Technology and Performance

Well, this is just about one of my main subjects in life ;)

When there is a division of labor, i.e. performers are "interpreters" and just perform, programmers program, how does one know what could work, or crash your performance?   Since I got into the "car" metaphor at IRCAM :)  if I am a race car driver I would like to know what kind of turns I can make with my car and how fast, and the tricks I can play.  I would like to know what might crash my car if I do certain tricks.

So, although I might not be able to tighten the volts on the car by myself, I would like to know how many times it has to be tightened and how often.  After all you are on the driver seat = you are on stage and you are the one to face the audience.   This isn't about being afraid if things might crash, but is a responsibility to yourself and for your audience.

Of course this is easily said and done... I wish myself good luck next time! :)

Having something to say

When you listen to either a new composition, interpretation of a new composition, traditional classical repertoire, improvisation or anything really, as an audience I listen to what is "being said".   I don't listen to particular patterns, follow pitches analytically or too carefully, but the overall impression of "something being said".

I have seen and heard performers or students with perfect technique, impeccable technical skills but who are utterly boring to listen to.   What is there to teach them?   They are clearly talented, there is nothing else to be learned technically; they have mastered it all.  They might have won competitions and even have a concert career.  But they are boring to listen to.   What does "boring" mean?  To me, it is a performance that has "nothing to say".

Some teachers express their discontentment with comments like "Have more life experience, see the world, fall in love and live your life, then you have something to say!", which, in my opinion, is utterly useless.  Even with all the experiences above, boring musicians are still boring.  I think it is really a technical skill to be more expressive and communicative.  It's a skill that one could acquire to be a more effective performer, and musician.

How could one teach someone to have "something to say"?   I am thinking Stanislawski, or the "method".  Having an emotional context and logic that the listeners could follow.  You need the technique to build that architecture of performance, build the structure, finish it, decorate it and put plants and arts inside.  For some, especially child prodigies, this skill seems to come naturally without thinking. Their world seems in tact perfectly as it is, and there is nothing to be corrected.  That is, until they grow up and start thinking.  Then everything has to be restructured.

A new season, regrouping

Now that we have entered a new school year, and back in NYC, things are grinding along; YES! My new album is FINISHED, and now printing. It is entitled "The World Below G and Beyond: works for Violin Subharmonics and Interactive Computer", coming out next month from Mutable Music label. I am organizing a CD-release concert in NYC on Sunday, October 10th at 7PM. More details later....

On the family front, I have found a wonderful new assistant for my kids, a Francophone Swiss student from Columbia University. I said "assistant" and not babysitter, since I also benefit from practicing my French speaking with her! My husband and I are getting English out of the house, and I'm slowing moving towards Japanese via French :) This way, the kids will speak English to the rest of the world around them but keep the languages of their parents... or at least that's the plan. This means I am speaking French with my kids with my not-so-great grammar....and I feel I'm back in school! It's not easy! :)

There are several other projects I'm preparing at the moment. My life is moving in parallel, and I'm a list maker... my "RAM" is full, so I have to write down everything I have to do. Yet I still forget things. I did miss my medical appointment the day after we came back from France... totally forgot and must reschedule.

Back in NYC, Paris peeves :)

Now everything is quickly coming back to where it was. I'm back home in NYC, and within short 3 days my children and I got haircuts (husband? hmmm...), attended a Gala Fashion show (me?!) organized by the Vilcek Foundation with whom I will be collaborating on a project this year, went to Juilliard convocation and shook hands, both kids went back to school (and here is my poor little boy crying separating from me, and who came back home so happy declaring "What an AWESOME day!!") and I made lunch boxes at 7AM. I switched my Parisian "carnet" (subway ticket) to Metrocard, and I think now my re-assimilation as a New Yorker is complete :)

I am at the final editing phrase of my upcoming solo CD "The World Below G and Beyond" (Mutable Music label) booklet before it goes to print, reading and re-reading the program notes, finding little things here and there every time. There should be an end to this! :) This is the culmination of all my works using Subharmonics, as well as some interactive computer works. I'm very nervous about casting any of my work in stone!

Now that my life in Paris is over, and those of you who have been reading my posts know how much I loved my time there. What I haven't done however, is to list the 'peeves', the reason why Paris will probably remain a place where I would LOVE to VISIT, but not to settle or to live in a long term.

