Sunday, September 12, 2010

The Bad Plus Compositions Explorations











The concept for my design is to break the instruments , by doing so I want to reflect how their music sounds and the way The Bad Plus are very innovative and the break the traditional boundaries in traditional jazz. These explorations were made to have a better understanding of the breaking of the forms and have a stronger composition in my final design.

Friday, September 10, 2010

Digital Compositions for the Bad Plus




These are some digital compositions that I felt that portrayed their music and they were derived from my pencil sketches. After critique the direction that I feel that is the most interesting are the first two designs in which the instruments are broken up but have more space and room for composition like the first design.



Tuesday, September 7, 2010

Do You Like To Run?


Continuing with the social running as my audience. I have branded the non-profit organization to be I have created a poster in which the one frame narration is happening through the overlay of the images to create the sensation of motion of a runner. I also wanted to bring the linear element that I had in my 15 - second summary as a way to create the diagram of a trail and include the visual language and a symbol that is common among runners.

Monday, September 6, 2010

Directions for The Bad Plus


In the group above was a direction to describe the way the music of The Bad Plus. As I listen to their music in sections of their beats they are so chaotic and loose they made me feel a bit dizzy. They are moments in the second that it gets chaotic and losses control. i wanted to reference either a turmoil or an explosion that I feel it happens in your head.

The concepts above they reference the style of Malevich yes I want to reference how they deconstruct songs and make them contemporary and since they are trio want to combine and layer the instruments and combine them to make them in an unified whole.
This last idea I wanted to explore the idea of the DNA sampling , making a reference that The Bad Plus is very unique like DNA. Looking at the frequency levels emitted by volume how they appear on the stereo they look very similar to frequency levels for the high frequency. During critique though this metaphor wasn't evident and therefore i'm more inclined to go with the first two ideas. I will really like to explore the abstract of the deconstruction of the second direction.

Sunday, September 5, 2010

Matrix Additions & Exploration of Rendering Methods


Updated matrix (left) and exploration of rendering methods (right)

Through my mind mapping and research I felt that a great of The Bad Plus are very contemporary in the world of jazz. i wanted to use layering as a method to reflect the chaotic and looseness that they have to their music. I felt that collage will be a proper and contemporary approach to reflect the music and chaos that it presents at times. I also explored the use of cellophane a translucent material to build layers of color and for some of my abstract sketches I feel like that will be a great way to render those compositions. Water color was another approach that I decided to use as a way to also build layers. I also decided to explore the building of layers through various scraps of paper. The layering of color aid and creating transparent through the saturation and layering and my last experimentation was markers.

collage

cellophane

water color

These are some of the additions that I made to the matrix:


hyperbole : because is an exaggeration of the eye, draws emphasis considering that the eye in real life doesn't appear in those kind of dimensions in real life but I wanted to create this exaggeration to reflect that they are visionaries.
personification: since The Bad Plus is contemporary, I wanted to use a high top sneaker but gave it the qualities of the band by morphing their instruments into a sneaker.


personification: I illustrated the 3 band members into three different and separate triangles. They have the characteristics of the members of the band.

metonym: I have replaced the outer phonograph with the icon of the volume to give it a contemporary spin. Considering that both have the function of sound and volume.




pun: I still want to continue exploring the idea of the bomb to reflect the explosiveness of the music of the bad plus and by adding the words "the bad plus will blow your mind" and then reflect it by showing the top of the head seem like an explosion of an atomic bomb.

Wednesday, September 1, 2010

The Language:Tender Buttons by Getrude Stein

For this project I have decided to select , some mediums to reflect the objects themselves and possibly create a setting.

Vellum



1. A CARAFE, THAT IS A BLIND GLASS.


A kind in glass and a cousin, a spectacle and nothing strange a single hurt color and an arrangement in a system to pointing. All this and not ordinary, not unordered in not resembling. The difference is spreading.


2.EYE GLASSES.


A color in shaving, a saloon is well placed in the centre of an alley.


3. WATER RAINING.


Water astonishing and difficult altogether makes a meadow and a stroke.


4.A METHOD OF A CLOAK.


A single climb to a line, a straight exchange to a cane, a desperate adventure and courage and a clock, all this which is a system, which has feeling, which has resignation and success, all makes an attractive black silver.



