- Masterclass: Svirajmo i pjevajmo zajedno preko interneta, Rock Akademija (Online) 5 January 2023
Masterclass led by Nela Brown as part of the series of masterclasses for teachers from Rock Akademija music school based in Zagreb, Croatia exploring frameworks for co-located and distributed music creation.
A HUGE THANK YOU to Professor Ladislav Račić (the founder of Rock Akademija) for organising the masterclass and his colleagues Maja, Irena, Neven, Lana and Marija for patiently and enthusiastically sticking with it, in spite of the issues with the network speed.
First impressions by the teachers about using the platform with their students? (copy/ paste to Google Translate and choose Croatian :-))
- “Prepoznala sam prednosti SonoBus aplikacije, te osnove korištenja iste. Korisno je bilo vidjeti kako se testira brzina interneta, što može biti korisno i kod korištenja drugih sličnih aplikacija. Što se tiče prednosti same aplikacije u nastavi, čini mi se da bi mogla biti vrlo korisna kod proba s malim komornim sastavom učenika, posebice jer nudi opciju snimanja zvuka, s različitim inputima, kao i dodavanjem metronoma. To može uvelike poboljšati uvjete online probi”
- “Radionica mi je pomogla da povežem glazbu s tehnologijom te da upoznam platformu koja bi mi olakšala suradnju s kolegama online s obzirom da me to često sputavalo u raznim prilikama. Svakako smatram da je platforma vrlo korisna i u nastavi jer svi imamo uvid u zajednički rad. Vrlo zanimljiva radionica i veliko hvala Neli na novim znanjima!”
Lessons learnt?
1) In order to teach the students, you need to teach the teachers first!
2) Do not underestimate the precarious nature of the internet (especially when connecting in the evening using wifi in a shared household or using your mobile phone as a hotspot). Your broadband provider might have all sorts of fantastic internet speeds advertised on their website, but when the whole city goes online after coming home from work (and hits YouTube or Netflix), your chances of doing any sort of telematic performance might be very slim indeed! To avoid guessing what the upload/ download speed might be at any given time use https://www.speedtest.net (or a similar service!).
This workshop was made possible by the kind support from the following organisations:
- Masterclass: Collaborative music-making with globally distributed musicians, Rose Bruford College (Online) 8 November 2021
Masterclass led by Nela Brown as part of the series of masterclasses for the undergraduate students from Rose Bruford College exploring distributed music collaboration.
A HUGE THANK YOU to Christophe Bourgouin (Lecturer in Live and Recorded Sound) for organizing the Masterclass and Daryl Burns who kindly joined us at the beginning of the session to make sure everyone is set up to follow along connecting from home.
A VERY SPECIAL THANK YOU to the ‘Audio Production Level 5’ students who were awesome in helping each other troubleshoot Logic Pro+SonoBus issues (which was difficult for Nela to do without latest version of Logic Pro installed!) and super-psyched to produce some ‘top of the charts wedding’ type stuff! (Just kidding! Was funny reading their SonoBus performance chat though!)
Whilst some students noted they were planning to explore the platform in more depth so they can use it for “remote recording” in the future, others noted they learnt the following from the Masterclass:
- “… new way to remotely record a live band which was very interesting”
- “(how to) collaborate with other artists across the world to compose together”
- “How easy it is just to jam and improv even when you aren’t in the room with one another”
- “How the industry is adapting to new challenges and utilizing modern technology to stay relevant.”
This last comment really reflects the changes that happened due to the global pandemic, where once niche products for online music collaboration (mostly used by university researchers) undertook a major revamp and got the general public excited about the possibilities of making music together online!
Hopefully this development will continue as we are slowly getting back on track with live performances and concerts, as collaborating with our ‘globally distributed’ fellow musicians from the comfort of our ‘home studio’ will always be more convenient, cheaper and logistically more feasible (for those of us who don’t have a private jet that is!)
This workshop was made possible by the kind support from the following organisations:
- Masterclass: Collaborative music-making with globally distributed musicians, The Royal Central School of Speech and Drama (Online) 11 October 2021
Masterclass led by Nela Brown, as part of the series of masterclasses for the undergraduate students from The Royal Central School of Speech and Drama in London, exploring the use of different platforms for distributed cross-cultural collaboration.
A HUGE THANK YOU to Peter Rice, Theatre Sound – Course Leader at The Royal Central School of Speech and Drama (and a professional sound designer!) who found time in his very busy schedule (getting a new academic year off the ground whilst working on a new show at the Almeida Theatre is no mean feat!) to organise this Masterclass and kindly joined us at the beginning of the session to make sure his students were all set up to follow the session from campus (as well as from home).
