Enslave Your Senses

Some pictures from the event where I exhibited my piece 'Deaf To' have been uploaded to my myspace profile.

The event went really well and I'm really grateful to those who took the time to listen to my piece and leave me comments in the comment book.

I've learn't a lot through this experience.

In the weeks building up to the event I was incredibly nervous, worried about my piece and how it would be received by people. Although my nerves faded once the show started, I was still anxious to know what people were thinking of my piece, essentially, whether they thought it was good or bad.

But I've realised now that you can't really say whether a piece like this is good or bad. And it doesn't really matter what other people think anyway.

What's important to me is that I had an idea that I cared about, that I wanted to express, and that I managed to create a piece of music or art that I was proud of.

And in that, I feel I have been incredibly successful.

Pre-Show Nerves

I'm getting incredibly nervous ahead of Enslave Your Senses this weekend.

I think that everything is finished and everything is ready. When I think of everything that I need to do, I'm pretty sure I've done everything, but something keeps nagging me, telling me I've forgotten about something, or that something isn't quite ready.

I'm also nervous about how my piece will be received. I've never done anything like this before, not publicly anyway. I have a terrible feeling that I'll get everything set up, everything ready, everything exactly the way that I want it, but people just won't get it, they won't understand exactly why they should be listening to my piece.

I keep telling myself why I have created this piece, the intentions behind it, and I'm fully confident that I have realised those intentions to the best of my ability.

Although I've listened to the piece over and over again and am starting to become sick of it, I am proud of it and I guess I just need to be confident and proud to exhibit my work. If people don't get it or question some of the ideas then I will have to be ready and prepared to provide answers to those questions, prove the work to them.

Hopefully most people will see exactly where I'm coming from and will enjoy the experience of listening to the piece.

I'm setting up the piece in the venue tomorrow morning and will upload an MP3 of the piece to my myspace at some point in the afternoon.

Deaf To...

Deaf Too... is the title of a piece I will be exhibiting at Enslave Your Senses, an Art festival taking place in Bath next weekend.

Below is the text that will be accompanying the musical piece.

A note from the artist;

I live next to a busy road. There is the constant sound of passing traffic.

But early on a Sunday morning, before the rest of the world has woken up, I notice that I can hear the sound of birds singing outside, the gentle hum of the refrigerator, the trickle of water through the pipes below the sink, and the soft breathing of my sleeping partner.

I wanted to create a piece of music using some of these sounds that are so quiet, they are drowned out of our everyday lives.

I also wanted to use some sounds that we hear so constantly, we no longer notice their presence.

If we listen very closely to the world around us, the spaces we inhabit, we will hear a multitude of rich, intensely detailed sounds that we have either become too accustomed to, or are otherwise masked by the louder sounds around us.

Plug Post

I'm writing this post for no reason other than to point you in the direction of my Myspace which I have recently updated with new music, as detailed in a previous post.

My new track, Bath City Test Piece can be found here

or

www.myspace.com/oliverowenmusicworld

Bath City Test Piece

This is the title of the first track uploaded to my new myspace.

It's a minimal house inspired piece created from samples recorded around the City of Bath.

This is the first major musical piece I have had to produce as part of my course in Creative Musical Technology and I have learnt a lot about my strengths and weaknesses in creating it.

I have learnt a huge amount about recording in outdoor, public spaces, about editing and manipulating samples and about arranging and structuring the percussive elements of a 'dance' track.

I am incredibly pleased and I guess you could say proud of the results. It's not perfect but achieving perfection was never part of the task. This piece is definitely better then anything similar I have done before so in terms of artistic development, it's being great.

I feel ready to move on from what I have done with this piece, taking with me the lessons I have learnt, and am incredibly excited about working on some more, minimal style compositions where I can explore to a greater extent some of the ideas presented in 'Bath City Test Piece'.

Another project nearing completion now is my 'Deaf To...' piece for the Enslave Your Senses art festival held in Bath on the 22nd/23rd of May. This is a soundscape using incredibly quiet, unnoticed/ignored sounds which I have recorded, amplified and arranged. I will be uploading this piece to the myspace soon.

This Blog This Blogger

I've been maintaining this blog for a while now.

I started it whilst working in a fairly dull office job as a place to vent some creative tensions whilst sat for long hours in front of a computer, not having any access to myspace or facebook.

It became a place to discuss my music, my ideas, and a place to promote the work I was doing at the time.

I took great pleasure in developing the words I wanted to use, honing my skills as a writer and a thinker.

In a world that didn't really care about creativity, about ideas and beliefs, this blog was a little online sanctuary.

I can't really say that this is still the case.

My posts are less frequent then before - I just don't seem to find the time to write here anymore. When I do, I don't care so much about the quality of what I'm saying, I don't take the time to structure my writing or to word things as they should be.

So what's changed?

I'm in an academic and a creative environment now - a complete contrast to where I was two years ago. And I don't find myself sat for long hours in front of a computer with nothing to do - if I'm at a computer, I'm making music, or writing an essay.

I also keep my own, personal, real life journal now. Its made of hand made, thick, quality paper and is bound in a thick leather cover. I try to write something a couple of times a week, just to keep note of what I've been doing and how things have affected me. I look forward to reading back through it one day.

Most recently however, I've started micro-blogging on Twitter.

It's taken me about two years to catch up with the rest of the world but I've finally succumbed and become obsessed with blogging my opinions, my day to day activities, in 140 characters or less.

There's something really great about the word limit, the instant nature of it, chose your words carefully but quickly.

Some people think that Twitter is the final nail in the coffin of written word, of prose and structure. Perhaps. But more importantly, it has forced me as a writer to think carefully about what I want to say, exactly what it is that's on my mind, and the instant and throwaway nature of it all just makes me aware that what I say had better be good, because in about a minutes time something will be coming along to replace it, pushing my thoughts to the bottom of the pile.

find me @oliverjowen

I will, of course, continue to run this blog - perhaps improve the quality with some lengthier, more thought out pieces.

Bath

This was a bit of an experiment for me trying to get some interesting panoramic images. The images will also form part of the content of a music piece that is made using samples recorded around Bath.

I like the general effect in this picture but it is definitely a crude attempt - better attempts will follow soon I hope.