Jean-Francois Charles

Composer Gabriele Vanoni has been a friend of mine since his arrival at the Harvard Music Department . He has been spending the year in Paris, taking part in the selective Ircam Cursus . Gabriele wrote a new piece for mezzo soprano & live electronics: Don . The world premiere is taking place on April 13th at Ircam in Paris. Entrance is free, but make sure you get in touch with Ircam to reserve. CF8FTJEMEG7D

PaaLabRes is a Laboratoire de recherche en actes sur des pratiques artistiques nomades et transversales - a lab in active research on nomad and transversal artistic activities. They are organizing a very exciting expo in Villeurbanne, at the Maison du Livre, de l'Image et du Son , today and tomorrow. All of the musicians involved in this project are great open-minded artists who love to collaborate and share their knowledge and experiences. One of the most exciting part of the expo is taking place this Saturday, March 16th, at 10:30 am. It consists in 3 labs open to visitors, who are going to create hybrid artistic objects: poésie sonore (sonorous poetry) with Jean-Charles François geste partitions et musiques sur des objets du quotidien (gesture scores and musics about everyday life objects) with clarinetist Pascal Pariaud la pâte à modeler le sonore (et réciproquement) (sound modeling clay - and vice versa) with Nicolas Sidoroff - as I already told you on this blog, compos...

At the end of 2011, I was reading about physical computing and micro-controllers . Last fall, the two most important books I read were about different topics: the first was Louis Gerstner's Who Says Elephants Can't Dance?: Leading a Great Enterprise through Dramatic Change the second was Carol Dwek's Mindset: The New Psychology of Success Making elephants dance Lou Gerstner acted as the CEO of IBM from 1993 to 2001. His memoir is very interesting, with large scale stories, but also details that, for him, made a difference. A quote from the book: Execution is really the critical part of a successful strategy. Getting it done, getting it done right, getting it done better that the next person is far more important than dreaming up new visions of the future. The growth mindset This book will be useful to most people reading it, especially to anyone interested in education. The thesis is very clear, thus very memorable. After reading this book, you will remember the di...

Looking for the studio album? Visit www.electroclarinet.com I already mentioned Electroclarinet 2 on this blog; this composition for contrabass clarinet & live electronics is an homage to Debussy's Cello sonata . An audio excerpt is now available. For more information on the live electronic processing, check these earlier posts: Live sound processing in Electroclarinet 2 - part 1 Live sound processing in Electroclarinet 2 - part 2

The problem book, companion to Why You Hear What You Hear , is out. The pdf is available as a free download from http://www.whyyouhearwhatyouhear.com/subpages/Problems.html . The book is organized to mirror the structure of Why You Hear What You Hear (link to amazon): Sound Itself Analyzing Sound Making Sound Musical Instruments Psychoacoustics & Music Soundspaces If you are interested in music, sound, and acoustics, I hope you are going to enjoy having a look. Would you guess which piano is the biggest, given samples from three different instruments?

In 2010, I had the honor of working for Prof. Eric Heller at Harvard University, for his class The Physics of Music & Sound . Today, I am thrilled to let you know that his book about the science of music & sound is out: Why You Hear What You Hear: An Experiential Approach to Sound, Music, and Psychoacoustics . Use the "Look inside" function on amazon to explore the table of contents, from Sound Itself to Musical Instruments , Psychoacoustics & Music , and much more. A sample chapter is available from the book website: whyyouhearwhatyouhear.com .

The Tempomaton Arduino discovery workshop was a fun event. Joël Lorcerie brought a selection of instruments from his great collection. MA Scène nationale just posted a short video about the workshop. See - and listen to - the automatons at 1:40!