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The music of language and language of music
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Sinfonietta piece

Sinfonietta piece

October 11, 2017 · by danielformo · in Compositions, Performances, Reflection

I was invited to contribute to a project with the Trondheim Sinfonietta, mainly with a composition workshop for schoolchildren at Rissa Skole in Sør-Trøndelag, Norway, to which I prepared a piece that was performed both as a part of the…

Duo Improvisation

Duo Improvisation

February 26, 2017 · by danielformo · in Performances, Presentations

As part of a series of research concerts organized by the Music Department at my university (NTNU), I made a presentation and duo performance together with vocalist and fellow electronic artist Tone Åse. The event took place at Dokkhuset on…

Harpefoss Poetry Festival

Harpefoss Poetry Festival

September 20, 2016 · by danielformo · in Compositions, Performances

I was very happy to be invited to Harpefoss poetry festival to perform in their musical program, this year curated by composer and performer Maja Ratkje. As a gesture to the occasion I recorded some of the poetry readings at…

Performance of solo composition

Performance of solo composition

September 13, 2016 · by danielformo · in Performances, Reflection, Writings

This is the first performance of a semi-improvised solo composition I made using a selectin of the ideas I have developed through improvisation earlier. Also first time with full 16 channel stage setup, organized as 12 acoustic transducer instruments hanging…

Developing a repertoire

Developing a repertoire

August 23, 2016 · by danielformo · in Compositions, Reflection

During my first few attempts at live performances with this project I quickly experienced a few things: unlike improvising in a familiar musical setting on a traditional musical instrument, the combination of building and learning a new digital instrument and developing…

Corpus approach and Machine learning

Corpus approach and Machine learning

April 1, 2016 · by danielformo · in Analysis, Instrument, Reflection

When starting out my investigation of musicality of speech I set out analyzing, extracting and abstracting all kinds of musical structures from speech recordings. Nevertheless I thought I should keep the time aspect of speech intact, feeling that it is…

DAFx showcase set

DAFx showcase set

January 22, 2016 · by danielformo · in Performances

This is a short demo improv set at a showcase concert at Rockheim, Trondheim, during the DAFx conference in December 2015. I was just trying to show some different musical possibilities and did not compose an overall form, hence the…

Ensemble

Ensemble

February 25, 2015 · by danielformo · in Performances, Studies

After having spent some time exploring one instrument at a time I felt ready to combine different sound sources and explore a wider sonic palette in the role as improvising arranger and orchestrator. In the first piece, a duo of…

Organ chatter

Organ chatter

February 24, 2015 · by danielformo · in Performances, Studies

With a full MIDI-enabled pipe organ at my disposal, I wanted to try how it would sound when controlled by my speech-to-music software. Since the organ is like an orchestra all by itself with all the manuals, pedals and registers,…

Talking Drums

Talking Drums

February 23, 2015 · by danielformo · in Performances, Studies

Before setting up an “orchestra” consisting of several different instruments, I wanted to explore some possibilities one instrument at a time. This series of improvised studies explore the sounds produced by mounting exciter speakers onto drums and cymbals, playing back…

Study 7 - improv composition

Study 7 – improv composition

December 19, 2014 · by danielformo · in Studies

This is a result of trying to find a good way to create music with the system I have developed so far. I first recorded a longer improvised stretch, and then composed a piece from the best parts, re-recording some of the original sections untilI…

First sounds

First sounds

October 20, 2014 · by danielformo · in Instrument, Performances

This is my very first go at improvising with a small “orchestra of speech”, consisting of a mechanical piano, my “acoustic drum machine” setup and some software synthesis played back through a transducer attached to the piano sound board. The…

Blog categories

  • Analysis (5)
  • Compositions (3)
  • Instrument (6)
  • Performances (14)
  • Presentations (4)
  • Reflection (12)
  • Studies (8)
  • Writings (3)

Blog tags

accents analysis composition consonants contact speakers controllers design dialogue drums duo ensemble Essay exciters experiment fricatives ftm/mubu Improvisation interface max/msp mechanical piano meter nime organ papers pauses phonation piano plosives polyphony polyrhythm practice based research prominence pulse quantization recording segmentation sound stress Studies sustain syllable detection system tempo transducers voice quality

CONTENTS

  • PROJECT OUTLINE
    • Introduction
    • Background
  • WORK AND RESULTS
    • Speech gestures as material
    • Methods of abstraction
    • Software Instrument system
    • Sound and Orchestration
    • Performance methods
    • Final Artistic Results
  • REFLECTIONS
    • Design and development
    • Possibilities and limitations
    • Speech sources and concept
    • Perception of speech and music
    • Form, meaning and language
    • Reflections on the results
  • APPENDIX
    • Essay on Artistic Research
    • Technical background
  • RESOURCES
    • References
    • Downloads
    • Research blog
    • Symposium videos

This site presents the doctoral artistic research project The Music of Language and Language of Music by Daniel Formo. The project was carried out between 2013-2017 at the Music Department of the Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU) in Trondheim, as a part of the Norwegian Artistic Research Fellowship Programme.

Contact: daniel.formo [at] ntnu.no

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