Arrived…
So thankfully we managed to bypass the london ash - and arrived in Phnom earlier this week. Things are off to a quick start - we’ve started scheduling the formal sessions to begin next week.
On Monday and Thursdays we will be running afternoon sessions at the Royal University of Fine Arts, with 2 groups of students (about 30 total) who specialise in either Visual Arts, Sculpture or Graphic Design.
On Tuesday & Thursday mornings, we’ll be running two sessions with the CLA musicans, who you have already been introduced to via the Kickstarter site. Today, we met up briefly in the CLA studio to say hello and to start getting to know one another.
We didn’t have a full session, but did a quick “swapshop” - they played their favourite Khmer tunes for me, and i gave them a quick demo of some improvised electronics, which they really liked - describing it as “hollywood music” … which is definitely the first time those words have appeared in close proximity to my name. I think i might want to invent a genre…
Whilst i am about it, here’s a brief rundown on some of the equipment we purchased using the Kickstarter funds:
For the technically minded, the gigbag includes: Toshiba multi-core laptop, Ableton Live Intro software, M Audio FastTrack, Tascam R07 mobile recorder, Line6 Pod effects unit, M Audio Oxygen 25 midi controller, Sony Monitor Headphones… (and also my Zoom G2 in the picture)…
… for the non-technically minded, this is basically a pretty comprehensive starter kit for recording and live computer music. It amounts to around $1100 of the budget, with the rest to be allocated to materials for the RUFA sessions, and hopefully some additional surprises, too. More on that soon….
