whispy buzzy drone. The journey of the soundscape is to explore and release/cut through constraints. Entangled strands of sequences evolve and emerge from the muffled sound. They dance and resolve or dissolve as the muffled sound is released.

On March 20, 2021, a group of us met on Zoom. Thanks to Zoom audio improvements and YouTube assists, the soundscape had fidelity and was mixed with Glenna’s voice in a way that carried our intention across the ethers. The participant feedback after the dive indicated that many people engaged with and allowed the sonic/imagistic landscape to enter their worlds and bodies. While each person articulated their own unique journey through the dive, the one common response from most everyone was experiencing “release” and “letting go”. WoW!

With Glenna’s permission, here is an excerpt from the recording of our dive into and through “entanglement”:

Carol Vollmer’s glyph above was in response to Glenna’s prompt to “doodle” after the dive. The discussion was rich and heartfull, and so much wisdom was shared. I was honored to explore sounding The Fold with this community of curious and insightful people.

The Pink Lady Apple House release Junk Tape Vol 2/UFO Mix Tape is Quantum Joy!

If you follow @thepinkladyapplehouse on Instagram, you know that Justin Holt plays many instruments, lays down bucket loads of recorded sounds each day, and can shape these sounds into incredible cascading sonic impressions. In the picture above, you see him taking spaceship Earth out for a spin last summer! In his latest release, Junk Tape Vol 2/UFO Mixtape, The Pink Lady Apple House beams cosmic light and stirs quantum fluctuations into satisfying sonic landscapes.

My favorite track, Delighted, features a conversation between electric guitar in the right ear and Moog Grandmother in the left over a lumbering drum and bass with lots of fun percussive frills. Fashion is constructed of layers of blips, bloops, twitters braided together with a driving drum and bass that gradually lose their clarity as more harmonic content is added to the mix till all finally gurgles away. Listen to Star Map and you will know all the places he went on those summer cosmic explorations.

The Pink Lady Apple House sound draws some comparisons to the free jazz of Medeski, Martin and Woods and Sun Ra Arkestra. His process plays off of Brian Eno’s “The Studio as a Compositional Tool “as he works with reel-to-reel tapes and often plays the mixing board in real time. Justin’s playing of the Roland SP 404 is phenomenal and figures prominently on this album, along with the Moog Grandmother. TPLAH creates soundscapes of layered, lo-fi sounds that dance in/out of tune and time while merging and modulating each other in surprising and delightful ways. They sound full and interesting through headphones, iphone speakers and full sound systems.

Listening to Junk Tape Vol 2/UFO Mix Tape reminded me of a Tom Wait’s music video where he was herky jerky dancing and singing a raggedy melody, and it was so fascinating and beautiful in an off-kilter way, a realization of awkward grace! You will hear that same level of energetic, animated, awkward grace on The Pink Lady Apple House’ Junk Tape Vol 2/UFO Mix Tape available now on Bandcamp: thepinkladyapplehouse.bandcamp.com/album/junk-tape-vol-2-the-ufo-mixtape

Recommended for deep listeners, resonant advisors, and all explorers of the timbral Universe!

Listening to the Micro-Environment

Thanks to Nancy Lowe from AS IS Center near Penland School, I am “new best friends” with Mark Boyd. Mark is a sound artist who records and amplifies the “voices” of plants, ants and flowing water: the realm of the tiny vibratory world. Talk about deep listening! Mark has been using electrode sensors on plants into a Volca Synth to listen to the electrical life force within the plant! He sent me recordings of his “biologues” with Bleeding Heart and Fern, and Dogwood. The playback presents us with a lot of fast-paced random sounds. Mark is interested in transducing this data into something people might listen to. Here is an excerpt from Mark’s Bleeding Heart and Fern biologues:

Excerpt MB BiologueBHnF

Ableton Live contains numerous tools for transposing/transducing/converting sonic data. An audio clip, such as the one you just heard, can be converted into midi clips; one that renders melody information, and another that renders harmonic information. So now we have audio information rendered as 2 packets of midi information. Within Ableton, midi files can be collapsed or stretched across a timeline and still maintain the integrity of the rhythmic intervals. Midi data can be assigned to a “voice” that feels representative of the sound artist’s impressions of the particular plant that is speaking. Midi data can be fed back into a synth such as the Volca to complete the circle.

The scaling of the time frames of the midi clips is exactly what is needed to help us “hear” the biofeedback from the plants. Doubling the length of the midi clip slows the overall “tempo” and helps us to listen into a kind of river of sound emitted by the plants. Slowing down allows us to tune into a rhythmic cohesiveness that is obscured by the frantic pace of the plant’s raw electrical impulses. We inject spaciousness into the mix in just the right amount, and it sounds like something is being communicated.

After finishing the new rendering of the data, I sent this to Mark:

Excerpt Biologue BHnF Remix dejacusse

He was ecstatic, over the top about all the possibilities of Ableton. He downloaded the Lite version and took off with it. We had some great email exchanges and he sent me samplings of his tests and experiments with the flora around his mountain home. Here is a beautiful example with a plant in Mark’s home:

I look forward to Mark putting together an orchestra of local flora in concert in the near future. In the meantime, I am enjoying dialoguing with another human being who is listening as deeply as I am.

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!!