Stop, Walk, and Listen - An Expansive Mobile Aural Experience

Date: April 11th, 2012 (Wednesday)
Time: Any 35-minute slot within 12pm-2pm. Last "admission" is 1.15pm.
Location: Accolade East Building, York University, Toronto.

For my 4th-year self-directed study "Sound and Music: Beyond Categories", I'm presenting this soundwalk project which incorporates installations, performances, and interactive moments. It will be about slowing down your footsteps, taking your time to experience different perspectives, and, of course, having FUN. My supervisors are Marc Couroux and Casey Sokol.

The main objective of this project is to create an interesting mobile listening experience for the participants to discover in-depth and opened perspectives about sound and music. What are the relationships between sound and music? What makes them different and what makes them similar? What happens when sound becomes musical, and music becomes sound?

Please come to the lobby (first floor, you will see a wide space) of ACE building with your mobile listening devices (with earbuds) loaded with given tracks. You can download the tracks here. When you're at the reception desk at the lobby, you will be given a handout with instructions, then you're set!

The walk is 35 minutes. Suggested duration is 40-45 minutes, because I would love everyone to take their time and slowly experience. Come anytime between 12pm-2pm, latest 1.15pm so that you can finish the walk on time.

Please look forward to some beautiful soundscapes, vocal improvisation performance by me, classical piano performance by Dandan Mao, expressive music, pop stuff, jazz groove, and more!

Don't forget to download the tracks, load them onto your device, and bring them along (with earbuds!)!!

Comment if you have any questions/concerns. Hope to see you all there! Come and have fun listening and walking!

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LOOKING FOR VOLUNTEERS.

I need at least 5 volunteers to help me setting up and taking care of the installations. Set up time is 11am-12pm. Lunch and drink/snacks will be provided. Please email maychookmusic@gmail.com if you're willing to help out! Appreciate!

Not a recital

"You're in your final year, so are you going to have a year-end recital? Jazz voice?"

Sorry, no. Firstly, I'm not a performance nor jazz nor voice major. Secondly, what I'm interested in is more than jazz and singing and the combination of both.

So I'm doing an independent project exploring sound and music. Yes, I'm climbing onto the sound art fence.

Course title
Sound and Music: Beyond Categories

Statement of aims
This interdisciplinary study aims to explore the categories of sound art and music and the boundaries that both distinguish and unite them.

Description
In the context of this study, I will undertake to explore the possibilities and limitations within the domains of sound and music. A combination of readings, journaling, listening and practical experiments will lead to a final year-end project that will incorporate techniques from both sound art and music (e.g. field recording, sound editing, sound sculptures, installation, performance, composition, computer music, and improvisation). The final project will consider concepts proper to both mediums, and those that characterize and distinguish each medium, e.g.: noise and silence, melody, rhythm and harmony, speech, language and conversation, modes of listening, site vs. stage, soundscape vs. arrangement etc. These concepts are non-exhaustive and can be applied across categories, which is the point of this study.

During this study, I will apply (and combine) the expertise I have acquired over my music degree: jazz performance (piano and vocal), composition and improvisation, digital music, music history, film music, and avant-garde music. I will also apply skills and concepts studied in digital media and community arts, which were my in-faculty/out-of-major courses.

50% - Journaling, listening reports, reading reports, phenomenal experiments, phenomenal observations
50% - Final Project

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So far, I plan my final project to be site specific. It can be a performance or installation or the combination of both. I'm pretty ambitious, but I need to consider the limitations (individual skills, time, technical equipment, etc.) and embrace them too. No fun being too ambitious then everything falls apart eventually. Knock on wood.

My final semester will be a good one. I love my life :D


*Marc Couroux was my sound art professor last term. That was one of the courses that I felt the most passion in throughout my degree. I was extremely curious about and interested in many concepts in sound art, and I feel a great [dis]connection with it as a [non-]musician.

*Casey Sokol is one of the most inspiring mentors in my life. I'm taking piano and voice improvisation class with him. His class allows me to explore how to be myself myself and a professional musician at the same time. That balance between emotions and skills becomes so beautifully (and sometimes vulnerably) embraced in my musical life.

The Sound of the Unheard

The Sound of the Unheard by May Chook

Written by: May Chook

Performed by: You the listener

                                                   

Lyrics:

What did you hear?

           The sound of your heartbeat?

                         Or the sound of your soul?

           The sound of cars passing by,

                         Or the sound of people having jobs that they don’t like?

