Tag Archives: dance

Sonic Practices of Resistance and Activism

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Many artists are inspired to create becuase they want to make a change in the world. Art created with no meaning has little longetivty. Art where the atist has poured their heart and life experiences into are the works of art which stay most implemented within history. Art made with these intentions may be seen as sonic activism.

Sonic Activism takes many forms and shapes. My good friend Tom Costello, Boy Lucid, leads nature walks across London and Ireland with the intention of opening up the question: “how can we re-engage with our environmental landscape?”. AM Kanngieser uses their sonic practices to contribute to ecological and geographical research. The Afrika Shrine founded by Fela Kuti was not just a place of cultural gathering, but also political gathering, where young Nigerians could discuss the future of post-Colonial Nigeria. Anything can be considered activism, as long as you speak on its intentions.

Ultra-red is a sound collective with an investment in activist art. As a collective, they look at social issues through the lense of Pierre Schaffer’s different listening modes, and look to work of Paulo Freier’s Pedagogy of the Oppressed, which focuses on the use of converstion to reach a goal of humanisation between a group of oppressed people. Conversation promote collective listening, allowing people to become more immersed within a community. This helps to work towards a goal more aligned within everyones needs. Thinking on my own community I have started to build, Happiness Starts with Dancing, I am becoming aware of the importance of establishing conversations in order to build that communal value, to build connection between people. But in what ways is my community a form of sonic activism? Perhaps as I stated earlier, anything is activism as long as you speak on the intent.

“Culture as an aversion to politics”

Where I don’t particuarly wholeheartedly believe in any validated political theory, it would feel wrong to ground my community with “political belief”. However, I believe that with this stance, political change is much more tangible. Rather than create loud, angry movements that stigmatise the goal which one works towards, peaceful, creative outlets are more likely to inspire. At the moment, I am just throwing free dances during the day, which aleady changes the perception of what dance music is. It doesn’t have to be in the cold, dinginess of the night. It doesn’t have to be enshrined in an alcohol or drugs culture. I am not solely booking “big name” DJs, who are typically white, cis males. I am hoping to broaden the perception of who can fascillitate the sounds of the dance. Meanwhile, I am sharing online resources about the culture of the music which we share at our dances- I am hoping to expand this into a book club, which will fascilitate conversation, the same way Ultra-red does.

“If I can’t dance, I can’t be part of the revolution”

Happiness Starts with Dancing is remnicsent of 90s resistant movements in response to Government bans on musical gatherings.

“The function is anti-function as a function”

Sometimes, we need to just plant seeds, and live in the way we hope to see the world be. Then the world will become. 🙂

Reflection on Sound Piece

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The World Doesn’t Dance But I Do is a piece created with the intention of “abstractifying” the dancefloor. There’s often discourse around whether sound pieces created under the term “sound art” should be classified as either DIY or Avante Garde, making sound art sound to be something inaccessible to the mainstream. The piece I have created has taken a tumultuous journey, being deconstructed, reconstructed, reaching to be a sound that can be enjoyed by the mainstream and the art worlds alike. Created by first constructing its basic structure and “musical” elements in Logic, then being run through the SP 404, I believe this piece has achieved its goal, the journey behind being explored below.

With a lack of access to resources needed to create a sound piece (a laptop, a DAW, microphones), much of my time leading up to its creation was spent pondering on inspiration. As a jungle / drum and bass DJ, I was becoming increasingly pulled towards the sounds of Source Direct. In their music, the basses used act as a driving force, with the harmony being left as an afterthought, if included at all. The basses used are often accompanied by higher pitch synth sounds, not usually constructing entire melodies, but as more of a decoration to the main elements: the drums and the bass. I had also become less interested in the use of sampling, and became more drawn to the use of musique concrete, or authentically composing elements. I decided to experiment- I was to make a drum and bass track composed entirely of concrete sounds, no synthesisers, no samples. 

However, once finally acquiring a studio space and the resources needed to compose, my entire idea was flipped on its head. The first problem was that the concrete sounds I had recorded didn’t fit authentically with what I was trying to create; the percussion sounds recorded from park benches and punching bags didn’t have the richness that traditional drum samples provide. With this being said, I wanted to ensure that I stuck to my rule of no sampling from pre-existing material. To my luck, there was a drum kit in the room. I recorded kick drum, snare, hi-hats and cymbal sounds using a dynamic microphone. Each part was recorded individually. The second reason why my initial idea was ruled out was because once I entered the studio, I was sidetracked by the beautiful noises I could create on the hardware synthesisers. I began creating a bassline using the SE-1 X, using it as a driving force for the piece. I then constructed the drum groove around this, then used the AX60 and  Juno-106 to add secondary bass parts and tangents of harmonic lines.

Although I am very happy with the outcome of my piece, I believe there were a couple downfalls. Whilst using hardware gives a unique touch, it highlights technical issues. Once the different elements had been run through the SP, many sounds were lost in the mix, most notably the tangents of melodic lines. Usually this wouldn’t be a problem, as I’d just go back into Logic and adjust the levels. However, this was not possible on the SP, as the effects added were recorded in real time. This demonstrates that whilst hardware allows you to create and manipulate sounds in very unique ways, it becomes harder to manipulate individual elements and rectify mistakes. In saying this, I would have loved to utilise the hardware in the room more advantageously, as there were compressors and EQs at the studio. I did not know how to use these, meaning that I had to mix in Logic using software plugins. This meant that the piece wasn’t entirely created without digital manipulation, which may take away from the end goal.

In spite of this, I believe this piece has achieved its goal to “abstractify” the dancefloor- in theory. It is a piece that lacks clarity in terms of structure and musicality, yet is easy on the ear in terms of instrumentation and rhythm. It is fast paced with a rolling percussion line, making it enjoyable to dance to (particularly in the second half). This was an important goal for me to achieve, as I am someone who creates music that is often out of time and out of key, usually pieces that don’t have musical or rhythmic feel to them, and whilst I am proud of these pieces, I am unable to use them within my sonic practice- DJing. At the moment within dance music scenes, there are discussions surrounding representation, particularly about womens’ representation on the dancefloor. If I am able to play out my sonic creations on the dancefloor, not only will I be opening up club-goers to the world of sound art, but I will also be lessening the ratio of music made by men to women within this context. For the future, I will play this piece in my next set to see if I have achieved my goal in practice.