Music Collective Improvisation in Sound with Vic Rawlings

Develop your listening skills and appreciation of sound - absolutely no musical background is required.
Any means to produce sound will be welcomed, including common objects, all common musical instruments, and voice. We will use structured exercises to explore music and sound improvisation in a group context. We will work beyond standard conceptions of rhythm and melody, beginning with the fundamentals of sound and time. A limited number of objects will be available for student use.

All are welcome to attend, including musicians at any technical level, as well as people who do not consider themselves musicians. The session will be accessible and challenging for all participants. You are welcome if you have no experience improvising. You are welcome if you have experience improvising.

Please be prompt. It is not possible to join the group once the workshop has begun at 4 p.m. The room will be available at 3:30.
If you plan to use amplification you must bring your own equipment.

The workshop will be led by Vic Rawlings.

Vic Rawlings is a musician, instrument builder, sound installation artist, filmmaker and freelance teacher based in western Massachusetts. Collaborators have included Ikue Mori, Greg Kelley, Bhob Rainey, Seijiro Murayama, Jake Meginsky, Sean Meehan and Jason Lescalleet. Visiting artist/teaching residencies have included Oberlin Conservatory, MIT, Harvard, UC Berkeley, UC Davis, Princeton, Dartmouth and Wesleyan, as well as homeless shelters and correctional facilities. He has performed throughout North America and Europe at venues including The Stone, Jordan Hall, The Gardner Museum, The Philadelphia Museum of Art, and countless galleries and series. Festival appearances include Victoriaville (Quebec), Musique Action (France) and Vision (NYC). Labels include Grob, RRR, Sedimental, Absurd, Emanem, Boxmedia, Audio Dispatch, H+H, Chloe, and Rykodisc. He has performed works by John Cage, Karlheinz Stockhausen and Cornelius Cardew, and has worked directly with 20th and 21st century composers Alvin Lucier, Michael Pisaro and Christian Wolff.

"Vic Rawlings plays prepared cello and open circuit electronics in the form of an instrument self-made from exposed circuit boards and speaker cones...the sense of danger, the awareness that the music is poised permanently on the edge of disintegration and collapse. Despite its refusal to make the slightest concession to the listener, the music draws you in and doesn’t let you go."
-The Wire

For more information, contact Professor Jason Robinson, jrobinson@amherst.edu