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NOBUKAZU TAKEMURA

August 9, 2007 in Beats, Nippon  

Nobukazu Takemura interview by Salon Magazine.

My setup is not so special. Max(/msp), Logic and…

[Kyoto Japan]

Yes, SuperCollider, too… in some part. Ummm… SuperCollider is kinda “free”… but it’s a little bit annoying to handle.

[Nobukazu Takemura]

Max is the most user-intuitive and “free” for me because its whole processing routine is clearly visible. Scripting such as C (sound) takes a half an hour to build a patch which can be made only in 10 seconds with Max. Ummm… it can be said Max is a great invention in this sense.

[Max/msp window]

This part is a sort of “infinite delay”. Normally delay sounds gradually disappear but in this patch they remain and overlap until the original sounds cannot be identified. The delayed sounds are recorded on the hard disk. Then those recorded audio files are processed by various effectors or used as a material for scratching… It’s like scratch which I used to do before.

[playing patch]

I’m questioning that digital equipments express everything with 1 and 0. I often use computers just to simulate modular synth or tape (editing) but not for actual recording. However I want to discover or be surprised by something new in my music, so I’d rather allow computers to choose random numbers for sound synthesizing in my own works. I like to be an observer of this.

Today we still have to pre-program computers to use their randomness. It’s all about making choice of what to do next within the program. This idea is kinda primitive. It will be more interesting when computers can process quicker and automatically play melody, chord, and harmony without any pre-programming.

I started working with classical musicians when I was recording “Child & Magic” Until that time, I used to work mainly with jazz or rock musicians. I wanted to have improvisation along some chords and melodies at that moment. I asked 10 or more classical musicians to do it but all of them apologized that they couldn’t. I was surprised but appreciated that. Jazz and rock improvisation is always based on memorized chords or scales; sometimes this so called improvisation sounds fake to me. I’m not sure what the real improvisation is. I prefer classical musicians’ strict attitude of playing written music.

On the one hand programming is becoming a musical composition itself. On the other hand something like a beautiful melody is still important. I can’t expect how these two aspects will co-exist in the future.

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