Watercolor Paper


5. A HANDKERCHIEF.


A winning of all the blessings, a sample not a sample because there is no worry.


6.A PLATE.


An occasion for a plate, an occasional resource is in buying and how soon does washing enable a selection of the same thing neater. If the party is small a clever song is in order.


Plates and a dinner set of colored china. Pack together a string and enough with it to protect the centre, cause a considerable haste and gather more as it is cooling, collect more trembling and not any even trembling, cause a whole thing to be a church.


A sad size a size that is not sad is blue as every bit of blue is precocious. A kind of green a game in green and nothing flat nothing quite flat and more round, nothing a particular color strangely, nothing breaking the losing of no little piece.


A splendid address a really splendid address is not shown by giving a flower freely, it is not shown by a mark or by wetting.


Cut cut in white, cut in white so lately. Cut more than any other and show it. Show it in the stem and in starting and in evening coming complication.


A lamp is not the only sign of glass. The lamp and the cake are not the only sign of stone. The lamp and the cake and the cover are not the only necessity altogether.


A plan a hearty plan, a compressed disease and no coffee, not even a card or a change to incline each way, a plan that has that excess and that break is the one that shows filling.



7. A CLOTH.


Enough cloth is plenty and more, more is almost enough for that and besides if there is no more spreading is there plenty of room for it. Any occasion shows the best way.



8.A PAPER.


A courteous occasion makes a paper show no such occasion and this makes readiness and eyesight and likeness and a stool.



Recycled Paper

(9-10 spread)


9. A BOX.


Out of kindness comes redness and out of rudeness comes rapid same question, out of an eye comes research, out of selection comes painful cattle. So then the order is that a white way of being round is something suggesting a pin and is it disappointing, it is not, it is so rudimentary to be analysed and see a fine substance strangely, it is so earnest to have a green point not to red but to point again.


10.A BOX.


A large box is handily made of what is necessary to replace any substance. Suppose an example is necessary, the plainer it is made the more reason there is for some outward recognition that there is a result.


A box is made sometimes and them to see to see to it neatly and to have the holes stopped up makes it necessary to use paper.


A custom which is necessary when a box is used and taken is that a large part of the time there are three which have different connections. The one is on the table. The two are on the table. The three are on the table. The one, one is the same length as is shown by the cover being longer. The other is different there is more cover that shows it. The other is different and that makes the corners have the same shade the eight are in singular arrangement to make four necessary.


Lax, to have corners, to be lighter than some weight, to indicate a wedding journey, to last brown and not curious, to be wealthy, cigarettes are established by length and by doubling.


Left open, to be left pounded, to be left closed, to be circulating in summer and winter, and sick color that is grey that is not dusty and red shows, to be sure cigarettes do measure an empty length sooner than a choice in color.


Winged, to be winged means that white is yellow and pieces pieces that are brown are dust color if dust is washed off, then it is choice that is to say it is fitting cigarettes sooner than paper.


An increase why is an increase idle, why is silver cloister, why is the spark brighter, if it is brighter is there any result, hardly more than ever.


11. NOTHING ELEGANT.


A charm a single charm is doubtful. If the red is rose and there is a gate surrounding it, if inside is let in and there places change then certainly something is upright. It is earnest.


12. A BROWN.


A brown which is not liquid not more so is relaxed and yet there is a change, a news is pressing.


13 A TABLE.


A table means does it not my dear it means a whole steadiness. Is it likely that a change.


A table means more than a glass even a looking glass is tall. A table means necessary places and a revision a revision of a little thing it means it does mean that there has been a stand, a stand where it did shake.


Language : Tender Buttons by Getrude Stein Process and Direction




Understanding language and expressive typography. During the summer when I was in NYC I was able to see a Picasso exhibition as well as the famous Getrude Stein which was also shown. She is the author of a couple of literature pieces the one that I will be re-desiging is Tender Buttons: Objects, Food, Rooms which was originally published in 1914.
I want to reflect the cubism aspect and showing multiple perspectives and I want to use vellum and use the layering method not only to build but also reflect the complexity but after reading her poems I wanted to reflect the repetition.
I was to explore the possibility of maybe using the concept of analytical cubism by having the texture of certain object has such as the table being brown using newsprint paper. So the reader aside from the text the tactical material of the medium also make the connection and interaction with the viewer.

