John Paul Jones Interview

Jörg-Peter Klotz interviewed John Paul Jones for Mannheimer Morgen (http://www.morgenweb.de/) while Jones and Helge Sten were in Mannheim for a performance in November 2011.  Here, with the help of Google Chrome’s translator, is a rough English translation of that interview:

As a bassist and keyboardist John Paul Jones was a member of one of the greatest rock bands ever: Led Zeppelin. On Monday, 14 November, the 65-year-old Briton will be at the Old Fire Station Mannheim for the second appearance of the duo Minibus Pimps exploring entirely new sound spaces. In our interview, he gives an insight into the unusual sound.

J̦rg-Peter Klotz: Mr. Jones, previously there has been only one appearance of Minibus Pimps, at the Punkt festival in Norway. Can you explain what might happen with you and Helge Sten on stage Рor is it completely open?

John Paul Jones: (laughs) It’s been very open. There is a kind of map, supplied by the computer programs and the Kyma language. We play instruments, Helge and I, to control the sounds of the processors. And iPads. Within this map, we improvise. For this reason, no one knows exactly what will happen. There will be textures, sounds, noise emerging. But also notes … (laughs), but not very many. I can promise you that it sounds very intense – you will not fall asleep!

Photo by Yogesh Khubchandani

What attracts you to such experimental music?

I’ve been improvising for a long time, and electronic music has always interested me. In Led Zeppelin we used some very early synthesizers. It was just always a problem of how to control the sound. Then came the computer, which was the next step. After that, I’ve been involved, for example, in John Cage’s Musicircus.

On the other hand, you currently play with a lot of blues rockers like Seasick Steve, comparatively simple blues-rock – you need both sides of the musical coin?

Music has more than two pages! It is always the same phenomenon; there are just different ways to play it. Monday I play with Helge, then with Seasick Steve, back in March it was John Cage – for me it is always the same game and everything exists side by side. Also, I’m currently writing on a classic opera based on Strindberg’s “Ghost Sonata”.

What do you find important for the general development of music: Experiments in a Sound Lab à la Minibus Pimps or redefining traditional styles that you maintain with different partners?

Again, there is room for both. Music must stay alive. Therefore one must not look only to the past. Without experiments, music has no future. At the same time, the old styles are important and valuable: There is still much to talk about the blues and in rock music. I will always love to play bass, guitar, mandolin or fiddle in a band. But I also do this in order to renew music – it’s a natural development.

One concept that the Enjoy Jazz Festival is importing from Punkt is that of the live remix concerts. Will you listen to the “After-Show” by Sidsel Endresen, Jan Bang and Erik Honoré?

Sure. This is a great idea. I find it very interesting to see how other people play the material.

Led Zeppelin’s 40 year old ballad “Stairway To Heaven” is still winning the most votes on the most popular rock song. Do you find this backward?

Oh, it’s always good when people like your music. Why should I interfere with that?

In 2010 when Them Crooked Vultures played at Rock am Ring, there were sparks flying between you and drummer Dave Grohl. Wouldn’t he be ideal for a Led Zeppelin reunion?

There will be no Led Zeppelin reunion! But Dave and I were a very good rhythm section (laughs). And he had a blast because he enjoys being a drummer and not always the front man of the Foo Fighters.

Translated from the original German as it appeared in Mannheimer Morgen 12th November 2011

Human Chimes

Composer Jon Bellona used Kyma to generate sounds for his interactive installation, Human Chimes, on the first night of the (sub)Urban Projections Festival in Eugene, Oregon on November 9, 2011.  Despite inclement weather (40 degrees and rainy), you can see people enjoying the interaction of the sounds, their positions, and the visual projections.  Jon was also the technical director for the entire (sub)Urban Projections Festival.

Curious Ears

After a long absence from Victoria, British Columbia, the Mexican/Dutch composer, Hector Bravo Benard performed a solo concert of multi-channel electronic compositions on November 5, 2011 at the artist-run venu, Open Space.

Hector Bravo BenardIn addition to presenting his own compositions, Hector presented compositions by Agostino Di Scipio (Italy), Julio Estrada (Mexico), and René Uijlenhoet (Netherlands). Benard’s works for live electronics often start from sounds in the physical world, using the Kyma sound design platform to mould them, adding new depth and texture to create the unexpected and delight the curious ear.

Stanley Cowell at An die Musik LIVE!

Pianist Stanley Cowell with “electroacoustic enhancement by Kyma” will be joined by Vic Juris (guitar), Tassili Bond (bass) and Christopher W. Brown, (drums) as the Empathlectro Quartet performing on Saturday, November 5, 2011 at 8:00 PM at An die Musik LIVE!, a classical, jazz and world music venue in Baltimore Maryland. Audience members are invited to a post concert, meet-the-artists reception.