Peeve No.1: SMOKE.
This is perhaps the biggest one, which might seem silly to some people. Although my mother-in-law assures me it was because of the summer and people are more outside, I just cannot, can NOT get used to smoking one cigarette a day by just second-hand smoking on the street. Wouldn't it be so nice if I could just sit outside and enjoy a cup of coffee and delicious croissant in a picturesque Parisian café looking at the beautiful architecture... and when I do it, BANG! the whole experience gets ruined by the first-thing-in-the-morning cigarette-breathing experience. I went out very little for breakfast (I think only once) and ate at home. France is a country of tolerance, I understand. Then I really cannot belong to a place where non-smokers aren't tolerated but smokers are. Although there are now laws to prohibit smoking in public places, they still smoke in public places and they ARE tolerated. My husband told me to "Just get used to it". I can't, and I won't. Now I'm breathing easier here in Manhattan.

Peeve No.2: Subway :)
After getting squashed several times in those strange but powerful rubber-encased glass doors that open and shut at the most mysterious timing after you insert your 'carnet', I learned to time myself 'musically' (it seems it's a dotted-quarter note in q=86 tempo LOL!) not to get squashed. This might be speaking volumes for French culture of "control". In NYC subway, after you swipe your Metrocard, the turnstile is activated and you are free to go WHEN YOU CHOOSE to go through. You are in control. In Paris, after you insert and collect your carnet, it is the DOOR THAT DECIDES the timing when you are allowed to pass through. IT has the control, not you. UPDATE: just come to think of it, Tokyo metro works the same as Paris.

Peeve No.3: More Subway :)
There are now the newest subway cars that have automatic doors, which open after the subway comes to a complete stop. But the most of them have either a button or a little lever handle that the passengers open on their own, when the subway comes to a NEAR stop. The result is that the subway is usually still moving when someone opens the door. I'm surprised there aren't many accidents especially involving children. Then I didn't see that many children on the subway as we do here in NYC. My husband said small kids don't really get out of the areas where they live, and they really don't have much need to get on subways. It scares me a lot, and glad I didn't have to bring up my kids there. Now, contrary to the Peeve no.2, this seems to giving too much 'control' to the user. What gives?!

Peeve No.4: La Poste
I understand, it is a governmental post office/bank combined, very protective of people and has good rates. But I really would like my husband to close that account, since he cannot get a credit card to his own account (since he doesn't live there) and I, his wife but non-French citizen, have no right to the account. However I could deposit my IRCAM salary as much as I wanted there. What a business model :) So we had to go around them for me to use my own money, using husband's debit card. UPDATE: Husband says it's the same in all French banks.

Peeve No. 5: Division of Labor
This is quite general, and there must be exceptions. But my impression is that France is a country where things are done by people who are only 'qualified' to do so. You aren't allowed to touch, change, modify, even think about things that don't belong to your expertise, or what they call your 'métier'. Of course, the upside is the superb quality control; just anyone's sister-in-law can't be selling bread in France, you have to be 'qualified' to do so. Things are controlled. The downside, which makes me feel stifling, is the lack of freedom to move 'horizontally' in society. A mathematician cannot be bakers. Probably a bright neuroscientist aren't that encouraged to becoming a violinist (see David Soldier/Dave Sultzer). Even at IRCAM, engineers don't 'do art', and composers don't program; they have 'assistants' who help them. In NYC I do everything, mostly by necessity. I do everything from composing, programming, producing, and performing. By doing so I learn a lot about all aspect of music I make, and I like it that way for myself. Although I do hope that things are slowly changing, I cannot belong to a place where I have to do only one thing that I'm 'supposed to do'. Life is short. My friend Martha sent me this interesting article about French education system.

Peeve No. 6: Cobble stones
This is what the charm of Paris, France is, I'm sure. The cobble stones on the streets. It's HELL for my feet and my heels. I just don't understand how French women walk on those things with those beautiful shoes. I guess I'm not trained right.

UPDATE: And now my husband is saying I have become FRENCH, as I complain like this LOL!!!