A VERY SPECIAL THANK YOU to the students from the Theatre Sound course, who despite all the technical challenges managed to do a few very nice performance takes, all expertly engineered and recorded by one of their classmates! A super nice and creative bunch who no doubt will go on to have a promising career in theatre upon graduation!!!
When asked to write a few lines about the Masterclass itself, the student noted they learnt:
- “How you can stream work with other performers on a wider scale no matter how far the others may be …”
- “About international live collaboration and how it happens”
- “The many uses for networked jamming/sound sharing!”
- “The endless possibilities for creation with others”
- “Ideas about longform improvisation with others (e.g. stretching moments)”
- “How to effectively collaborate with musicians/sound people online as well as the various software”
- “Mixing, playing and recording is difficult at the same time, it might help to delegate a ‘manager’ who is only in charge of tech control”
- “Crashes happen”
- “The importance of giving everything a try”
- “There’s a safe space for women to collaborate in music”
The last comment really hit home in terms of FLO activities in general. Perhaps this ‘safe space’ is something we can look at developing further at some point in the future!
This workshop was made possible by the kind support from the following organisations:
- Workshop & Performance: Collaborative music-making with globally distributed musicians, Reveil – SC8 Off Grid (Online) 1 May 2021
Workshop & performance led by Nela Brown, Magdalena Chudy and Maria Mannone discussing software and hardware set-up FLO used to perform at Reveil – SC8 Off Grid on 1 May 2021.
We usually camp out on Zoom, but have recently discovered an awesome platform called Whereby, which works in the browser (no faffing around with downloads!). You can have 50 peeps on video call for 45 minutes (using a free account!), which is just about enough time before you’d need to call for a coffee break! Yep! Thumbs up!!!
A HUGE THANK YOU to organisers of Reveil (Soundcamp co-ordinated by Grant Smith, Dawn Scarfe and Maria Papadomanolaki, who also plays with FLO from time to time :-)) and this year’s Reveil producers Christine Bramwell and Ciara Drew.
A BIG SHOUT-OUT to Jackie Neon, who came to FLO workshop at Hangar in 2019 and got up at 3am in New York to join us for Reveil workshop! What an absolute STAR!!! Sooooo nice to be able to catch up like this, we should definitely do it more often!!!
A MASSIVE THANK YOU to Perry Tee from PreSonus and Andrea Palmer, Jo Stansfield and Cornelia Boldyreff from BCSWomen, who jumped on board to help us out with hardware and software for this workshop!!! You guys rock!!!
This workshop was made possible by the kind support from the following organisations:
- Masterclass: Distributed collaboration, Reid School of Music, Edinburgh College of Art, University of Edinburgh (Online) 25 March 2021
Masterclass led by Nela Brown, as part of the series of masterclasses for the MSc Sound Design & Composition for Screen, exploring the use of different platforms for distributed cross-cultural collaboration.
You can check the recording of one of the performances we captured with SonoBus on FLO SoundCloud channel:
A HUGE THANK YOU to Dr Martin Parker, Head of the Reid School of Music (who was at hand to help make sure his students were not dropping out of Zoom or SonoBus, what a star!) and the students from the MSc Sound Design & Composition for Screen programme. You guys rock!!!
After the workshop, Carla Sayer (who was one of the participants) emailed to say “The session with Nela was brilliant. I’ve already brought SonoBus into my team at a community arts charity and we’re using it to facilitate remote music making with clients”.
How awesome is that???
Perhaps we need to wrap this workshop into an ‘online course thingy’ so we can tech loads more people how to connect and make music online? Something to think about! 🙂
This workshop was made possible by the kind support from the following organisations:
- Workshop & Performance: Collaborative music-making with globally distributed musicians, ATENEA 2020: Arte, Tecnología y Moda Sostenible, La Universitat Politècnica de València, València, Spain (Online) 28 November 2020
Workshop & performance led by Nela Brown, as part of Atenea 2020, exploring different platforms for telematic cross-cultural collaboration and artistic experimentation afforded by the use of the network.
You can check the recording of one of the performances we captured with SonoBus on FLO SoundCloud channel:
It features baby sounds, sounds from scissors and other household objects, voices (from 3 different locations in Spain) and live piano (from France), alongside Nela’s Bitwig Studio session containing soundscapes from the Croatian coastline and evangelic singing from her dear friend Pero (recorded at the Church of the Holy Cross in Nin, a Croatian Pre-Romanesque Catholic church originating from the 9th century). Seriously, where else can you get such a mix, unless you are doing a telematic performance???
ps. a few of us tried the Public Beta version of SonoBus for iOS. Needless to say, it sounded much better with the RØDE i-XY plugged in (Thank you RØDE for your awesome support!!!)