           The sound of your dryer,

                         Or the sound of clothing factory workers’ life?

           The sound of your phone ringing,

                         Or the sound of people losing getting-together time?

           The sound of the TV,

                         Or the sound of the unheard?

What did you not hear?

           Sound?

                         Or silence?

Small music?

Rolf Julius

Interviews on The Wire magazine. Interview 2005; Interview 2009

Music for the Eyes (1982/2004) [Source]

Music for a Frozen Lake (1982)

Permanent Collection in Mattress Factory, Pittsburgh, PA.

MOVING (2007) exhibition pictures in Cortex Athletico, Bordeaux, France

FIAC 2010 exhibition pictures in Cortex Athletico, Bordeaux, France

A turning point?

Fall semester is done half of it, time flies faster than I can catch it. But, I'm totally satisfied with my attitude and work progress.

It's the final year of my degree, but I feel that my learning process JUST started. 

I went to improv soiree at York just now, it's one of the musicians-must-go monthly events in Toronto, I swear. Through soirees I attended starting last year, I met so many awesome musicians and heard a lot of good musical ideas. I found my good good music friends there; sometimes we play together, everything is just so beautiful and wonderful. Of course, I need to mention the awesome person holding this monthly event - Professor Casey Sokol who is teaching improvisation at York. His classes totally changed my thoughts and attitude towards music and life, in an extremely good way.

I do believe my 4th year in university is a turning point in my life. This is a time when I have mastered certain level of knowledge and started to question things critically. Maybe some people do it earlier, this is just my pace of my life. Goodness knows when I first came to Canada and York, I didn't know what jazz is. Not at all.

In 2008 September, I was very clueless in this new country and new style of life. I have a weird accent although I can write English pretty well. I spent so much time studying and practicing and sometimes crying in practice rooms, because I wasn't confident with my musical skills at all. But no matter what happens, people I met, especially Canadians or musicians, are always nice to me. 

Life is so beautiful when you look back and feel so good with those moments. Some moments can be heartbreaking, but they are indeed memorable.

Stories are beautiful too, I mean other people's life stories. Although I always question critically about cultures and social norms, I do believe that happiness comes from people around you. Commercials like to use "happiness" to sell their products, and most people find connection through their favorite brands; but in the end, if you love someone, you can lose everything in the world but not that person. 

I lack of "stories" in Canada. My stories back in Malaysia are mostly heart-wrenching, and only recently I started to be able to face the past with a positive attitude. I don't have family in Canada, I spend time with music almost 24/7, and I start to question myself...I need to have a life if I want to make good music. 

That's how I thought of the subtitle of this blog - music, art, and life should come together. But in fact, I would love to add one more - words. I used to do Chinese writing semi-professionally from 2004 to 2007. I think it's a good time for me to do it and speak my own accent of Mandarin and English proudly again. This is like a turning point in my life, I figured so many positive changes are going to happen. 

Very personally, I also realized some changes. I like how I spent my last summer, and I like how my Fall term goes. I question more, but I'm going to love more too.

Very personal

Time: 5.30pm
Weather: rainy day, temperature around 20C.
Location: York U Second Cup
Now playing: songs that I feel connected to
Mood: was bad. Now better, going to be good

This is gonna be very personal, I swear.

Finished my improvisation private lesson, I have so much on my mind now. The feelings are swallowing me, and I'm stuck.

It has been 2 weeks since school started. I have been outrageously energetic, hardworking, positive, outgoing, critical, confident, and any good attitude you can possibly associate with. IT IS GOOD.  I acknowledge the importance of both personal and "professional" expression. But I think I have been "working" so much that I ignored my little heart can be quite breakable sometimes.

I want love, I want care. Not from anyone, but from myself.

I have been giving out love and care so much lately and I ignored the existence of my little self.

This doesn't mean I'm weak in reality. I just ignored the sensitive (YES that's the word) self. I talked to myself a lot but most of them are about how to relate myself to the outside world...about my responsibility and things that I want to do.

What about things that I want to feel, just for the sake of myself?

For the sake of myself.
For the sake of myself.
For the sake of myself.
For the sake of myself.

Myself
Myself
Myself

Who the heaven am I? And why does that even matter?

It doesn't matter to anyone other than myself. I feel my existence, that's what matters.

Whatever I do when I'm alone, or even in the middle of the crowd, if I do it to make myself feel good, do it.