Final Day in France

This is my last France posting, after 3 weeks of hiatus towards the last-spurt, my 'exit' presentation at IRCAM on Thursday, giving the Radio France interview. In the end, EVERYTHING WORKED :) And that is how it should be... and that is why I double, triple, quadruple+ times check and re-check until things run 150% of the time, since that is the only way you can be sure it runs 100% of the time. Anyone who had a conservatory training like I did, won't think twice about this discipline and I apply it to my own interactive performance. This is crucial especially when you work with Prototypes, since the builders want to constantly improve their mechanisms but I have a performing deadline. And it's hard.... Here is my main collaborator Frédéric Bevilacqua who made last-minute adjustments for me. The presentation was filmed and will be posted on IRCAM website, which I will share with you once it is up. Here is one of my slides, illustrating the two methods: things that should be but might not work ("Lamborghini") and the way I would go around it to make it work ("Toyota"). After working with four European men (French, German, Swiss and Italian!) for the entire summer I became one of the 'guys' :)

One thing though, struck me, similar to the feeling I got earlier in my stay here after listening to the formidable performance of Ensemble InterContemporain. There was a question at my presentation at IRCAM which was, "What is the FEAR factor?" for me performing interactive music, of being afraid something won't work on stage. Although I answered that I am usually with a violin, a box with 4 strings attached and have to make sure to change the string, this question saddened me. Since when, music, or musical performance, has become something to be afraid of? Of course there is 'stage fright', but this is something more serious. Music is supposed to be fun and joy. There are enough things in life to be afraid of. Fear, is when your young son has a burst appendix and lying helplessly inside an ambulance, or being told that you have a cancer and have to see an oncologist to get chemotherapy. I know these fears (my cancer was relatively benign, 12 yrs ago). Compared to these real-life events, music is just music, nobody is dying, or getting hurt. If musical experience connects to fear, what is the point of it?

Radio France interview was also a lot of fun, and considering after I had consumed three servings of Sake I served for the after-talk reception at IRCAM, I survived. After I recorded a few items in a studio at Radio France during which everyone spoke in English for me, my sweetest Radio host Bruno Letort declaired "Mainetenant, on parle QUE en Français!" (now we only speak in French). I am quite mortified with my first interview in French and kind of glad I will be sitting on the plane when it will be on the air tomorrow, but alas, it will also be on the internet... :)

I also had visitors and a bit of social life as well; my friend from Japan and today's premiere concerto soloist, Kyoko Takezawa who now lives in Paris, came to visit IRCAM and tried my system, then we went for lunch. We shared a same babysitter in NYC, but never had time to spend such a day together. I also demo-ed my subharmonics for her. Here is Kyoko wearing my sensor glove. As a violinist of the top-caliber, she understood immediately what I was doing with the bowing sensor for musical expression.

Also a good friend and French composer Marc Battier invited me to his home for dinner in Neuilly, and there I made a delightful acquaintance with an Opera composer John Eaton and his wife visiting from New Jersey. We'd forgotten to take pictures, until we were in Marc's garage on the way home, and I thought that it's better later than never :)

All in all, my 3-months life in Paris was spectacular. You have to remember that I am usually a stay-home mom, and this was a once-in-the-lifetime opportunity for me to devote my time entirely to my work, all thanks to my extraordinary support system; my parents-in-law in Picardie, who kept my children, and most of all my husband, who let me do what I do, who worked in NYC for 2 months without his family. I loved living in Paris, its food, architecture, food, pastries, and food :) I was treated so well at IRCAM and I feel I did what I set out to do, thanks to the Real Time Musical Interaction Team, all of whom went out of their way to accommodated and supported me. We now have a standing collaborative relationship, which we will be continuing without missing a beat.

I am however, equally glad to go home, to get back into my own life in NYC, to get back to reality.

Since this is my last French post, you have to bear with me; I needed a lot of help from the marvel of French pastries. Here are what I had consumed ALL on my own. This is the grand finale. You could probably tell things were quite intense, when these pastries have to pay visits next to my computer and the violin.

3 more weeks in Paris...

Some family and friends lamented that my blogging has not been updated :) I now have less than 3 weeks left in Paris...

I haven't really bragged about the Paris weather, knowing many of my friends and family in New York and Japan are having a horrifically hot one... Paris is average of 18-20C (around low 60F) and very, very beautiful this August. Besides I spend most of time indoors without a window in air-conditioned studio, so I decided to do a day of tourism for change.

I went on wondering about in my neighborhood the Marais. It is a posh area, with many fashionable stores that I would probably have nothing I can afford :) Here is a beautiful store of beads; like any women (sorry if I'm mistaken) I have entertained the idea of making my own jewelry and failed, or at least I am never confident enough in wearing my own creations in public! But I do proudly wear ones my kids make for me :) This store could revive my imaginary hobby again.

