Sounds of the Summer/Sounds in Detroit

Hello, sorry. Turns out applying to grad school is a lot of work. Who knew?

The Grand Valley State University New Music Ensemble rips a preview of their collaborative CD with collective slashsound at Strange Beautiful Music X in Detroit this weekend; 4pm Saturday. In celebration of the new music marathon’s decennial, the concert is part of a 3-day new music marathon ExtrAvAgAnzA, so show up and melt your mind on the newest, flashiest, and most profound new music in Michigan. Artists include Vicky Chow (of Bang on a Can Allstars), the Donald Sinta Quartet, Latitude 49, and, of course, several heavy-hitting sets from the inimitable New Music Detroit. I’m performing with GVSU NME on laptop and metronome, and three tracks worth of ensemble parts were written by yours truly. Detroit premieres! WOO! See you there!

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This summer has been a whirlwind of adventures that I’d been longing for for a long time. With my trusty Galaxy S4, I took some sound samples of environments I found particularly evocative. They serve a particularly nostalgic purpose for me, so I’m not sure if they stand on their own. In lieu of many pictures, these select tracks offer a (very) brief glimpse into my travels (and psyche???) this summer:

I am standing in my bedroom during my homestay in Beauvais, France, a few blocks from city center and a cathedral built in God-knows-when long ago. Someone decided to tune the bells in seconds. The birds respond.

We go to school with our host-brothers and host-sisters in Germany. I THOUGHT I WAS DONE WITH THIS! Fortunately, my host-brother has computers (coding) and sports. Excellent. Turns out coding is difficult in all languages. Turns out these schoolchildren are much better at Fußball than me. We find some of his friends in animated conversation in a very resonant hallway. Does not sound like English. Go figure.

On our adventure around Lake Michigan, my girlfriend and I encounter some spectacular wildlife sounds from our campground on the shore of Lake Winnebago. Even though it’s easily past midnight, I guess the other tourists had to go pee.