Sometimes, you need to take a break from "social" responsbility. Despite that, my attitude of "working makes me feel good" still works very much.

Just this moment, please, let me be alone, to think and feel whatever I want. After a while...tonight, tomorrow, or just the next hour, I will read this post again and be critical again.

Break.
Break.
Break.

When I was feeling quite bad just now,  I found a quiet spot in music building and played this song on my iPod, in a relatively loud volume to block all the sound around me...focused on the sound of this song...



Ivana Wong's "I'm really hurt". It is a nice song indeed, but not a song that's very significant in my life, and my heart is not hurt. I just wanted a soft female voice singing a song that doesn't need a lot of techniques, yet sensitive emotions.

Music is what feelings sound like. How do one sound when he/she is hurt? This song is one of the ways.

But you can scream, you can cry, you can moan. Those are sounds of hurt too. Music is just one of those many many many ways.

Because I question the importance of iPod, because I question the importance of "stylistic" music, I started to listen to a lot of weird stuff - avant garde, experimental, alternative, free jazz, soundscape composition - all of them are still considered music, but they break "rules" led by conventional and mainstream music.

Mainstream is not only pop. In North America, it's also Western classical music composed by masters (Mozart, Beethoven etc.), jazz standards (those by Ella Fitzgerald, Frank Sinatra, Carmen McRae etc.) and smooth jazz/easy listening (Norah Jones, Michael Buble etc.)

But there are times when I just want to listen to certain singers or songs, especially those I feel connected to. Most of those music, I discovered them without the "assistance" of formal courses and teachers.

I like that process of loving a musician just because one day you heard about him on radio, you dig the songs, you googled him, found more youtube videos and songs and albums, saw him on newspaper, heard about him from your friends, you wanted the radio play the songs again, you streamed his songs every day, then you decided to own a hardcopy of the album, you bought it, held it with hands, hugged it, put it next to your bed, went to concerts and autograph sessions, be happy.

In short, be a small [yet significant] fan.

After writing all these, I found myself even more connected to the outside world and communities, although I was being very personal (and probably a lot of grammatical errors too).

Working makes me feel good. But there are many ways to feel good, don't limit yourself to just one source to happiness. People tend to get bored by one same approach, so, switch around and have fun!!!

PS: After playing Ivana's song, I switched my playlist to this...



told you, this post is very personal.

I learn, I think, I create

I learn from great teachers;

I learn from my colleagues;

I learn from people who are better than me;

I learn by reading;

I learn by listening;

I learn by observing life;

I learn by making mistakes.

I think when I'm learning;

I think what I learned;

I think why I need to think;

I think why I need to learn;

I think what I didn't learn;

I think, therefore I am.*

I create what I thought about what I learned;

I create to let myself hear my own voice;

I create for myself;

I create for myself who is attached to many people;

I create for no one;

I create for people who love me;

I create to make people love me;

I create to make me love me.

I create by thinking about love and hate;

I create by thinking about ignorance;

I create by unlearning what I learned;

I create by questioning what I used to persist;

I create to challenge myself.

.......................................

I was actually writing a short one to post on my sidebar, as a reminder and motivator to myself since I embrace the cycle of learning + thinking + creating so much now. Then the writing went on and on, G-Dragon** was singing his hiphop softly through my speakers, my mind was getting sleepy yet wanted to continue mapping the cycle. I believe what I wrote above might seem lacking tomorrow when I wake up, but if I have the drive to write, why limit myself?

Certain level of self limiting is definitely good for the creating process, but writing is more like a thinking and re-learning process, although all of them actually interweave together into a piece of [un]beautiful cloth. When the mind map is presented through a kind of medium, in this case my blog, it becomes immortal and exists physically in this world. Whoever drops by and sees what I drew...

They might not pay attention at all...

They might pay too much attention thus they hate me...

Or they might fall in love with me.

When I don't expect love and compliments only, I feel more realistic and existed in this world. Utopia can hardly be achieved, that's why beautiful things are beautiful.

*that line is from philosopher Rene Descartes, you should know it. If you didn't, now you know.

**korean hiphop playing softly as background music, I started to feel the merge between my pop and unpop side. What a nice realization.

Every jazz lover can be jazz artist

Saturday evening, I watched this documentary about first generation of Korean jazz musicians. I bought the DVD from YesAsia a while ago (actually pre-ordered it, yes I was THAT desperate).

