Archive for category Breath
All sound on Voice originates from Maja Ratkje’s throat…
BBC Review
All sound on Voice originates from Maja Ratkje’sthroat…
Colin Buttimer 2003-04-07
Voice begins and ends with glacial figures from ambient Aphex territory. At the end these figures are succeeded by silence, at the beginning they’re interrupted by elfin voices. Events quickly become unpredictable, unsettling, scary, as if small creatures had stolen into your skull and were busying themselves spitting out stray words, oaths, nonsense. It’s as though Laurie Anderson’s vocoder had been infected by a gleefully disruptive software virus.
“Joy” continues and diversifies into a chorus of different voices; strong and gentle, idiotic and innocent, whispering and cajoling, humming and screaming. On one hand there’s evident joy in the sound of words, of sounds all made possible by one set of vocal chords. On the other hand, whole histories of persecution justified by accusations of insanity, witchcraft, etc are also conjured. There’s a sense of patrolling and transgressing the boundaries of the known, of questioning sanity (perhaps in the best traditions of Dada). Listening to Voice is like occupying the head of somebody experiencing multiple personalities.
“Trio” fires off explosive screeches and spits, spats, strangled laughter, duck quacks, raging screams, evoking human beatboxes, cartoon violence (think Carl Stalling cut up and reflected in a kaleidoscope).
“Vacuum” clicks and crackles in the emptiness. Whorls of sound grow in volume only to be interrupted by breathtaking breathlessness, breathiness, breath caught and expelled, the breathy, quiet sound of near tears, of trying to breathe which is succeeded by a passage of spooked, echoing beauty.
All sound on Voice originates from Maja Ratkje’sthroat, though it has been much manipulated, processed, torn, stretched, pitch-shifted and who knows what else. The human voice is as close to home as an instrument can be and the impression of this music is of naked immediacy despite its manipulation. But that immediacy does not result in yet another restatement of the known but in revelations of strangeness, of travels beyond the known.
The cover of the cdshows Maja Ratjke’s face. She might be assumed to be sunk in meditation but on listening to her music a new possibility arises: instead of peacefulness, the suspicion increases that the closed eyes and mouth signify containment or communication with spirits, or a state much stranger, less quantifiable still. I look at the picture and fully expect the face to animate at any moment into a grimace, snarl, cry, smile, plea…
sound sketches
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Yogi’s breath plays via mic and yogi’s movement triggers sounds and samples from an accelerometer.
The viewer’s breath triggers James Brown and The Magic Flames singing ‘Please, Please, Please’ sample. When the viewer stops breathing the James Brown sample stops.
Leo Tolstoy described music as the short hand of emotion this for me does it in a pop song barely a song at all. John Cooper Clarke described this song as pure emotion, a pre- deconstructed love song, all 100% emotion. Every instrument is a drum the only sustained melodic input comes from the response vocals of the Famous Flames.
Sticatoed, emphatic and percusive… James in charge whilst almost being out of control
LEP Project
Live Electronic Performance Project
Noise: the base substrate that we are all grounded in and almost always paradoxically outside of, not a defined territory, this is dissonance, difference, otherness. A non-representable, indexical? An innate capacity and breadth to both exist outside of a form and engulf a form, cosmological, a capacitor for change an evolutionary sea where the noisionists and their notions of all creation have derived consonance from and into.
My research for my main Masters project explores the properties and ideas about human breath, in essence the breath as a living proof of the necessity for interchange between every individual being and its physical environment. The breath, a bridge, between thought and action. In philosophy the breath can be a guide for exploration into the depths of consciousness; in art, breath can be a prime material or subject matter for creation.
Processing sketches using breath data
[vimeo]http://vimeo.com/24263041[/vimeo]
[vimeo] http://vimeo.com/24263086[/vimeo]
[vimeo]http://vimeo.com/24263072[/vimeo]
[vimeo]http://vimeo.com/24263605[/vimeo]
[vimeo]http://vimeo.com/24263319[/vimeo]
[vimeo]http://vimeo.com/24263475[/vimeo]
Six factors accompanying the breath
From universalyoga.com
The breath is related to the following accompanying factors: acoustic vibrations, temperature, internal pressure, forward signals and feedback signals, smoothness of the breath and characteristics of the respiratory pathways.