15- Second Summary : Social Running

Social Running / KC Community of Runners from Karen Villalba on Vimeo.

Tuesday, August 31, 2010

15 -Second Summary: Process

storyboard
character and logo development



narrative as a whole

Sunday, August 29, 2010

Matrix and Updated List Of Concepts : The Bad Plus



In the matrix above reflecting each of the rhetorical tropes and using the concepts which have been revised and edited since my mind mapping :

Updated Concepts

1. avant-garde
2.sound waves
3.triangle
4. deconstruction
5.bomb
6.volume bars
7. DNA
8. Push
9. head
10. doodles
11. road
12. boat
13. turmoil
14. rock (contemporary)

Saturday, August 28, 2010

Mind Mapping & Word List


-avant-garde
- sound waves
-triangle
-boat
-curve lines
-doodles
-turmoil
-bomb
-range bars (volume indicators)
-head (subconscious)

F & S : Rhetorical Tropes

Source : (Graphis334 Sugimoto/Beruit/ S&SV/ Watanbe/ Piano/McLean/Odermatt&tiss Magazine Issue July/August 2001)

PUN & HYPERBOLE
The example above reflects pun by the function of reflecting the admit one and is the entrance. The symbol of the ticket and it's shape as a symbol and the door all these symbols have similar meaning and they all reflect the action of entering. An the size of the ticket is exaggerated beyond is natural and proper dimensions to bring emphasis, because in reality the admit one ticket is not that size.

(Magazine Print : America's Graphic Design Magazine-September / October 2000)

ANTITHESIS & METAPHOR

In this example is making a comment about the Chinese government by splitting the image the top being Mao Zedong founder of the Communist Party in China and the bottom of the image is the mouth of a clown.Implying that the Chinese government is a joke and therefore creating contrast between the images to draw emphasis and bring to front the viewpoint of the government. Is also a metaphor as mentioned in the reading Megg's Type and Image reading that a metaphor is design to create two levels of understanding and points out the resemblance between the two ideas so the body of work as a whole reflects the view point of the Chinese government.

Through a systematic approach graphic designers use words, pictures, signs and colors as devices to persuade the audience. With these examples I was able to see the power that these tropes work and covey thoughts, ideas and evoke feelings between people. -Megg's

Reading: Understanding Rhetoric, Gui Bonsepie

Gui Bonsepie is the Editor of the Journal of the Ulm School of Design. In this article is discussed the art of rhetoric which is a linguistic element yet the focus is it's application in the visual communication context. Is discussed how in ancient Greece the people who used the art of persuasion used it in a political, religious and legal. Rhetoric is used to influence someone's opinions or influence their actions. They are placed into persuasive and discription and analysis, yet rhetoric uses semiotics (icon, index and symbols) as an aid to bring the concepts by using visual signs. Signs are understood through their shape and meaning.
Syntactics: operates through a shape of the sign. Semantic : embraces everything a sign stands for, its sub-classes are the things designated and the things detonates and the things signified. Pragmatics is the fictitious dialogue between the speaker and argues the visual image.
Rhetoric uses verbal tricks and through this designers use signs that are icon, indexical and symbols that are embedded in our society to bring the art of rhetoric.
I found this and I felt that this helped visualize what Gui Bonsepie was describing as the art of rhetoric, the syntactic the shape and that is a helmet is to reference the human body lungs. Semantics of the image aside from the text "breathe" it tells the action of breathing and it brings emphasis and tells the viewer that even though they are helmets it references to the lungs. Pragmatics id the dialogue and the question from the viewer in analyzing the image and looking at the helmets and their shape as lungs plus the text alludes to the action of breathing.

Thursday, August 26, 2010

The Bad Plus Research and Mood board



The mood board above was designed by Kelsey Anderson , Bryan Baumgart and myself after listening and researching the music of The Bad Plus. Our approach to the mood board was to find elements that reflected the control and chaotic feel of their music. The structure rectangle is show the containment and control that the band and yet inside reflects the chaos. Their influences is popular and contemporary; as well their free form style in the way they approach their music.

