Those sitting in the Daniel Recital Hall on Friday evening were immersed in darkness, save for a flashing screen backdrop and the white laptop glow from Mac’s signature apples.
A spider-web of tangled cables flowed from the six performer’s tech-based instruments, producing sounds that ranged from cacophonies to melodies.
“Laptop Ensemble and Modular Synthesis” at the Daniel Recital Hall consisted of student and faculty composers performing original pieces of music. The performances included works created using modular synthesizers and live visuals by multimedia installation artist Vav Vavrek.
“We like to think of ourselves as a chamber group—like a string quartet—except with laptops,” Tim Cummins, a member of the Laptop Ensemble, said.
At first glance it would appear that the performers were duking it out on a multiplayer video game with controllers in hand; however, they were using controllers to manipulate their instruments, which ranged from a cacophony to melodious sounds.
“It was funky!” Matt Pogue, a faculty multi-instrumentalist performer and graphic artist for the Bob Cole Conservatory, said.
“What they chose to use as timbres is really unusual; that’s what makes it totally different,” he continued, motioning toward the laptops. “I would describe this as musicality and technology colliding to push the boundaries of what we know as music.”
Even though the group uses laptops to create music, Zaq Kenefick, a student ensemble member, emphasized the difference between the type of music they create and other types of music created using computers, such as electronic dance music.
“It’s still classical music; this is 21st century classical music,” the senior composition studies major at CSULB said. “We wrote it to be played in a concert hall.”
Instead of traditional instruments, they use a computer program called Max MSP, Cummins said. The software was originally developed in the mid-1980s as an outlet for composers to create interactive computer music while MSP allows for the manipulation of audio signals in real-time, according to its website.
“We’re augmenting experimental classical music with full electronics,” Kenefick said as he hastily cleaned up the wire-ridden stage post performance. “It’s the same as going to see a string quartet or an orchestra. Instead, we’re playing laptops.”
Although most of the students in Laptop Ensemble are in the music department, director of the ensemble Dr. Martin Herman said it’s not just for composition students.
“We’ve had a film major and a physics major,” he said. “It’s really open to anybody; you don’t have to be a trained musician.”
Laughing, Cummins reminisced about how he joined the Laptop Ensemble.
“I was sitting in here one day when I was a sophomore and they were like, ‘Come join laptop ensemble!’” he said. “That was how I got into it.”
The program’s original approach to music lured Kenefick to join. He said that he exhausted his immediate resources when it came to things that hadn’t already been done.
Sound technician and composition instructor Rychard Cooper was also one of the faculty performers that night.
“The more technology advances, the more flexibility you have for how you can create sound,” Cooper said. “It’s really open-ended. You can do anything.”
The Laptop Ensemble rehearses every Friday, and will be performing at the University Art Museum on May 7 from 6 to 7 p.m.
