On January 6, I enjoyed presenting my Antarctic Guitar Project as the Sunday Science Lecture in the McMurdo Dining Hall. I edited together some video of my favorite experiences here to share with the community. Playing slide guitar with the South Pole, my visits to Mt. Erebus and Cape Royds, as well as video documentation of the Exorcism of El Gran Chingazo, were greatly enjoyed. I also made a compilation of my best underwater video work here and played my piece, "Platelet Ice," on live electric guitar alongside the video projection.
Here is the outline of my lecture:
MUSIC & PLACE: THE ANTARCTIC GUITAR PROJECT Supported by a National Science Foundation Antarctic Artists & Writers Program grant
ANTARCTICA - MUSIC ABOUT PLACE Natural History Scenery Light Ice Soundscapes and sounds History Human population & community Weather Science Personal experiences Interesting places to play guitar
BUT WHAT IS MUSIC? just melody & harmony and rhythm?
25 OF THE INGREDIENTS OF MUSIC:
MELODY
THE MUSICIAN(S)
PURPOSE
AUDIENCE
TIMBRE
HARMONY
SPACE & SILENCE
INSTRUMENT(S)
ENVIRONMENT - WEATHER - SEASON - TIME OF DAY
STATISTICAL PATTERNS: PITCH - HARMONY - RHYTHM - ETC.
RHYTHMS: PATTERNS - SPEEDS - CHANGES - META PATTERNS
EMOTION - MOOD - "RASA"
FEEL - "LAYA" - GROOVE
ORNAMENTATION - SHAPE - BEND CONTOURS - RATE OF BENDS
PERFORMANCE or PIECE DURATION
SCALE - PITCH MATERIALS - INTONATION
PERFORMANCE SPACE
SPIRITUAL DIMENSIONS
VOLUME - AMPLITUDE - DYNAMICS - LOUD! - QUIET(!)
MONOPHONY - HETEROPHONY - POLYPHONY
IMPROVISATION vs. COMPOSITION BALANCE
CULTURAL CONTEXT - HISTORY - TRADITIONS
ORCHESTRATION
TIME: LINEAR - NONLINEAR - DIRECTED NONLINEAR - MOMENT - STATIC
FORMAL NARRATIVE IDEAS contest & form
TECHNICAL DETAILS MOTU 828 Hardisk Mac recording Royer ribbon microphones Trance Audio Pickup system Hydrophone 2 DAT machines
ANTARCTIC GUITARS Rainsong Graphite Guitar Turner Expedition Model Turner Renaissance Baritone 12-string Turner Renaissance fretless bass Klein Electric Asher fretted lap steel slide
Playing my guitars
INFLUENCES & INGREDIENTS 1 AMERICAN STEEL STRING CONCERT GUITAR TRADITION John Fahey Robbie Basho Michael Gulezian Peter Lang
INFLUENCES & INGREDIENTS 2 HAWAIIAN SLACK KEY GUITAR Keola Beamer Ray Kane
INFLUENCES & INGREDIENTS 3 HINDUSTANI (NORTH INDIAN) CLASSICAL MUSIC concept of Alap slow, measured, gradual exposition of pitch material Raga language elements
INFLUENCES & INGREDIENTS 4 20TH CENTURY CLASSICAL MUSIC Toru Takemitsu Morton Feldman Terry Riley Gyorgi Ligeti Iannis Xenakis Giacinto Sclesi Lou Harrison Alan Hovahaness Olivier Messiaen
INFLUENCES & INGREDIENTS 5 CHINESE CLASSICAL MUSIC programatic music about nature Gu-Qin tradition
INFLUENCES & INGREDIENTS 6 GUITAR MUSIC COMMUNITY OF MY COLLEAGUES Richard Thompson David Lindley David Torn Fred Frith Derek Bailey Bill Frisell Nels Cline Jean Paul Bourelli Davey Williams Jim O'Rourke
INFLUENCES & INGREDIENTS 11 ANTARCTICA Natural History Scenery Light Ice Soundscapes and sounds History Human population & community Weather Science Personal experiences Interesting places to play guitar
The Coast Guard Ice Breaker is in town now.
Coast Guard Icebreaker
Each year it enters McMurdo Sound to break up the sea ice, so that the supply and tanker ships can reach McMurdo.