Musicacoustica Beijing

University of Oregon director of interactive music technology, Jeffrey Stolet, premiered his new piece Hendrix de Aguadilla for Kyma and iPad (Kyma Control app) on the opening concert for Musicacoustica in Beijing on October 24, 2011. Earlier in the day, Stolet gave a presentation on Kyma and the SumOfSines Disco Club (his new book about the Kyma system), describing how Kyma is being used and taught in higher education.  The next performance of Hendrix de Aguadilla will be in Chengdu, China on November 1 2011.

Samy Bardet’s sound design for “Un Monstre á Paris”

Sound designer, Samy Bardet, used Kyma to design a singing monkey, some supernaturally fast growing plants, and the voice of the ‘monster’ in Bibo Bergeron‘s new animated feature, Un Monstre á Paris.

 

We recently spoke with Samy to find out more about his work in sound design for film:

 What is your earliest sonic memory?  (from childhood?)

The purring of my cat Mao.

When did you first realize that you wanted to be a sound designer? (Did you start from the side of music?  From audio engineering?  In other words, how did you come to be a sound designer?)

After a short stint as a live sound engineer, I fell in love with sound for motion picture and became a sound editor.  I started out by doing a lot of cartoons for TV. That period was essential because I learned editing, creation, and sound design.

My first movie was Le général, le chien et les oiseaux… in 2003. But it was Persepolis in 2007 that was a real revelation for me and it was that experience that made me decide I wanted to be a sound designer for motion picture.

Do you remember how it was that you heard about Kyma and how or why you decided to use it in your work?

I first heard about Kyma about 10 years ago…but at that time it seemed to me a very strange and inaccessible machine.

But then I met a director named Valérie Moncorgé and worked on her film Le forcené. That was an unforgettable experience; there was no music, only a few voices and a lots of sounds.

Her favorite sound for picture was the work that Hamilton Sterling and Richard King did on “Master and Commander”. One day she came in with an article talking about the sound design on Master and Commander; in the article she had circled the name “Kyma”, and she asked me “What is this?”. In order to answer her, I decided to buy one!!!

For Un Monstre á Paris, please tell us about the evolution of the singing monkey sound, how you imagined it, how you realized it, how you performed it, etc.

I started with the voice of -M- singing like an opera singer. When I saw the animation, I first tried using the classic monkey sound but it was unsuccessful.  Those sounds were too short and not close enough in frequency.

I finally found a sample of capuchin monkey whose frequencies were closest to those of the human voice. I analyzed the human voice and the capuchin monkey in the Tau Player. Then I performed the result using my Motormix and, after several tries, once I was able to perform it in sync with the picture, the result was incredible!!!!

I understand that there is also a scene of a plant or plants growing at incredible speed.  Can you tell us more about that scene and how you designed and controlled the sound for it?

This was created with a SampleCloud (one of my favorite prototypes) and played on the Wacom tablet.  I took a short sample of leaves rustling, and with this magic tool it became a giant sunflower!

Who is the monster in Paris (and how did you design his voice)?

The voice of the monster in Paris is a mix between rock singer Matthieu Chedid ( “-M-” ), a raccoon, and my own voice … I used the Tau player again to morph these three sources in order to make him credible and sensitive.

From the point of view of the sound designer, what are the differences between working on an animated feature vs a live action feature with human actors?  Or is it virtually the same?  Do animated features give you more latitude for sound design?  Or is it the same either way?

The editing is very different. In a live action feature, you’re constrained by the way the sound was spoken during shooting, and especially by the ambience. It must match exactly.

In an animated feature, you receive only the voices, so all the atmospheres can be created by your imagination…

In the end, though, I think that sound design is not so different between live action and animated features, because even in live action features you rarely use “real” sounds (of guns, cars, etc), it’s always exaggerated to make it more spectacular. And it’s the same in animated features.

Where does Kyma fit in your arsenal of sound design tools?  Do you turn to Kyma for specific kinds of sounds or ways of working?

I’m working with a Pyramix which is the tool I find most flexible and effective for sound editing (and I think it is less well known in the US).

My Pacarana is connected via a Capybara (used as an audio interface) directly through digital inputs and outputs to the Pyramix. That way I can use Kyma as an external effect, sending a sound from the Pyramix. Or I can play Kyma Sounds and record directly in the Pyramix.

What would you identify as the strong points of Kyma or the sort of things that Kyma is best at?

Kyma is especially impressive when you want to treat a real sound and want it to stay organic and real-sounding… for example, with voices…

Were there any sounds on this film that you could not have done without Kyma?

