Adrian Hazzard

Inspired by Mark’s thoughts on embodied learning from our last post, we’ve been exploring how Carolan might support players learning new music. As a first step – and drawing on Carolan’s Celtic heritage – we set out to create a video tutorial for learning to accompany traditional Irish tunes.

We start by choosing a classic set of three Irish polkas, beginning with Egan’s Polka …

… before segueing into Jessica’s Polka …

… and finally ending with Ryan’s Polka …

Next we invite Carolan’s friends Milli on fiddle and Penny on flute to join Steve on banjo to record a the tunes, repeating each three times as is typical in sessions in our neck of the woods.

Our next task is to record an accompaniment on Carolan.

We then edit a composite of the two videos to demonstrate how they sound together.

Now we need to figure out how best to map these three tuition videos to the interactive surfaces of the guitar so as to support embodied learning.

A second installment from the New Instruments for Musical Expression (NIME) conference in Baton Rouge …

Compared to a traditional acoustic guitar such as Carolan, NIMEs are an unusual bunch, mixing physical controllers, with sensors, actuators and software to create highly innovative instruments. NIMEs range from traditional instruments that are augmented with digital technologies to radical, bespoke and often highly personalized instruments.

A lovely aspect of the conference is balancing a programme of concerts with a program of academic talks so that we get to see many NIMEs in action as well as learn about how they are put together.

There is Dianne Verdonk’s La Diantenne 2.0, a beautiful a harp-like instrument fashioned from tin plate that uses a contact microphone to produce sound in response to flexing, touching, stroking and percussive striking. Dianne’s paper explains how the instrument is also designed with the visual aspects of performance in mind. We’re struck by how her…

Louisiana! Swamps and ‘gators. Crawfish and po-boys. Cajun, Zydeco and New Orleans, the First City of Jazz. Carolan has seen them all this week in its first trip abroad (unless you count Wales that is). Ostensibly, the trip has been to present the first Carolan research paper at the Fifteenth Annual Conference on New Interfaces for Musical Expression, or ‘NIMES’ as these new digital instruments are called, but of course this has necessitated something of a road trip. We’ll be writing about the conference and some of the quirky NIMEs that we’ve met and even jammed with soon, but for now we’ll just get our bearings.

The trip begins 5 AM on a Saturday morning – no time for a respectable guitar to be up and about – with Carolan being wrapped in layers of bubblewrap before being snugly fitted into its Hiscox flightcase.

The a car journey to Heathrow and checking…

Carolan has left the country of its birth, crossing the border into Wales to spend a week living, composing and recording with Geert and his collaborators Claire and Dylan. Deepest thanks to Geert for putting Carolan through its paces and for such a monumental effort in documenting and blogging Carolan’s visit. We’re very happy to hand over to him …

Alan Chamberlain had mentioned that guitar a couple of times already. Something special, he promised. I couldn’t get a clear picture of what he was talking about, but I was quite willing to wait and to see. Yes, sometime – soon perhaps – he would ask me to try out a new kind of guitar some people had been developing. Exciting! My patience was rewarded, because evening time on 7 May, he came round, carrying a bulky guitar-case and a bag or two. This, he said, was the Carolan Guitar and its travel entourage…