THEREMIN-SENSOR-CONSTRUCTION Workshop :: Led by ANDREY SMIRNOV (Theremin center, Moscow) :: June 19-22, 2007 :: Location: Riereta 5 raAVal Barcelona, Spain 08001.

This intensive 4-days workshop is focused on the construction of the Theremin-sensor. In the end of the workshop you will have a self-made and working interactive sensor system. You will learn the basic principles of sensor operation & how to: solder sensors, tune all sorts of sensors, connect sensors to computers and build appropriate patches, get the interactive system working, and solve hidden problems. Continue reading

Ubisoft announced that it will bring a popular Japanese guitar game for Nintendo DS to the US. Their version will be called Jam Session and allows players to strum the touch pad of the gameboy like a set of guitar strings. Players use their other hand to control chord progressions mapped to the directional pad of the hand held.

There are plenty of programs and hacks attempting to turn your DS/PSP/iPod into a hand held music maker with a little technical know how. But Jam Session presents an extremely simple and tactile method of music making anyone who buys the game can enjoy. Is this a step in the direction of game companies supporting creative software for hand held devices? Currently a cult hit in Japan, the US counterpart is set to release sometime in September.

Video via Create Digital Music.

Radio Territories :: Derek Holzer (US/NL), Jason Kahn (US/CH), Brandon LaBelle (US/DK) :: Friday, June 1, 18:00 to 23:00 (works performed simultaneously throughout the building) :: Ballhaus Naunynstrasse, Naunynstrasse 27, Berlin.

While changes in live streaming and digital networks have transformed the use and understanding of radio, the notion and act of live transmission through the air continues to inspire and haunt the auditory imagination. From the potential of spreading information undercover of legal borders to filling the airwaves with fugitive sound, radio may remain at the core of what it means to communicate through circuits. Continue reading

Cellphonia: WET, a karaoke cell phone interactive sound/video installation by Steve Bull, Scot Gresham-Lancaster, Kalin Mintchev, and Terese Svoboda on the world water crisis premieres at NIME (new interfaces for musical expression) June 6 - 9 at Eyebeam, 540 West 21st, NYC. Participants repeat lyrics–or add to the Drip Chorus–by singing into their cellphones. The result is mixed into an instant 24/7 looping opera performance. Visitors will experience a 20-minute 5-song looping vocals of naiads lamenting the loss of the world’s fresh water with projected video accompaniment.

from Cellphonia: San Jose 2006

Not attending NIME? You can still perform by calling 212-937-7725. Listen to yourself in performance at http://cellphone.el.net/NIME/

Welcome to the first issue of the Networked Music Review Newsletter, a monthly review of some of the content archived on Networked_Music_Review [to receive this via email, subscribe here].

NMR interviews an artist every six weeks and encourages its audience to ask questions about his/her work. Our first interviewee was Jason Freeman, who uses new technologies and unconventional notation to turn audiences and musicians into compositional collaborators. Miya Masaoka investigates the sound and movement of insects, as well as the physiological responses of plants, the human brain, and her own body. She is available for questions until July 7.

Two important festivals were noted this month: The New York Electronic Art Festival (NYEAF), and the Mobile Music Workshop hosted by Steim and the Waag Society in Amsterdam. Continue reading

A startup called eJamming claims to have solved some of the problems that have plagued musicians who jam together online. According to the company, its software, called eJamming AUDiiO, is able to let musicians collaborate in near real time with musicians halfway across the world. Additionally, the software simultaneously records each musician, combines and synchronizes his or her input, and creates files with CD-quality tracks, says Alan Glueckman, president and chairman of eJamming.

Since the early days of the Internet, says Glueckman, musicians have been excited about the prospect of sharing their music online, and even playing with fellow musicians over the network. “But they have always been kept out because of bandwidth constraints,” he says, because music contains “a lot of data to shove through the pipes.”" Continue reading Jam Online in Real Time by Kate Greene, Technology Review.

c(2)ipo-06 (cybernetic intelligent parasitic object)–by Kostas Daflos–is a musical cooperative organism with a structure related to the neurological system. It is activated by human presence and it communicates with the environment via a sensor. Its internal environment consists of an additional ten contact sensors which supply the system with responses (interrupting and re-establishing endless routes of information). These contacts transform the results of the impromptu sound effects obtained from the environment into a multitude of random sound frequencies. Continue reading

electro-music 2007 (TM), a three day conference/music festival will be held at the Cheltenham Art Center in Philadelphia, June 1 - 3, 2007. The program will include lectures, demos, jam sessions, and concerts. The scope of this festival is very broad, covering all aspects of electro-music, experimental electronic music, including circuit bending, computer music, electro-jazz, modular synthesis, musique concrete, improvisation, noodles (generated or automatic music and algorithmic composition), multi-media, visual art and much more. The focus will be on participant involvement, sharing, community development, audience education, and great music.

Here’s a short film about the electro-music festival 2006.

Continue reading

In 1951, the first electronic music studio was conceived from scratch at the WDR Radio of Cologne (Germany) to enable the composition of electronic music sounds. Briefly, the concept of studios evolved up to the 1955 design of the Phonology studio in Milan by Luciano Berio and Bruno Maderna. With nine oscillators, various filters and other sophisticated equipment, the presence of a technician/musician (Marino Zuccheri), the studio was the best equipped in the world at that time. Continue reading

Find music rehearsal, audition and performance space in New York City. A free resource for musicians in all genres. NYC Performing Arts Spaces (formerly Exploring the Metropolis, Inc.) is the only nonprofit organization that focuses solely on resolving performing artists’ needs for rehearsal and performance space. They take a multi-faceted approach, providing valuable free services to both the performing artists who need appropriate work spaces and the facilities who offer them. You can reach them here.