Tag Archives: Music

Weeping Willow Street Improvisations

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Last November I spent a memorable, rainy afternoon at Travis Weller’s place performing a house concert as part of his Willow Street Concert Series. Nick Hennies wowed us with music for solo percussion including an entrancing performance of Alvin Lucier’s Silver Streetcar. I played music for fretless banjo, bent electronics and computer. Then Travis and I improvised two pieces with Travis playing his Owl, a custom-built piano wire lyre with electronics. Nick joined in for the last piece of the afternoon. The rain kept us company all along.

[audio:091108_willow_street_improvisation1.mp3]

091108 Willow Street Improvisation 1.mp3

[audio:091108_willow_street_improvisation2.mp3]

091108 Willow Street Improvisation 2.mp3

[audio:091108_willow_street_improvisation3.mp3]

091108 Willow Street Improvisation 3.mp3

One-Man Band – Pat Metheny Upgrades a 19th-Century Concept – NYTimes.com

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The New York Times has a preview of Pat Metheny’s project with musical robots from LEMUR (and others): One-Man Band – Pat Metheny Upgrades a 19th-Century Concept – NYTimes.com.

I loved my short time working with the LEMURbots (residency, video, photos, Issue Project Room). Someday I hope to get (and share) the footage from my performance at LEMURplex.

LEMUR’s Eric Singer and Leif Krinkle are both quoted in the article. I can’t think of anyone better to work on a project like this.

Jill Sigman/thinkdance improvisation

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This time last week I had the pleasure of working with choreographer Jill Sigman/thinkdance and videographer Peter Shapiro who were artists-in-residence at EMPAC. I recorded some sounds of the objects and materials Jill was working with and then improvised with the samples, my fretless banjo, and vocalist/composer Kristin Norderval (remotely via Skype). Peter has posted some raw footage from our sessions.

improv1 from ps on Vimeo.

improv2 from ps on Vimeo.

I look forward to seeing how this project continues to take shape.

Metroland Mentions Faust in Best Live Shows of 2009

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Photo: http://www.flickr.com/photos/invisible-city/ / CC BY-NC-ND 2.0

Metroland critic Mike Hotter has chosen last September’s Faust show at Proctors as one of his top live events for 2009:

2. Faust, Holland Hopson, Century Plants

GE Theatre at Proctors, Sept. 30

Seminal German art-rockers Faust showed why they have been championed by avant-garde musicians for more than 30 years, while hometown openers Holland Hopson and Century Plants performed amazing outré music of their own. Hopson, in particular, is a must-see performer, a musical treasure hiding right under our noses.

Hotter’s mention of us “hometown openers” is certainly welcome, though his superlatives may not be entirely deserved.

Josh Potter chose the Boredoms as his top show of the year; I was surprised that it didn’t show up in any of the other critic’s lists. Read the entire article with all the other critic’s picks.

Favorites from 2009

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Here are few favorite picks of recorded media, live shows and print from 2009. As usual, I’m not much of an up-to-the-minute consumer so some of this may be old news. The exception here are the live shows, of course, so let’s start there…

Live Music

My two favorite shows were at EMPAC. The pummeling dished out by The Boredoms + 9 drummers easily takes the top spot. Garth Knox’s viola and viola d’amore might have been the polar opposite of The Boredoms but was no less riveting. I was also mightily impressed with 2009 ASAC guests Area C and Ben Bracken.

Recorded Music

The only new release on my list this year is Take Me To the Water from Dust to Digital. It’s a solid (maybe even stolid) collection of gospel–no real surprises or major standouts. But combined with the beautiful book I know I’ll be returning to this one often.

Two older CDs of music by Arthur Russel and Julius Eastman are now safely ensconced in my desert island collection:

Arthur Russel World of Echo
Where has this record been all my life? I had heard Russel’s avant-disco but was unprepared for the intimacy and sweet strangeness in this recording.

Julius Eastman Unjust Malaise
A life-changing collection of prescient music from a singular talent. There are so many standouts in this collection that it’s hard to choose a favorite.