The monster, the singing monkey and a great morph between a metallic sound and the name of “Raoul”.

Describe your ideal meal.  Who would be there, what would be on the menu, where would it be, what would the conversation be like, etc

You would be there to talk about your vision of sound…

Einstein would be there to explain to us this strange dimension called space/time and also explain why today a neutrino can go faster than light…

Someone would be there to give the beginning of answer on the origin of life…

There are too many things to talk about with so many interesting people; it’s too complicated to reduce it to one meal…

If you were to give advice to someone who is just starting out as a sound designer, what would that be?  What would you advise them to study, where should they live, what kind of work could they do to prepare themselves?

1. Listen to real life all around you; this is very inspiring….

2. Sound can be simple®

3. Break the rules.

What’s next for you? Do you have a project lined up (one that you are allowed to discuss yet?)  What new sound design challenges are in store for you in 2011-2012?

I’ve just finished the sound design for an exposition in Paris. And I’m preparing a new motion picture called The Marsupilami by Alain Chabat; this is very big sound design challenge.

Thank you Samy!  We look forward to seeing (and especially hearing) Un Monstre à Paris!

Zelig Sound 360 Project & Black Ocean Branding

London UK-based Zelig Sound, creators of music composition and sound design for TV, film, advertising and branding, recently created the sound and music for “The 360 Project”, two dramatic short films by Toronto-based director and photographer Ryan Enn Hughes that capture peak dance moves using 48 simultaneously firing cameras surrounding the performer (designed by The Big Freeze).  The result is a cross between photography, video, and ‘digital sculpture’, where time is frozen but is then unrolled in new three-dimensional sequences.

KRUMP 360 (The 360 Project) from Zelig Sound: Composition & Sound on Vimeo.

Sound designer Matthew Wilcock and his team used Kyma, performed on a Wacom tablet, for the whooshes, passes and synth sounds in both 360 pieces, BALLET 360 & KRUMP 360. They used Kyma to create a selection of sounds around the timbre they wanted, and later brought them into a DAW to edit them and layer in the music.

 

BALLET 360 (The 360 Project) from Zelig Sound: Composition & Sound on Vimeo.

The team used the same process on a Zelig Sound branding project for Black Ocean. Wilcock estimates that 70% of the sound for Black Ocean was created by Kyma controlled by movements and gestures on the Wacom tablet.  The team set up the film to run in a loop while recording multiple performances of custom-designed Kyma Sounds on a Wacom tablet.  They then took the results of that session, and edited, selected, and layered them in their DAW.

Black Ocean Ident from Zelig Sound: Composition & Sound on Vimeo.

X-Men Destiny Sound Design by Nick Peck

Sound Designer Nick Peck has been making extensive use of his new Kyma system for the upcoming Activision/Marvel video game X-Men Destiny. “I hadn’t used Kyma in nearly 20 years, and was just blown away by how far it had come since the early days,” said Peck.  He went on to describe how he incorporated Kyma into his workflow on the game:

I was a bit intimidated of working it into my system, since I was knee deep in production. So I started slowly, going through Kyma X Revealed for a few minutes each day. As it turns out, you don’t really have to make complex patches in order to harness Kyma’s amazing processing power. I’ve created foley libraries, morphed dialog, and done tons of real-time sample manipulation by making sounds that only use one or two modules. The key for me is the excellent Kyma Control iPad software. The expressive gestural power of the iPad combined with Kyma fits my approach to sound design like a glove – I can explore to my heart’s content, and when I get a sound dialed in, I just re-record it into Pro Tools against the picture.

 

KISS2011: Exploring Sound Space

Can sound define a space? In sound, is there a Point-of-View or culturally-influenced focus of attention? Sound designers, musicians, audio engineers, composers, acousticians and others interested in “sound space” are invited to discuss these and other questions during the third annual Kyma International Sound Symposium (KISS2011), scheduled for 15-18 September 2011 in Porto, Portugal. Inspired by Portugal’s proud history of navigators who set out to explore beyond the known and visible horizon, the theme of this year’s symposium is “Explorando o espaço do som” (“Exploring Sound Space”) and will celebrate the sound designers, composers, and researchers who are exploring beyond the familiar horizons in sound and music.

 

Set in the nautically-inspired Casa Da Musica, architect Rem Koolhaas’ dramatic new music venue in Porto, the symposium promises four intensive days of workshops, keynotes, technical talks, films and live performances.