"Bravo! Jazz Life", a documentary film that documents the process of making a concert and album featuring these jazz maestros. This film was released in Dec 2010 and the concert was held in Jan 2011. I didn't know about these musicians at all, but seeing them playing "Round Midnight" and "All of Me", talking about John Coltrane and Duke Ellington, I feel a sense of connection with these awesome people. We speak different languages, but we are connected through music. This sounds a bit cliche, but it's so so true. I still can't remember most of their names; but trust me, I will learn their names and for sure check them out, and check out jazz scene in South Korea when I visit there.

Trailer with english subtitles

Their stories are so touching and inspiring. Most musicians' stories are inspiring, I can never deny this. In the 50s and 60s, South Korea wasn't as wealthy as today's. There was no jazz school nor jazz clubs. How did these jazz musicians find out about jazz and how did they learn jazz? How did they balance their time working and playing jazz? How about their friends and family? Why jazz? I learned so much in this film. And I feel so thankful and lucky that I have almost everything in my life.

I like one of the lines said by the narrator, "[paraphrased] Jazz musicians, jazz columnists, volunteers, fans, everyone can be jazz artist; all of them shape one jazz culture and community."

Music brings people together. Jazz is rooted from the US; but around the globe, once you hear that swinging hi hat and laid back piano comping, you feel connected with the musicians and the people around you. Jazz has so much personality and attitude embedded in the music and atmosphere, it's very humane, and it's about life.

That moment..

That moment you wrote so much by hand in your notebooks, and so many murmur posts saved in your computer, you don't know how to clear the mess.

I didn't stop writing, never stop thinking. I hope I will never stop posting.

Let's see what will happen.

A musical Mothers' Day...with good food

Current playlist: Surrounding sound of a quiet late night
Current mood: blessed, contented, not extremely hyper, feeling good to be alive

What happened on Mothers' Day:-
- Recorded a video for my mom
- Had a chocolate fondue + curry party with my buddies
- Watched "Malaysian Voices" contemporary concert
- Feeling good to have such a great mom and I started to realize a lot of good things

I had the best Mothers' Day celebration ever.

On Saturday I recorded this video dedicating to my dearest mommy. I speak in Cantonese and the songs are mandarin songs of my mom's favorite Taiwanese singer Richie Ren. Just a note: I'm not a good piano/keyboard player.

Then, I celebrated this special day with good friends and music, to me it's the best way, for now, to celebrate my mom's awesomeness because she has been teaching me a lot in socializing and supporting my musical aspiration.

Fondue party with my best friends in Toronto. GOOD FOOD!!

I watched this concert at The Music Gallery close to Osgoode station.

Introduction before the concert started. From left: CHOW Jun Yi, CHONG Kee Yong, Robert Aitken

The Music Gallery is apparently a church, but it is the home for creative music in Toronto too.

Basically the concert was featuring Malaysian composers of contemporary music. Honestly I didn't hear much about this genre in Malaysia before I came to Toronto in 2008, and I was quite surprised that there was a concert in Toronto featuring these works. I almost jumped when I saw the listing in WholeNote magazine.

Thank goodness there was a Contemporary Music Fest in Malaysia in 2009 and Kee Yong has been working hard to push the festival bi-annually/annually. Good music, regardless the genre, should be encouraged and shared everywhere.

I have a thing with contemporary music. I wanted to study that in York but eventually I affectionately fall in love with jazz. Thanks to the flexibility and interdisciplinary system in York, I took a contemporary piano and improvisation class with Professor Casey Sokol and tutor Steve Koven; the course is changing my life. It is in present continuos tense because the course will NEVER end even if I stop taking it formally. It's about the spirit and I always keep in touch with great teachers.

I also have a thing with dissonance. I like Satie, embrace Webern, appreciate Schoenberg, and admire Cage. Dissonant contemporary music might not sound pleasant but to me there are many different types of dissonance, which I can even sub-categorize them into pleasant dissonance and unpleasant dissonance, and also relatively-pleasant dissonance. The "judgment" of consonance is very subjective, as we know 3rds and 6ths were even considered dissonant in medieval time. To me, minor 2nd can sound very pleasant too; it depends on the context and instrumentation, and not forgetting - the listener's current mood.

Detailed thoughts about the concert will be up in the next post, hopefully. I found this post will be terribly lengthy if I put everything together.

By the way, tomorrow is Girls Night Out jam session in Chalkers Pub, hosted by Lisa Particelli. I'm loving her more and more. I'm coming again! Let's have some live jazz and cocktails ;DD