A HUGE THANK YOU to the conference organiser Elena Robles Mateo (who also participated in the workshop!) and workshop participants: Kris Ospina, Roser Domingo, Noelia Medina, Nathalie Nazaryan and Blanca Xiao Li. You ladies are awesome!!!
A VERY SPECIAL THANK YOU to Magdalena Chudy from FLO, for helping test the available platforms (sometimes until the early morning hours!) and being an absolute STAR (as per usual!). Yep! You need to have friends if you want to do this kind of stuff!
After the workshop, one of the participants emailed to say “The workshop was fantastic! What I liked most was being able to create music without any latency and that it sounded good. Also, Nela taught us very interesting applications related to music and we had a very nice time learning new things. Without a doubt, I would repeat this workshop!! :)”.
Another participant (who had many issues with her audio in Zoom) said “Me gustó mucho el taller, a pesar de los problemas con mi computadora. Creo que es una muy buena iniciativa para poner en común propuestas de artistas separados geográficamente pero unidos en red. Me parece una muy buena idea para la situación en la que se encuentran los músicos a consecuencia de la pandemia, y también para los no músicos, para poder compartir y experimentar sin necesidad de tener nada más que una computadora.” (copy/ paste to Google Translate and choose Spanish :-))
Getting such lovely feedback made all the hours Nela and Magda spent testing the platforms totally worth it!!!
Plus… it got us thinking … perhaps we need to do a lot more of these types of workshops and teach a lot more of female artists how to connect to each other via sound, globally 🙂
Yep!!! This sounds like a PLAN!!! Just need to work out how to do it!!! Should be a piece of cake 🙂
This workshop was made possible by the kind support from the following organizations …
… and our lovely sponsors 🙂
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Workshop & Performance: Collaborating with co-located and globally distributed musicians, Rarefacció, Hangar, Barcelona, Spain, 11 & 12 July 2019
Workshop & performance looking at improvisation, collaborative music making, and telematics led by Nela Brown, Tuna Pase and Ada Mathea Hoel, as part of Hangar Rarefacció 2019 season.
At the end of Day 1, we did a short performance using streams from Locus Sonus Soundmap alongside Playsound.space.
On Day 2, we continued tinkering with different software and hardware alongside Andrea’s live VR visuals. Check the short video about how that went!
A HUGE THANK YOU to Sergi Botella and Lluís Nacenta from Hangar, (for kindly hosting us for the 2nd time around!), AMAZING Marc Ribera Valls (for spending hours helping us set-up and troubleshoot!) and workshop participants Maribel Segoviano and Jackie Neon for coming out to tinker with us! Looking forward to playing with you ladies in the future!
This workshop was made possible by the kind support from the following organisations:
- Workshop & Performance: Zvukovi Kvarta, KvartArt 2019, Zadar, Croatia, 15 & 16 June 2019
Workshop & performance looking at improvisation, collaborative music making, and telematics led by Nela Brown, as part of KvartArt 2019 Festival.
Check the video of the jam we did with Playsound.space on the second day 🙂
A HUGE THANK YOU to Director of Zadar Koncert Office, Melita Ivković, for adding the workshop to the already amazing KvartArt Festival programme; Zadar Koncert Office Sound Engineer, Saša Miočić, for expertly sorting out all the necessary gear; KvartArt production staff and volunteers, for helping with the set-up and take-down and workshop participants Katarina Kocelj and Ivana Pavišić for asking all sorts of interesting questions about hardware and software for making music! Within 2 minutes of checking out Ariane’s Playsound.space platform, they were playing together like pros! Girl power!!!
This workshop was made possible by the kind support from the following organizations:
- Workshop & Performance: From Musicking to Transmusicking, Sir Zelman Cowen School of Music, Monash University, Melbourne, Australia, 28 May 2019
Workshop & performance looking at improvisation and collaborative music making, led by Nela Brown as part of the undergraduate programme in Composition and Music Technology at Sir Zelman Cowen School of Music.
A HUGE THANK YOU to Head of School, Professor Cat Hope, for the invitation to visit this awesome university; Convenor of Composition and Music Technology, Ryan Ross Smith, for kindly hosting the workshop and helping with the technical set-up; and the undergraduate students from the Sir Zelman Cowen School of Music for coming up with interesting composition pieces (and even more interesting titles!) using the awesome Playsound.space platform designed by Ariane Stolfi 🙂
This workshop was made possible by the kind support from the following organisations:
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Workshop: Mothers & Daughters Coding Together, Macgeorge House, Ivanhoe, Melbourne, Australia, 26 May 2019
Workshop in live coding for music led by Nela Brown and Sonia Wilkie, as part of the University of Melbourne Macgeorge Fellowship 2019, “Macgeorge House Sessions”.