To cite just a few highlights:

  • A mathematician and co-editor of a new book on the Sonic Spaces of Music (Spazi sonori della musica) will discuss the public space defining and defined by the sounds of the Trevi Fountain in Rome;
  • Kyma practitioners will have opportunities to attend master classes, participate in interactive workshops and consulting sessions, and most importantly, to make connections with and to learn from fellow Kyma practitioners;
  • The author of a new text for teaching and learning Kyma (published in both English and Chinese) will describe his search for the SumOfSines disco club;
  • Plus there will be an abundance of technical talks on a wide range of topics including how to use the spectrum of a sound as a sequencer; techniques for data sonification; using sound to help people confront pain; how to create a dynamic sonic ecology; using context-free-grammars to simultaneously generate dance movements and trajectories through abstract timbre space; techniques for spectral modification & morphing; and more.

Evening performances are to include a screening of the very first science fiction film accompanied by a live-improvised electronic sound track generated by Kyma reconstructions of Luigi Russolo’s intonorumori instruments; a portion of an audio documentary on Holocaust survivor Ksenija Drobac; and a live-generated audio/video film about Galileo that uses Kyma to control VJ software via Open Sound Control (OSC). Other live musical performances will create sound spaces controlled by (among other things) dancers, RFID cards held by the audience, iPads, Wacom tablets, video position trackers, Continuum fingerboards, SoftStep pedal-boards, OSC, acoustic instruments, the acoustics of the room itself, and even a sensor-enhanced Teddy Bear!

For more details on the program, please see the preliminary program and join the mailing list to be kept up to date on future enhancements and additions.

Registration

Registration is open to all. You can register at any time, but there is a discount for those who register prior to 1 August: you can participate in all 4 days (with lunch included) for €120 (€40 for students). Casa da Musica has strictly enforced occupancy limits, so please register as soon as possible in order to reserve your spot: http://kiss2011.symbolicsound.com/registration

Online discussion

You are cordially invited to join in the pre-symposium discussion on the theme of Exploring Sound Space: http://www.pphilosophyofsound.org

Porto

Known as A Cidade Invicta (the unvanquished city), in honor of its citizens’ successful resistance of Napoleon’s attempted invasion, Porto’s history can be traced back at least as far as Roman times, with evidence of even earlier habitation by the Celts, Proto-Celts and even Phoenicians.

The ukulele has its origins in Portugal; Portuguese immigrants brought the cavaquinho, braguinha and the rajão, small guitar-like instruments with them to Hawaii where they were re-invented as the ukulele. Portuguese luthiers Cordoba Guitars and Antonio Pinto Carvalho (in Braga about an hour north of Porto) continue the tradition today. In Porto, you can audition a Portuguese 12-string guitar or a cavaquinho at Toni Das Violas, a music shop in the historic center.

Porto is also the official source of Port wine, a special red wine in which the fermentation process is interrupted by the addition of distilled grape spirits known as aguardente (roughly translated as fire water with teeth), leaving a higher sugar and a higher alcohol content. The resulting fortified wine is then aged in wood barrels prior to bottling.

Visiting Conímbriga, a well-preserved ancient Roman city and attached museum about an hour south of Porto, is practically like traveling to ancient Rome in the Tardis.

There are several historic cathedrals and monasteries in Porto which is also home to a vibrant Marranos community, the so-called crypto- or Sephardic Jews who continued to practice their religion even in the face of the forced-conversions during the Inquisition (http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/priests-hunch-finally-uncovers-portos-hidden-holy-scrolls-520387.html)

Something about Porto seems to inspire artists who work with space. Not only is it the home of Casa da Musica, it’s also the birthplace of two Pritzker-prize-winning architects: Álvaro Siza who designed the central square in Porto, the Faculty of Architecture campus, and the contemporary art museum; and Eduardo Souto Moura whose award-winning work includes Estádio Municipal de Braga, the Burgo Tower in Porto and the Paula Rego Museum in Cascais among others.

Summary

What: The Kyma International Sound Symposium (KISS 2011), an annual conclave of current and potential Kyma practitioners who come together to learn, to share, to meet, to discuss, and to enjoy a lively exchange of ideas, sounds, and music! This year’s theme is “Exploring Sound Space”

Presenters: Experts from the fields of music, sound art, sound design, mathematics, philosophy & audio engineering who use Kyma in their work.

Participants: Sound designers, musicians, audio engineers, composers, acousticians and others interested in “sound space” and the Kyma sound design language

When: 15-18 September 2011

Where: Porto, Portugal

Venue: Casa da Musica / Avenida da Boavista, 604-610 / 4149-071 Porto / Portugal

Cost: € 120, students € 40

Organizers: Faculdade de Engenharia da Universidade do Porto & Symbolic Sound Corporation with support from Casa da Musica & UT Austin|Portugal International Collaboratory for Emerging Technologies

Deadline: 1 August 2011 for early registration discount; registration open through 15 September 2011

More info: http://kiss2011.symbolicsound.com