One of my favorite books about this place is Kim Stanley Robinson's novel, "Antarctica." The first sentence of that novel is: "First you fall in love with Antarctica, and then it breaks your heart." This is true for many folks here in many ways. It will be true for me, as I will really miss this place for the rest of my life. And I will always wish for some way to return to dive here again. Which brings us to a big surprise that happened to me last Tuesday! During a dive at Cape Armitage, I noticed that my left ankle was feeling slightly painful and sprained as I kicked about underneath the ice. Returning to town, I dropped by medical to get it checked and was as surprised as the medical staff, when an x-ray showed a broken ankle! A 1 mm undisplaced fracture of the medial maliosis. First you fall in love with Antarctica, and then it breaks your ankle...... But, I am still deeply in love with this amazing place.
1 mm undisplaced fracture
Evidence
So now I am in a "moon boot" and on crutches. Fortunately, the docs and the NSF are letting me remain in town to complete my music work. Unfortunately, this means the end of diving for me here, and the end of field trips in helos. So I will miss this week's planned excursions to the Dry Valleys. As it does towards the end of the season, the oceanic visibility suddenly drops off from hundreds of feet to a few feet here. The day after my injury the visibility suddenly dropped off; so it's the end of the diving season anyway. From my dive logs, here is a summery of my diving activity here:
19 dives average depth 54 feet max depth 88 feet average bottom time 42 min max bottom time 56 min total bottom time 802 minutes shot 13 cassettes of Mini DV video (about 400 minutes worth)
McMurdo Dive Locker
I feel so lucky to have had this rare and unusual opportunity to become an Antarctic Diver. Many thanks to the folks here who encouraged and supported me: Rob Robbins, Art DeVries, Kevin Hoefling, and Ben Hunt.
Here is a bit of Antarctic humor that came out of the town bulletin board. Someone put this up as a joke, yet it attracted quite a few would-be Antarctic Divers.
Antarctic Humor
Today I sit in my office and edit video. The next few days I will furiously record. I've already recorded about 6 hours of music. I can cut that down to about 35 minutes of the best takes of the following pieces:
FIRST YOU FALL IN LOVE WITH ANTARCTICA AND THEN IT BREAKS YOUR ANKLE 3:45 FUMEROLE WORSHIPERS 3:50 THE RACE TO THE POLE 6:00 SLIDE GUITAR AROUND THE WORLD 1:00 PLATELET ICE 10:00 THE EXORCISM OF EL GRAN CHINGAZO 6:40 IN SHACKLETON'S HUT 3:30
I have ideas and sketches for more pieces than I can use. Directly from my notes, here are some of the works-in-progress that I will finish in the next couple of weeks, so that my CD will be all recorded when I leave the ice.
ANTARCTIC TITLES & PIECE CONCEPTS: BLIND WILLIE JOHNSON MOVES OVER THE ICE COLDFINGER ANTARCTICA SLACK KEY SEARCHING FOR VOSSIE - THE LAKE VOSTOK MONSTER LIFE IN ICE LIFE UNDER ICE LIFE ABOVE ICE IN SHACKLETON'S HUT SUMMER LIGHT THE BEST JOURNEY IN THE WORLD THE WORST JOURNEY IN THE WORLD PORTALS PLAYING WITH WEDDELL SEALS SKIP JAMES & SON HOUSE IN THE SKY OVER POLE AKBAR & JEFF and DASI & CARA DOCTOR COOL LIGHT, SIZE, & DISTANCE BENEATH THE ICE HUT 19 PLATELET ICE KEVIN & BEN BENEATH THE ICE EREBUS BLUE EREBUS WHITE LAVA LAKE WITH A VIEW EREBUS CLOUDSCAPES DREAMING OF THE DRY VALLEYS
Obviously, I have more ideas than I can use.
Even if I cannot go out on the sea ice anymore, I can look out my office window. It's the one just to the left of the big opening to the right of the middle of this image:
My Crary Lab office is here
And when I look out my window, I see views like this:
Office View 1
Office View 2
Office View 3
I went to a great science lecture by John Priscu last night about the search for life here in subglacial, Lake Vostok. With that search we are expanding our ideas of the extent of the earth's biosphere as well as our search for other biospheres and life on other planets. More about this in the next journal.
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