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Association of breathing with the state of consciousness
From universalyoga.com
The breathing process is the main one among all the factors of the vital provision of a human being. A man can live without food for a couple of months, without water — for a couple of days, but without breathing a man cannot survive for even ten minutes.
The process of breathing is closely related to the state of consciousness, and its characteristics determine the quality of the psychic-energy structure of a man. It can be said that the rhythms of the breath and the consciousness are similar. Therefore, in order to achieve the principal goal of Yoga, which is the stabilization of consciousness, it is absolutely necessary to completely master the breath.
Through conscious control of breathing, one can directly affect the state of consciousness, and can cause specific effects such as stopping or accelerating the work of the heart, brain, blood, nervous, lymphatic and endocrine systems, and restoration of the organism and the accumulation of the life-power also.
When considering the process of breath, it is essential to understand the wave-like process with which all laws of the wave theory operate. The investigation of various breathing characteristics, rhythms and accompanying processes forms a complete breathing system (to the extent the wave theory is complete). This system consist of all types of breathing rhythms and exercises can. And includes, not only rhythms and exercises discovered empirically and practiced by different world schools, but also that rhythms and exercises which have been overlooked and have been unknown until now.
In the process of breathing , the internal volume (V) of the lungs changes with the passing of the time (T). And different characteristics of the breath are described by such characteristics as the depth (amplitude) (A), frequency (B), correlation of the time of the inhalation (C) and of the exhalation (D), volume of the lungs after the full inhalation (E) and after the full exhalation (F).
The «normal» unconscious breath of a man is controlled automatically by a subconscious program. Its pattern is set by the brain’s breathing center, and is usually close to the harmonic sine curve (Fig. 30). The duration of the inhalation and the exhalation in such breath is approximately equal, and there are no delays between the inhalation and the exhalation.
The practice of Pranayama in Yoga implies conscious control of the life-power flow during the process of breathing by controlling the parameters of the breath. In this case any type of breathing, where different characteristics are controlled consciously, is called Sahita Pranayama. And any automatic breath is called Kevala Pranayama and, in addition to «normal» breathing, it can comprise any type of Pranayama with different automatic breathing characteristics, reduced to automatism which do not require conscious control.
Six characteristics of breathing
1. Harmonious breathing
Harmonious breath is breathing in which the duration (T) and the depth (V) of the inhalations and the exhalations are equal (V1 = V2 and T1 = T2) .
Harmonious breath is called Sama Vritti Pranayama.
2. Shift in the Range of Breathing
A shift in the range of breathing, with respect to the preset «normal» volume of the lungs after a full inhalation (E), and after a full exhalation (F), an increase of volumes (V1 + 1 and V2 + 1), or a decrease (V1 – 1 and V2 – 1) may occur.
A shift in the range of breath towards an increase in the volume of the lungs after full inhalation and full exhalation occurs, for example, upon the practice of psychic-energy exercises actuating the upper energy centers (Chakras) during the breath at the marginal point of the inhalation. Whereas the shift of breath towards a decrease of the volume of the lungs occurs, for example, during the practice of Asanas with deep forward bends, back bends and to the sides, and twists of the spine, compressing the thoracic and abdominal cavities.
3. Temporal Correlation
Temporal correlation between the duration of the exhalation (T1) and the duration of the inhalation (T2) may change both towards longer inhalation (T1>T2) and towards relatively longer exhalation (T1
Breathing with different temporal correlations is called Visama Vritti Pranayama, which has numerous variations of the correlation and is widely used in the practice of Yoga.
4. Breath Delays
The breath may be delayed after the inhalation (T1) and after exhalation (T2). According to the temporal correlation, they may be equal (T1 = T2) or different. Delays after the exhalation are longer than after the inhalation (T1 < T2), or the delays after the inhalation are longer than after the exhalation (T1 > T2).
Breathing with delays is called Ujayi Pranayama; it is also widely used in Yoga practice, and has a number of variations differing in the presence of stops and the temporal correlation of the delays after the inhalations and after the exhalations.
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