MOSSWOOD SOUND SERIES
a new weekly experimental sound series every Friday evening
presented by sfSound
ON THE NATURE OF SOUND (#1)
John Bischoff three solo compositions
for computer and custom analog circuits
The starting point for "Bitplicity" (2020) and "Visibility Study" (2015) are custom analog circuits that sound in audio and sub-audio realms. Designed to be interrupted and reactivated by a performer as they sound, the circuits generate equal parts continuity and discontinuity as they are voiced. A laptop captures event structures in the resulting analog stream and subsequently re-sonifies them using custom digital synthesis components in various combinations. The circuit actions in turn interrupt and reactivate the synthesis elements as well.
"Calliope" (2022) is a take-off on Leon Theremin’s realization of Henry Cowell’s concept—an instrument called the "Rhythmicon" which automatically reiterates its tones at rates corresponding to the selected pitch relations. Drawing inspiration from a YouTube clip of Andre Smirov playing one of these beautifully elegant, but sonically quirky instruments, Bischoff has built a digital synthesis version on the same principles—but where the instrument has significant drift in all dimensions and the tones come apart as each phrase develops.
John Bischoff (b. 1949, San Francisco) is an early practitioner of live computer music. He is known for his solo constructions in real-time synthesis as well as the development of computer network music. He was a founding member of The League of Automatic Music Composers (1978), considered to be the world’s first computer network band. He is also a founding member of The Hub, a network band that began in 1986 and continues to expand on the network music form today. Recordings of Bischoff’s work are available on ArtifactRecordings, 23Five, Tzadik, Lovely, and New World Records. He was a recipient of an Artist Grant from the Foundation for Contemporary Arts in 1999. As a member of the Hub, he was awarded a GigaHertz Prize for life-time achievement in electronic music in 2018 by ZKM in Karlsruhe, Germany. He was on faculty for many years in the legendary Music Department at Mills College in Oakland, California.
As part of his "opening set residency," Oakland musician
Matt Ingalls performs his decades-in-the-making, 30-minute-continuous-micro-timbre-circular-breathing-tour-de-force clarinet solo. Exploring extended techniques that interact with the acoustic space, he often acoustically synthesizes difference tones that are perceived to originate inside the listener's ear.
Cost: $10-$25 sliding scale