A HUGE THANK YOU to our workshop participants (girls aged between 7 and 10), their moms (who came along to learn about coding and brought the famous Australian Tim Tam biscuits) and Sam Aaron who made the amazing Sonic Pi which was easy enough for 7-year-olds to understand!
When asked if she liked the workshop, one of the girls said “it was really interesting to learn coding for music. (Nela) is a great teacher … she made it fun and exciting”. I think that’s all the encouragement we need to keep doing it!!!
This workshop was made possible by the kind support from the following organisations:
- Workshop & Performance: Collaborative music making, Faculty of Fine Arts and Music, Victorian College of the Arts, The University of Melbourne, Melbourne, Australia, 15 April 2019
Workshop & performance looking at improvisation, collaborative music making and telematics, led by Nela Brown as part of the University of Melbourne Macgeorge Fellowship 2019.
A HUGE THANK YOU to my colleague and (often) collaborator, Roger Alsop, for kindly co-ordinating my Macgeorge Fellowship activities at the University of Melbourne and inviting me to do this workshop, and to undergraduate students from different University of Melbourne departments for coming to the workshop and enthusiastically participating in composition and performance exercises using Ariane’s awesome Playsound.space platform! Keep up with the music making!!!
This workshop was made possible by the kind support from the following organizations:
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Workshop & Performance: From Musicking to Transmusicking, University of Kent, Medway, UK, 14 February 2019
Workshop & performance looking at improvisation, collaborative music making, and telematics led by Nela Brown as part of MU621 ‘Technology in Performance’ module on the BSc (Hons) Music Technology programme at the School of Music and Fine Art, University of Kent.
Check the video of the performance 🙂
A HUGE THANK YOU to Aki Pasoulas, Director of Education and MAAST (which we definitely need to test with FLO!!!) for his kind invitation; Frank Walker and Les Hutchins for expertly helping with the technical set-up, and the undergraduate students from the School of Music and Fine Art for doing a great performance using different instruments and music making tools (including Ariane Stolfi’s Playsound.space and Open Band!)
This workshop was made possible by the kind support from the following organizations:
- Workshop & Performance: From Musicking to Transmusicking, Hangar Sonor, Hangar, Barcelona, Spain, 21 July 2018
Workshop & performance looking at improvisation, collaborative music making and telematics, led by Andrea Bravo, Nela Brown and Tuna Pase as part of Hangar Sonor 2017-2018 season.
Audio of the performance was recorded with Sony PCM-D50 (straight from the mixing desk).
Video of the performance was recorded with GoPro HERO4:
A HUGE THANK YOU to Marc Ribera Valls, Sergi Botella and Lluís Nacenta from Hangar, (for kindly hosting us!), Tuna’s colleague Çağatay Erbaşı (for joining us at the last minute and bringing his brilliant music making gadgets), Locus Sonus platform (for providing the streams) and Ariane Stolfi for providing an awesome web audio interface Playsound.space (which is part of her PhD research). We love it! You will love it too! Check it out here! Read all about it here.
This workshop was made possible by the kind support from the following organizations:
- Workshop & Performance: Composing and performing with a laptop orchestra, I Conferencia Internacional Atenea Mujeres Artistas Tecnólogas, La Universitat Politècnica de València, València, Spain, 27 June 2018
Workshop & performance looking at strategies and techniques for composing and performing with a laptop orchestra/ electroacoustic ensemble led by Nela Brown, covering a variety of topics from coordinating musicians, deciding on repertoire and using Bigwig software for processing audio in real-time, to writing a performance ‘score’, rehearsing, performing and documenting the performance.
Workshop webpage
Full conference programme programme
Audio of the performance was recorded with Sony PCM-D50 🙂
Video of the performance was recorded and edited by the wonderful Cristina Santos 🙂
A HUGE THANK YOU to the conference organizer Elena Robles Mateo and to workshop participants: Elena Rita Pelejero, Montse Briceño, Jorge Sastre, Kris Ospina, Marco Toledo, Roser Domingo, Alex Granero and Raquel Brelt from La Universitat Politècnica de València. You guys rock!!!
After the workshop, one of the participants sent in a lovely email saying “Thank you for this workshop! It was fantastic and I learned a lot”. Now we got the ‘thumbs up’, we might just need to make this a regular FLO activity!
This workshop was made possible by the kind support from the following organizations:
FLO 