Student Assignment Review: Quang Nguyen (qan8u)

I listed intently to all classmates' melodic compositions, yet Quang's struck me as the most intriguing. The first two individual melodies are evocative of Olivier Messiaen's work with his Ondes Martenot, most notably Oraison, which Professor Burtner presented in class.

Quang's first melody, which alluringly introduces his composition, consists of two suspended organ notes, the interval of which changes from a 7th to an octave.

The second melody is an organ's playing a simple, diatonic tune, making primarily 3rd and 5th jumps. This line is introduced over the first 13 seconds into the piece, and recurs throughout.

The third melody consists of two sustained notes highly edited by SoundHack. Suddenly disrupting 24 seconds of mellow, subdued organ music, this melody jolts the listener. Frankly, I was disappointed that the tranquility was over.

The piece in its entirety lasts 1:35, and to my delight, it concluded using the soft mellow melody with which it began. C'est une obre magnifique, Monsieur Nguyen!

Checksum Panic Dance

A fellow classmate introduced me to Locust Toybox, the musical peusdonymn for David Firth, electronic artist who is also a well-known flash animator. With its funky rhythms, unusual instrumentation, and often ambiguous time signature, this genre has been called IDM, or Intelligence Dance Music.

This song of his below, Checksum Panic Dance, had to grow on me at first. But now I love it!

Robot Rok

This Friday night, although arriving late after navigational troubles, a aficionado of electronic music and I attended the Robot Rok concert at Ourspace. We arrived late, but only to find out that the equipment was still being set up, as there was a vast array of speakers, lights, smoke machines, lasers, and so forth.

The DJs displayed distinctive styles, one preferred an ethereal echo sound, while one preferred to hum. This sometimes created a hauntingly ambient effect. Some other songs were highly percussive with a reverberating bass drum to drive it. The audience was often quite participatory, dancing in erratic ways to the electronic sounds they heard.

We left before 11pm, but that was due to exhaustion more than anything else. They tour frequently around the Charlottesville/DC area, so I'll make sure to attend another one of their concerts, soon...

Quiet, My Dear

Last weekend I had the pleasure of watching a performance by the band Quit, My Dear at the Bridge. Often opening up for the well-known Charlottesville band The Nice Jenkins, this time Quiet My Dear played by themselves and truly held their own. Although the refuse to perform covers, they have a reason to. All of their songs are original, experimental, and catchy. It consists of four members, an electric guitarist/vocalist, a bassist/vocalist, a drummer, and a rhythm guitarist. Their musical style is difficult to place, but may draw from influences as diverse as Radiohead, Elliott Smith, and Phish.

I hope to attend all of their concerts from here on out.