And some assorted highlights from the year’s listening:

The Hub The Hub & Wreckin’ Ball
Tim Perkis/John Bischoff Artificial Horizon
Some of the synthesized sounds on these records date them, yet no one has better explored the potential for musicking with communication technology. The Hub is still at the heart of the genre, and sadly the genre is still too small. Maybe all those laptop orchestras with their hemi speakers will carry on some this work. They would do well to revisit these recordings.

Junior Kimbrough and the Soul Blues Boys All Night Long
Languorous sound that builds a Calatrava-style bridge between a juke-joint in Mississippi and the sacred sites of minimalism, drone and raga. On second thought, maybe that juke-joint in Mississippi IS a sacred site of minimalism, drone and raga.

Art of Field Recording Volume I
Another Dust to Digital release. I lived with these recordings for most of the year–and won’t be forgetting them soon.

Gloria Coates Symphonies Nos. 1, 7 and 14
This was recommended to me when it first came out. I’m sorry I missed it until this year.

Books

This is Your Brain on Music by Daniel Levitan was probably the most fun I’ve had thinking about music and sound in a while. His Six Songs is less interesting/convincing, but a good intro to questions about music and evolution.

I enjoyed John Adams‘s Hallelujah Junction more than I expected, based on my experience with Adams’ music. (When will John Luther Adams write a book?) I found his tales about his origins and development illuminating and his writing refreshingly frank. It was especially interesting to read about his life in San Francisco during the 1960s which leads to…

The San Francisco Tape Music Center: an excellent overview of an under-appreciated group of electronic music pioneers and their fascinating intersections with popular culture. This collection puts a new spin on the usual Columbia/Princeton/Bell Laboratory history of electronic music in the US.

Music Technology

I expected 2009 to be about Max for Live, but I never got around to buying Live and then had no reason to get Max for Live. Instead, the one piece of music gear that’s made the most impact on my work in 2009 is an 1860’s style fretless tackhead banjo built by Eric Prust.

Back to the software side, the most notable music software I used this year was for the iPhone

Cleartune is easily the best tuner I’ve ever used. It still makes me a little giddy at how wonderful it is to be able to switch between equal tempered tunings and all manner of Pythagorean, just, meantone and historical tunings. My trusty clip-on tuner finally died this year; I’m not sure I’ll replace it.

SoundLevel is a free, bare-bones sound level meter app. I haven’t upgraded to SoundLevel Pro because the free app does me just fine. The convenience of always having a sound level meter on hand means that I’m much more likely to use it. In fact, it’s become an important step every time I set up a PA or go to a friend’s house to listen to mixes. Not to mention the ability to quickly check how loud that blender really is–time to put in earplugs!

On the productivity/inspiration side of things, OmniFocus for iPhone is essential for me. And the iPhone’s built-in Voice Memos app has become my favorite way to capture a sonic idea or lyric phrase–if only there were a better way to offload those files to my machine rather than having to go through iTunes…

Looking ahead to 2010

Maybe 2010 will be my time for Live and Max for Live. I’ve just started dipping into the Pinewoods International Collection of folk tunes and I expect the book will occupy me for most of next year. I’m hoping that by 2011 I’ll be able to frail my way with ease through all those odd time signatures. Finally, I’m looking forward to making more field recordings with my recently beefed-up rig which now includes a Fostex FR2-LE and a Rode Blimp.

Salad Bowl Hemi Speaker #2

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I recently completed my second salad bowl hemi speaker. (See info on the first one here, including links to the Princeton and Stanford laptop orchestras which provided excellent guides to construction.) My second speaker followed the design and construction of the first very closely, with the substitution of Polk Audio DB401 speakers. The Polk speakers were significantly cheaper than the Infinity speakers. I haven’t directly compared the speakers, but I remember the Infinity speakers to be heavier and louder than the Polk speakers. The frequency response of both seems very similar. I do prefer the mounting tabs on the Infinity speakers to the broad flange on the Polk speakers. When mounting them on a hemispherical surface, the Polk speaker flanges don’t lie quite as flat (er…curved).

Here are some photos I took during construction.


This is the bottom of the speaker. I simply scribed the circumference of the bowl on a piece of 1/2″ plywood and cut out the circle using a jigsaw.

