#4 Ryan Holladay : To here this music you have to be there. Literally

 

Review

Integrating GPS with music using mobile device...

 

컴퓨터공학을 전공하고 모바일 업계에서 일하는 한명의 아마추어 뮤지션으로서 이 강연이 보여주는 프로젝트는 내게 단순히'와! 신기하다'.'멋지다!'수준에서 끝나지 않을 것 같다. Location Based Service와 Mobile Technology 그리고 Musical Inspiration이 결합된 언젠가는 (멀지 않은 날에) 반드시 한번 해보고 싶은 프로젝트이다.

 

또한 음악산업의 관점에서 뮤지션의 공연장에가서 들어야 했던 음악이 LP Player로 Walkman, CD Player를 지나 MP3 Player로 발전하면서 음악산업은 스스로의 입지에 대해서 재고하지 않을수 없는 상황에 처했다. 음악 자체는 이제 더이상 새로울 것이 없다는, 요즘에는 들을 노래가 없다고 말하는 시대에 Holladay 형제의 강연은 음악의 발전 가능성에 대한 통찰력과 호기심을 던져준다.

 

Integrating GPS with music using mobile device...

As an mobile engineer, also as an amateur musician, the project; 'Integrating GPS with music' is not just the marvelous amusement but the exciting harmony of the technologies : LBS(Location-Based Service), Mobile Technology and Musical inspiration. Differently with my consideration that mobile programming and music composition are just two separate fields, it shows the possibility of blurring the line between my work and my hobby. Now it is written on my bucket list.

 

In terms of music scene, the industry are forced to metamorphosing itself beyond the habits from the era of LP, Tape and CD to survive on the digital age that contents are consumed and shared very instantly. In the modern era we live, it is told that no more music something new, however kind of Holladay brothers' attempts may be a meaningful challenge to find new area for making music.

 

Keywords

might start to ~ : ~하게 될 것이다.

convey to : (생각・감정 등을) 전달하다, 실어 나르다, 운반하다

Let's take a closer look : 좀 더 자세히 (들어가) 보자.

accommodate request : 요청을 수용하다(받아들이다)

intrinsic : 본질적인, 고유한

meadow : 양들의 목초지

ramble : 산책하다, 거닐다, 산책

reservoir : 저수지, 저장소

 

Script

(Music) For any of you who have visited or lived in New York City, these shots might start to look familiar. This is Central Park, one of the most beautifully designed public spaces in America. But to anyone who hasn't visited, these images can't really fully convey. To really understand Central Park, you have to physically be there. Well, the same is true of the music, which my brother and I composed and mapped specifically for Central Park. (Music)

I'd like to talk to you today a little bit about the work that my brother Hays and I are doing -- That's us there. That's both of us actually — specifically about a concept that we've been developing over the last few years, this idea of location-aware music.

 

Now, my brother and I, we're musicians and music producers. We've been working together since, well, since we were kids, really. But recently, we've become more and more interested in projects where art and technology intersect, from creating sight-specific audio and video installation to engineering interactive concerts.

But today I want to focus on this concept of composition for physical space.

 

But before I go too much further into that, let me tell you a little bit about how we got started with this idea. My brother and I were living in New York City when the artists Christo and Jeanne-Claude did their temporary installation, The Gates, in Central Park. Hundreds of these brightly-colored sculptures decorated the park for a number of weeks, and unlike work that's exhibited in a more neutral space, like on the walls of a gallery or a museum, this was work that was really in dialogue with this place, and in a lot of ways, The Gates was really a celebration of Frederick Olmsted's incredible design. This was an experience that stayed with us for a long time, and years later, my brother and I moved back to Washington, D.C., and we started to ask the question, would it be possible, in the same way that The Gates responded to the physical layout of the park, to compose music for a landscape? Which brought us to this.

 

(Music)

 

On Memorial Day, we released "The National Mall," a location-aware album released exclusively as a mobile app that uses the device's built-in GPS functionality to sonically map the entire park in our hometown of Washington, D.C. Hundreds of musical segments are geo-tagged throughout the entire park so that as a listener traverses the landscape, a musical score is actually unfolding around them. So this is not a playlist or a list of songs intended for the park, but rather an array of distinct melodies and rhythms that fit together like pieces of a puzzle and blend seamlessly based on a listener's chosen trajectory. So think of this as a choose-your-own-adventure of an album.

Let's take a closer look. Let's look at one example here. So using the app, as you make your way towards the grounds surrounding the Washington Monument, you hear the sounds of instruments warming up, which then gives way to the sound of a mellotron spelling out a very simple melody. This is then joined by the sound of sweeping violins. Keep walking, and a full choir joins in, until you finally reach the top of the hill and you're hearing the sound of drums and fireworks and all sorts of musical craziness, as if all of these sounds are radiating out from this giant obelisk that punctuates the center of the park. But were you to walk in the opposite direction, this entire sequence happens in reverse. And were you to actually exit the perimeter of the park, the music would fade to silence, and the play button would disappear.

 

We're sometimes contacted by people in other parts of the world who can't travel to the United States, but would like to hear this record. Well, unlike a normal album, we haven't been able to accommodate this request. When they ask for a C.D. or an MP3 version, we just can't make that happen, and the reason is because this isn't a promotional app or a game to promote or accompany the release of a traditional record. In this case, the app is the work itself, and the architecture of the landscape is intrinsic to the listening experience.

 

Six months later, we did a location-aware album for Central Park, a park that is over two times the size of the National Mall, with music spanning from the Sheep's Meadow to the Ramble to the Reservoir.

Currently, my brother and I are working on projects all over the country, but last spring we started a project, here actually at Stanford's Experimental Media Art Department, where we're creating our largest location-aware album to date, one that will span the entirety of Highway 1 here on the Pacific Coast.

 

But what we're doing, integrating GPS with music, is really just one idea. But it speaks to a larger vision for a music industry that's sometimes struggled to find its footing in this digital age, that they begin to see these new technologies not simply as ways of adding bells and whistles to an existing model, but to dream up entirely new ways for people to interact with and experience music.

Thank you.

 

Memorable Sentence

But what we're doing, integrating GPS with music, is really just one idea. But it speaks to a larger vision for a music industry that's sometimes struggled to find its footing in this digital age, that they begin to see these new technologies not simply as ways of adding bells and whistles to an existing model, but to dream up entirely new ways for people to interact with and experience music.