This is an hour when few creatures are stirring, but life continues. Maybe you’re heading home after a night of partying. Or finishing up the night shift. Others are rising to get ready for work. Are you awake at 3 AM? What do you hear?
Share it on our Facebook page or Soundcloud!
Tod will be attending the ALL CAPS! Island Festival on August 11th and 12th, a festival of Indie music. We have several fun activities planned for Sunday the 12th, and we hope to see you at the festival so you can be a part of this next step. First, any interested members of the audience or performers will come together to listen to a select few of the submitted Toronto sounds and then begin to reflect these sounds in actual music. Tod will be working with this group to give suggestions, and they will work to get as close as possible to those sounds using instruments in both traditional and non-traditional ways. During this time, the bands will also have a unique opportunity to join in on the project. By setting up a recording studio at the festival, we will be able to collect the one chord, sound, or short phrase that represents each individual band. The idea here is similar to with the sounds in that we hope these clips will be instantly recognizable to any of each bands’ fans. This should be a great weekend to begin to both listen to Toronto music and to take the next steps of the project together; we hope to see you there!
For more information about “A Toronto Symphony: Concerto for Composer and City,” visit http://toronto.media.mit.edu/
For more information about the ALL CAPS! festival, visit http://wavelengthtoronto.com/show/2012/06/all-caps-island-festival-2012
So I hope you’ve had a chance to take a look at the first bit of music I made with the Toronto Symphony musicians. Now it’s your turn, to see what your reaction is to the Launch Music and maybe to see if you want to add something to it. You can look at the chords, play them on the piano, look at the video, you can hear the chords, you can hear the full piece. It’s a combination of my chords, what the musicians wrote in response to my chords, and then some improvisation we did back and forth. You can look at the score, and it would be great to hear any comments.
This music might be what A Toronto Symphony actually feels like. It might start with these chords and with this shape. So I’d love to hear if you think this feels like the beginning of a symphony, or if we might change it in some way. And I would definitely love it if you would send chords that you like that maybe my chords suggest to you, you might want to add chords to my chords, you might even want to take the audio recording of the chords or the music we made and jam on top of them. You can sing on top of it, you can play instruments on top of it, or you can use it to write out music that might go along with it.
So that’s my challenge to you now. Here’s this Launch Music. Tell me what you think of it, change it, add something to it, and let’s start working together to shape the opening of this piece based on this music. Can’t wait to see what you come up with!
Harmonically yours,
Tod
UPDATE: Here at last is the edited video from the ideacity 2012 presentation, with a performance of the Launch Music exercise by members of the Toronto Symphony:
[media width=”600″ height=”450″ link=”http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D9jpgfQNsTk”]
Flatiron Building at night
Some of us have gone to bed and rarely hear the city at this hour. But the city never sleeps. What’s your Sound of Toronto at midnight? Surprise us!
Record a few seconds or a minute of your Toronto sound and share it on our Facebook page or Soundcloud.
Continued from Part 1…
With chords in hand, I contacted Jeff Beecher, bass player in the Toronto Symphony Orchestra and co-chair of the musician’s committee, to see if he and some of his colleagues would be interested in working with this initial chord progression for our first collaboration. Jeff was willing, found eight other players who also wanted to participate (2 violins, viola, cello, Jeff on bass, bassoon, french horn and clarinet), and we were off.
Tod and TSO players at ideacity
I sent them the chord progression and asked if they would augment and modify what I had written, by adding new chords, writing melodies to my chords, and/or proposing sounds suggested by my chords. All eight of them got back to me within a few days with a wealth of remarkable music including quirky melodies, jaunty and sometimes jagged rhythms, and some quite unusual sounds. It was a very pleasant surprise that they responded, and even a better surprise that what they send back was so interesting and so unexpected. Continue reading
Distillery Historic District
Night is falling. Are you heading home for dining out, or on your way out to a club? Or perhaps you work the night shift, with its own unique rhythms? Are the streets or your neighborhood falling silent, or still bustling with activity?
What’s your Sound of Toronto at 9:00PM?
Share it on our Facebook page or Soundcloud!
The work day is over for many, the rumble of the homeward commute is crescendoing. Kitchens across the city resound with the sound of vegetables getting chopped, the sizzle of the evening’s meal landing in skillets, the warm-up of the evening’s entertainments…
What’s your sound of Toronto at 6:00 PM?
Grab that sound with your smartphone, digital camera or recorder! Share it on our Facebook page or Soundcloud! Deadline: August 9, 2012 – because we will be incorporating your sounds into an exciting activity that takes place August 11-12. Details will be revealed soon! Email Rachel McDermott with technical questions.
It’s that time of day when you need that extra shot of caffeine and conversation to help you get through the remains of the afternoon. The screen door slams and the kids are home from camp. Or if you’re a night owl, you’re just becoming fully alert and starting to plan your evening.
What’s your sound of Toronto at 3:00 PM?
Catch that sound with your smartphone, digital camera or recorder. It can be a few seconds or up to a minute, depending on the sound. Share it on our Facebook page or Soundcloud! Deadline: August 9, 2012 – because we will be incorporating your sounds into an exciting activity that takes place August 11-12. Details will be revealed soon!
If you need technical help, email Rachel McDermott <rachelmc@mit.edu>. Have fun!
Dundas Square
After the relative calm of mid-morning, noon erupts in noise as workers head out to lunch. Public plazas turn into open-air concert spaces. It’s a time for church bells and emergency sirens. What are your sounds of Toronto as morning tips into afternoon?
At 12:00 PM, record the sound that tells you what time it is, using any recording device you have at hand. Share it on our Facebook page or Soundcloud.
Toronto street car
By now you will have discerned a pattern in this series of tasks! But are the sounds around you as regular and predictable as you might assume? Perhaps your life proceeds every day like clockwork. Then again, it may be peppered with unexpected moments. Whether you’re waiting for a bus, settling into your desk or heading out to your garden with your morning cup of coffee, take a moment to open your ears. What does 9:00 AM sound like?
Capture the sound that catches your ear with your smartphone, digital camera or recorder and share it on our Facebook page or Soundcloud. Thank you, and have a lovely day!!