‘Listen’ workshop – Taipei, 12 July 2015 – reading and references

July 14, 2015August 14, 2015 | cdgsham

On Sunday night, I ran the ‘Listen’ workshop at the Murder Ink book store in Taipei. The workshop was specifically for the cast and crew of the upcoming Taipei Fringe Festival production Cold Case Club, but was also open to others who booked as well. Chun-liang Liu kindly translated to Mandarin for me. I really enjoyed the evening and think the participants did as well.

For participants, here are some references and further reading regarding some of the people and ideas we talked about:

Pauline Oliveros Deep Listening: A Composer’s Sound Practice, iUniverse : 2005 – about Pauline Oliveros and Deep Listening

Marc Weidenbaum “Sound Class, Week 1 of 15: An Introduction to Listening” in Disquiet 4 Feb 2015

Aviva Endean A Face Like Yours video, 2015 (thanks to Aviva for permission to use her video)

John Cage describes his experience in the anechoic chamber:

“If it ain’t broke…break it” workshop, Digilog, Taipei, 3 July 2015

July 4, 2015 | cdgsham

Yesterday I had my first engagement of my Taiwanese trip, a workshop at Digilog here in Taipei.

Digilog is a little shop that sells synthesisers (including modular), microphones and related equipment, along with books and CDs.

I was very happy with the workshop. I focussed on why I do what I do with turntables, and hopefully I conveyed some of my ideas and inspiration. It was also much more participatory than I’d anticipated – everyone had a go at playing with turntable settings, putting objects and records in different places, and a couple of people even smashed some records after I demonstrated the finer points of record-breaking technique!

I had some trouble showing some of the video clips I had planned to illustrate some of my discussion points, so I list them here for workshop participants who may be interested, and for everyone else, too:

Clinton Green – The Four seasons: suite for turntable

Sonic Youth – Burning spear – live 1985

Undecisive God – Angels (example of my experimental guitar work from 2001. Fan video – not made by me)

Ross Bolleter – Five Short Ruins

Justice Yeldham – Live in Tulsa

Ernie Althoff – Live at More Talk Less Action, 2013

Many thanks to Frank and Sarah at Digilog, and to Betty Apple for putting us in touch. Thanks to Chun-liang for translating at the workshop.

“Listen” workshop – reading and references

June 20, 2015July 30, 2015 | cdgsham

Today I had a “trial run” of a workshop I am preparing to facilitate next month in Taiwan. The idea of today was to deliver the workshop to some friends, try some things out and see how the structure went. I think we all go something out of it. Here is the description of the event in Taiwan, which also gives you an idea of what we did today:

12 July 2015, 7:30pm – ‘Listen’ workshop (facilitated by Clinton Green) @ Murder Ink bookshop, Taipei, Taiwan

Australian experimental musician and performer, Clinton Green, leads a group workshop in the art of listening. Through discussion, group exercises and personal experiences, Clinton will lead the group in an exploration of sound in site-specific performance (in this case, a bookshop). The workshop will cover approaches to discovering and incorporating sound inherent in the site into performance, as well as focusing on the inner experience of listening itself. The workshop is designed for cast members of the upcoming Taipei Fringe Festival production “Cold Case Club”, directed by Clinton’s Moe Chee partner, Chun-liang Liu (running in late August 2015); as such, it is cultivated towards theatrical performers, but other places are open to people of all backgrounds and interests. Places are very limited, bookings here.

And for those who came today, I thought it might be useful to list some of the sources I built today’s workshop on, and some of the works of others I referenced:

Pauline Oliveros Deep Listening: A Composer’s Sound Practice, iUniverse : 2005

Marc Weidenbaum “Sound Class, Week 1 of 15: An Introduction to Listening” in Disquiet 4 Feb 2015

Aviva Endean A Face Like Yours video, 2015 (thanks to Aviva for permission to use her video)