The Bad Plus


Jazz concert : September 25, 2010


Audience: Folly Theater / Jazz aficionados / Anyone that will or enjoys concerts but in regards to this band people that are open minded to the style of jazz


Context: Folly Theater on the building/ window display



Research


Reid Anderson: bass


-Anderson needed more than Minneapolis could offer. “I wanted to get out to the East Coast, but I didn’t have enough money. For some reason, I chose to go to the University of Wisconsin at Eau Claire.” There, he hooked up with Iverson. “We clicked immediately. It was like we were looking for each other. The seeds of what we’re doing now were definitely planted.” At U of W, the orchestra teacher told Reid about Philadelphia’s Curtis Institute of Music. “He said I could get in, so I threw myself into learning how to play classical bass. I ’shedded for six hours a day, because I saw it as my ticket east.” His work paid off: Reid was accepted to Curtis, where he earned his degree after three years. After leaving school, Anderson hung around Philly for a year, devoting his life to jazz—but he had trouble settling into the local jazz scene. “Breaking in was a horrible experience; I didn’t know anybody. But eventually I hooked up with some great musicians, like pianist Orrin Evans. Then I moved to New York and started over.”


(
http://www.bassplayer.com/article/reid-anderson/jul-03/736)


Ethan Iverson: piano

-Ethan Iverson is best known as the pianist with the innovative piano trio the Bad Plus, but he had an extensive career prior to the formation of the group. Born in 1973 in Menomonie, Wisconsin. He moved to New York in 1991, where he took private lessons from Fred Hersch. Iverson made his recording debut in 1993 on School Work, matching ideas with Dewey Redman. He was the musical director for the Mark Morris Dance Group, performing with Mikhail Baryshnikov and Yo-Yo Ma. He has also worked with Mark Turner, Bill McHenry, Patrick Zimmerli, Dave Douglas, Billy Hart, Kurt Rosenwinkel and Charlie Haden. Iverson’s trio recorded Construction Zone (originals) and Deconstruction Zone (standards) during 1998.
(
http://jazztimes.com/guides/artists/12496-ethan-iverson)

David King: drums

-Born 8 June 1970, is a drummer and composer active in Minneapolis, Minnesota since the 1990s. He is a founding member of Happy Apple and the Bad Plus, both of which are jazz trios, although neither play traditional styles. He works simultaneously in around a dozen other bands, many in the jazz, electronic , indie and rock genres. In March 2010, Minneapolis's Walker Art Center paid tribute to King by presenting two nights of live music, with King performing in a half-dozen ensembles, including two new bands, before a sold-out crowd.

(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_King_(musician))

-King started playing the piano when he was four. By the time he took formal lessons, at five, he had mastered the basics. “He just sat for hours, sounding things out on the piano,” his father says. “And he began making things up on the piano, which led to the improvisation he does today.”
-In the fifth grade, King had to choose an instrument to play in the school band. His dad says he wanted him to play the trumpet, but “he tried out for drums, so that was the end of that.” King taught himself the drums, and almost immediately was able to play along with records. When he was in the seventh grade, he bought his first drum set from a friend for $100. “It had his name on the front of the head,” King says, “so every time I played, it said my name was Marty Jackson.”

(http://www.mspmag.com/entertainment/music/39193.asp)

THE BAD PLUS as a group:

-Anderson and King are from Minneapolis, Minnesota. Iverson is from neighboring Wisconsin.

-The three musicians first played together in 1989, but didn’t come together as an established act until 2000.

-Iverson knew bassist Reid Anderson and drummer David King when they were teenagers in the Midwest and they played together on one occasion in 1990, but the Bad Plus was not formed until 2000.

-King in an interview mentioned: “We grew up together, so there are no real surprises. Reid and I are really close; we hang out all the time when we’re on tour. Ethan is close with us, too, but he keeps to himself a lot. He has his spy novels and his jazz and that keeps him going.”

-No one player dominates the proceedings, and each is a refreshingly talented and original craftsman.

-King also mentioned in regards the group: “We grew up together and learned to play together at a very young stage in our musical careers, and then we moved away from each other for about 10 years when we hit our twenties. I moved to L.A. and began work as a session player, Reid moved to New York to play, and Ethan became the musical director of the Mark Morris Dance Group. After a long time apart, we got back together and played some shows, and it just kinda clicked immediately. It was so easy. We had no agenda, and we just wanted to play music together. I’ve found that the most successful things in life aren’t forced.”