Salad bowl with speaker holes marked and taped

Salad bowl with speaker holes marked and taped

Here’s the bowl with the position of each speaker marked and taped. If you look closely you can see a small red mark at the center of each circle. I used a string attached to the center of the bowl to mark the center of all the equatorial speakers. The tape is simply to prevent the bottom of my jigsaw from scarring the surface of the bowl.

Salad bowl with holes drilled for jigsaw blade

Salad bowl with holes drilled for jigsaw blade

Next I drilled holes in each speaker cutout large enough to fit the blade of my jigsaw.

Salad bowl with speaker holes

Salad bowl with speaker holes

Here’s the bowl with all the speaker holes cut. It’s easy to crack the salad bowl after removing so much of the material, so take care with all subsequent drilling and cutting.

Detail of cut used to enlarge back of speaker opening

Detail of cut used to enlarge back of speaker opening

One result of working with the elliptical geometry of a hemisphere is that the back side of the holes we cut is slightly smaller than the front side. This might prevent your speakers from sitting flush against the surface. I only needed to trim a few places from the back of each circle to get the Infinity speakers to mount flush, but I had to cut the entire back edge of each opening in order to mount the Polk speakers.

Finished hemi showing knobs and connections

Finished hemi showing knobs and connections

Here’s the finished speaker. (I know, I skipped plenty of intervening steps! I was having too much fun putting all the pieces together to stop and take pictures.) The volume knobs (one for each stereo amp) are on the left. In the middle is the power connector. On the right is a 6-conductor Neutrik connector for all the audio signals.

Finished hemi on top of subwoofer

Finished hemi on top of subwoofer

A front view of the finished speaker. It’s sitting on top of a Sony subwoofer I picked up at a yard sale. The two together have a nice R2-unit look. I’ve set the crossover fairly high (around 300Hz). I expect I’ll back it down after some more listening tests.

I’ve already performed once with this hemi. So far, the biggest problem I’ve encountered is having the amps cut out on me when the input levels get too high. The Dayton amps seem to have a protection circuit that shuts them down when they’re driven too hard. It’s better than having the amps blow up, to be sure, but a bit of a drag having the audio suddenly drop out. Sending the low frequency signals to the sub seems to ease the load placed on the hemi amps. I’ve also been experimenting with limiters and high-ratio compressors, but I haven’t yet found the silver bullet. I’ve only scratched the surface of spatialization possibilities with this setup, and I’m looking forward to working with it even more.

Holland Hopson at Signatures – Art Night at Proctors

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I’ve been remiss posting about this event, but below is a last-minute blurb. If all goes well, this will be the premiere of my new 6-channel hemispherical speaker. I’ll post more on that project soon.

Art Night at Proctors Flyer

Art Night at Proctors Flyer

Holland Hopson plays music for banjo and electronics at Signatures Wine Bar, Proctors in Schenectady on Friday December 18th, 5:30pm – 9pm.

Holland’s music for banjo expands traditional Appalachian tunes and techniques with live interactive electronics. Expect a mix of old-time banjo music and ambient electronic improvisations–Roots music for the 21st century. Holland was last seen at Proctors opening for kraut rock legends Faust.

Friday’s performance is part of Art Night at Proctors.

“…vocalist-banjo player Holland Hopson magnificently melded old-timey roots music with 21st century technology…”
–Greg Haymes, The Albany Times Union

Stunned (too late?)

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Stunned Records recently released another in their series of split cassettes: Rambutan / Chapels (Stunned no. 54). This one features Eric Hardiman of Rambutan and Adam Richards of Chapels. A little bit of my banjo + electronics shows up on the Rambutan half of the release.

Good news/Bad news: I just checked the Stunned Records site and it looks like they’re already out of stock.

Faust Show Videos

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I’m finally putting some videos online from the Faust/Century Plants/Holland Hopson show at Proctors. A few can currently be found at YouTube and Vimeo, with another clip or two to arrive soon. These are definitely “performance documentation” videos. If you want to bring your 3-camera HD setup and skills to my next show, feel free to drop me a line!

Don’t Let Your Deal Go Down

Born in the Desert

Born in the Desert from Holland Hopson on Vimeo.

Wichita Mind Control – Estate Capital

Wichita Mind Control – Estate Capital from Holland Hopson on Vimeo.