Particle Castle Bubble Party! is an offshoot of Gib Gab, which are free lessons/conversations/consultations/mentoring/time/support which I’ve been doing for over five years(!) now. The difference being that these conversations are supplemented with inserts and links, edited by Angela Guyton. The idea behind PCBP! is to take what is normally a temporally and (somewhat) spatially-bound conversation and turn it into a more openly-shareable video, so it will hopefully be of interest to others.
Jordie Shier is a PhD student in the Artificial Intelligence and Music programme based at Queen Mary University of London. His research is focused on the development of software that supports creativity in musicians and music producers. He is particularly interested in creating novel methods for synthesizing audio and researching new interaction paradigms for music synthesizers. His PhD research topic is Real-time timbral mapping for synthesized percussive performance. I first met Jordie after doing a couple of talks at his University and exchanging some emails over our shared passion/focus on machine learning and drums.
In this Particle Castle Bubble Party! we talk about machine learning in the context of drums and synthesis and how to extract as much information about as short a time as possible. We also discuss how not getting caught up in theoretical perfection can be important in the context of making music with technology.
Francesco Di Maggio is a digital luthier. His work explores innovative ways to integrate machine learning in the process of digital musical instrument design. Focusing on musical embodiment and human-computer interaction, he investigates the physiology of the human body and its relationship with sound. I first met Francesco after seeing my work in a workshop presented by PA Tremblay about machine learning (FluCoMa) and decided to reach out.
In this Particle Castle Bubble Party! we talked about harvesting musical information/material from the electrical signals in the body (via EEG and EMG), instrument design, machine learning, and working at the edges of technology.
Ben Cantil (aka Encanti) is best known as 1/2 of the Audio/Visual duo Zebbler Encanti Experience with VJ Peter ‘Zebbler’ Berdovsky. Cantil spent 6 years teaching and developing curriculum at the Music Production, Technology, and Innovation masters program at Berklee Valencia, where he taught electronic music production and sound design. As an educator, Ben approaches electronic music as a multidisciplinary art form that unifies traditional song writing with sound design, arranging, and audio engineering. I first met Ben when he reached out after finding himself in a rabbit hole of concatenation and machine learning where I had been swimming for a while as well. Ben found the way I spoke about the topic approachable and decided to reach out.
In this Particle Castle Bubble Party! we talked about human agency in composer-based music, how narrative can impact structural decision-making, and how to create bass notes lower than anyone has ever heard.
Joshua Baerwald is an artist who uses music, video, and drama to address themes of toxic institutions in our communities, the shift from binaries to spectra, and the power of dedicated imagination. He creates music with the hopes of inspiring social change through these themes and challenging audiences to envision a future more liberating and community-centric. I first met Joshua when he emailed me after initially seeing a video in which I was improvising with Sam Pluta. This sent him down the rabbit hole of my webpage and he then reached out when much of what he saw resonated with him.
In this Particle Castle Bubble Party! we spoke about building an interface for musical thinking, how to come up with new material, and the impact of the social context in which music is made.
Rohini Soedhwa is a producer, singer, and rapper who creates music under her artist name Hini. Her music is crisp and explosive, combining slick production with a grittiness that sits underneath her strong vocal performances. I first met Hini through a mutual friend, and one of her teachers at SFU, Mauricio Pauly. Hini then showed me some of the TikTok videos she’s been creating which are equally well crafted and captivating.
In this Particle Castle Bubble Party! we talked about translating studio production into performance, how aesthetics tie into TikTok video creation, and how to expand your knowledge into areas you are unfamiliar with.
Barry Olusegun-Noble Despenza is an experimental Sound Designer + Interdisciplinary artist who builds experiential experiences that shift perspective from passive seeing to active looking, from passive hearing to active listening. Despenza uses musical thinking to illuminate the dynamic and unconscious rhythms of power structures that underlie the perception of time and space. His work involves diverse mediums that often include archive footage, sound design, music video, and experimental electronic music compositions. Despenza’s art investigates the notion of productivity and human presence in what we consider ‘thisness’ that exists within the sensory ecology.
In this Particle Castle Bubble Party! we talked through a wide range of subjects ranging from grad school, the bounds of creativity, sound in space, and politics/theory as it relates to the creation of art.
Giovanni and I first crossed paths on the Sensory Percussion forum when I showed some early sketches for SP Tools, a set of tools for using Sensory Percussion hardware natively in Max. After exchanging some emails we spoke some more and realized we shared (a lot more) common interests and decided to chat further about them. In this Particle Castle Bubble Party! we talk about general musical interests and overall approaches as well as doing a proper deep-dive into the world of onset-based audio analysis, sample playback, and Sensory Percussion hardware.
Zack Scholl – (infinite digits)
Coming as a serendipitous turn of events that connected Rodrigo, Angela, Dan Derks, Sound & Process, and the lines community, the first Particle Castle Bubble Party! took place shortly after Zack Scholl contacted Rodrigo for a Gib Gab session. Zack was open to the idea of exploring the, as of them, solidified and came with a ton of questions and ideas that we unpack and talk through here.