(http://www.thegrixer.com/thebadplus.html)

Influences

-Anderson, Iverson, and King are jazz musicians in the old-school sense—passionate improvisers who are inspired by a wide range of sources and have strong opinions on the state of their chosen art form.

-Influence on the modern music scene performing rock songs as creative jazz but with the sensibility and spirit of rockers. Making them create a several albums with included a version of Nirvana’s “Smells Like Teen Spirit”, Blondie’s “Heart of Glass” and “Flim” by Aphex Twin. Give contains covers of tunes by the Pixies and Black Sabbath, while Suspicious Activity contains a cover of the theme from Chariots of Fire. Prog contains a cover of Rush’s “Tom Sawyer”.

-Seventies rock—yet another inspiration.

(http://blogcritics.org/music/article/review-the-bad-plus-suspicious-activity/#ixzz0xUpK3YNg)


The Bad Plus Uniqueness

-They preserve the true nature of jazz while infusing hip-hop, rock, punk, and avant-garde flavors into a distinctive sound. (http://jazztimes.com/guides/artists/12496-ethan-iverson)


-“From gentle and melodic to fierce and abstract, from swing to ’80 techno. NEVER STOP is tied together by a group of sound that embraces diversity as strength.” (www.thebadplus.com)


-Progressive or experimental jazz often sounds free and reckless, but they carefully select and play each note and beat. ( http://www.last.fm/music/The+Bad+Plus )


- They reinterpreted and covers songs and rearrange in their style.



Style

-From gentle and melodic to fierce and abstract

-Chaotic, faster and then control, band brings structure

-Slow and tempo picks up

-Intense shifts of mood and volume

-Infusing hip-hop, rock, punk into a distinctive sound

-Improvisation and spontaneity

-Instruments: Piano, double bass, drum set but they all put their personality and they work off each other very well.

Discriptive Words

-Beyond

-Deconstructive

-Avant-garde: experimental innovative ; free playing

-Deconstruction

-Rebuilding

-Rediscovery

-Dizzy

-Dynamics

-Infusing

-Improvisation

-Spontaneity

-Modern

-Transforms

-Out there

-Clash

-Populism: ordinary people

-Serendipity

-Spontaneous

-Progressive

-Free Form

-Abstract

-Appropriation

-Eccentric

-Break from tradition

-Distortion

-Mindblowing

-Refreshing




Critics



-Rolling Stone critic David Fricke says, “One of the great things that [The Bad Plus does] is polarize the jazz community. There’s an insular, almost rabbinical quality to the jazz community. Anything that starts arguments is a good thing, because it brings in new influences. The fact that The Bad Plus covers Black Sabbath without embarrassment is both traditional and a total break with tradition. They’re increasing the jazz tradition, they’re making it bigger, they’re making it a broader church. They’re also one of the most exciting live bands going right now, in any genre. Playing a Black Sabbath song—that’s funny. But it can also be intensely powerful because of the nature of the song and the sound of the original version.”

-“The Bad Plus are trio toying with mass appeal in genre gone unfortunately highbrow.” ( Stylusmagazine.com)

-““Audacious, rule-breaking jazz trio crunches and at times pulverizes swing to let improvisational freedom shine...Dynamics play a huge roll in the act's music, as does humor, an element sorely lacking in most of contemporary jazz. But beauty is also key... jazz purists tremble while the vanguard flocks.” Billboard

-“...high art, not pop gimmickry...The Bad Plus embrace sonic adventure without selfish avant-gardism...seething with funky new-millennium rhythms and succulent harmonic flights.” -Entertainment Weekly

-“You get the feeling from the band's press material that they want to move away from being "that jazz band that does rock covers" and I must say, I side with them if my assumption is correct.”

( http://blogcritics.org/music/article/review-the-bad-plus-suspicious-activity/#ixzz0xkvE00uS)

- “ The Bad Plus have broken down the walls of jazz convention and created an uncompromising body of work. Few jazz groups in recent memory have amassed such acclaim, a few have inspired such controversy.” ( www.thebadplus.com)


Questions

- The new release of their new album NEVER STOP being release September 14, 2010 will the concert in September 25, 2010 will it be mostly of their new songs?