As my brother-in-law Frédéric suggested, I went to Paris Musée Carnavalet, the city museum of Paris. He said that it has a very good description of the French Revolution from the point of view of Parisians, and it was true. I could not help but to stop and be grateful to the people of this country for the "liberté, egalité, fratanité", seeing many panels of the "Rights of Men", and feel the amount of blood that was shed. When you walk on the streets of Paris, you feel it. There was a drum which played the rhythm "liberté, egalité", the hand-made ladder that was used to break through the infamous Bastille prison. The real objects that were touched by people, the evidence of people's kinetic memory can transport you to that time, more than any description of the revolution.

I am now composing and preparing for my upcoming appearances, incorporating the tools that we have developed together. Some are still 'under construction' but as I remind my collaborators, I am the one on stage and things have to work :) It is simply not acceptable that a program works 'most of the time'. It has to work 150% of the time to be on stage. I take robustness and crudeness of the program over an elegant program that looks good but crashes sometime! Or an old version that works over a new version that is unstable. Those of you in Paris, you are welcome to attend my 'exit' presentation on Thursday, September 2nd at 12:00 at Salle Stravinsky at IRCAM. Please let me know as I need to make a guest list.


My host at IRCAM Norbert Schnell and I have been having some late dinners; in general people eat late here. Or maybe even in NYC we eat earlier than 'grown ups' without small kids! This is the famous L'As du Fallafel where there usually is a huge line during the day. I was told it is the "world best" including the middle east. I could eat here everyday. I also had a very nice Tajine near Belleville, again with Norbert after we fixed some of my bugs even on a Sunday.

I'm preparing for my life after IRCAM, now using all my own equipment to make sure things run on my own. After my presentation at IRCAM on September 2nd, I will go to Radio France in the same afternoon and record an interview, planning to perform with my own system. It'd better work. :) The broadcast will be on September 5th while I am going to be sitting in the airplane back to JFK.

ps. This is a tea store called Mariage Frères, one of my favorite stores. I don't know if my husband remembers, but when we just started dating he asked what he could bring from Paris. I said, "Please go to MARIAGE Frères, and get me a kind called EROS". Poor man, he really didn't stand a chance :)

Last month in Paris

(Wednesday) I'm cold. It's 11:20 PM and freezing cold here in the basement studio of IRCAM. I'm wearing two long sleeve sweaters, wool scarf and thin comforter on my lap! It is so quiet and I must be one of the only people here. July was calm but August is so quiet the BEST time to be here at IRCAM, I was told. I hear June and September are the worst with everyone coming back in force and festivals in June.

(Friday) I have been completely immersed in work, barely coming up for air. Because of the intensity, and need to stay inside this ice-cold Studio 1 at IRCAM, I brought in electric water boiler for my Oolong tea, blanket, leg warmer, sweater and scarf. It's very comfortable. My children are with grandparents visiting Brive la Gaillard (south of Limoge, north of Toulouse), a fois gras country where my sister-in-law lives. I would have gone with them but I really need to make a dent in what I'm trying to do...

I do occasionally dine out, when friends come to visit or someone at IRCAM asks me out. I went out with my dear Florence, the administrator of IRCAM who takes a great care of me. She took me to a restaurant near Les Halles, and I had the most fabulous "Dorade". Again I was silent in eating this. Then my old Juilliard classmate, turned out we also both went to Boston University, Chris Culpo came to visit and he took me to his favorite hound near Rue Rambuteau called Le Feteu. The owner Jerry said "Oh it was the birthday of Pierre Boulez yesterday!" How nice that a restaurant owner would proclaim the birthday of a composer. Paris is a big city but somehow it still retains that old small village quality. I had the most, most..... delicious Boudin (blood sausage) here, and learning I'm a visitor at IRCAM he said I'm welcome back anytime, and I certainly will. After all they had my favorite Confit de Canard, and judging from how Boudin tasted like...

My work now is very intense because I am now in the creative phase using all the hard work my team has been creating with me. The new ideas between us keep on growing in the form of, "Oh by the way, how if we do..." and off we go for another Holy Grail hunting. It is truly a rewarding experience. Here is my main host this summer Norbert Schnell who is one of the most elegant scientist/programmer cleaning up my mess grimacing :) and fixing my "DIY" (do it yourself) bulldozing programs.

(Saturday) For once I wasn't at IRCAM last night after midnight and had a decent sleep. I vowed myself to visit a museum today, Hôtel Carnavalet, Museum of the city of Paris which is in the Marais. Then I must go eat that famous Falafel. There is always a huge line I get discouraged...