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Wonderful party yesterday! qd26 Q&A Part 1 today - talking with Bill Seaman

Hi friends - hope all good :)


Thanks for coming last night - as always great to see our regulars along with so many newcomers! Really do appreciate you taking the time, the community we’re building is truly inspiring - grateful to each and every one of you x


Thanks also to everyone that bought the album too - your support means we can keep doing what we do, putting out music and making sure the artists that make it are fairly paid.


If you bought the CD, message me if you want a link to the long-form edition - as Bill said last night, he and Tomo put a lot of work into it and they’re very proud of that version especially.


CDs still available and digital half price.




So doing things slightly differently for the Q&A this time, first we’ll hear from Bill - huge thanks to him for the in-depth answers, a fascinating read!


Please tell us a bit about your background and history in music.


My first encounter with music was through Orff Instruments in grade school. As I got older I joined the school choir, and the church choir (sometimes singing high tenor solos), I was also in the bell choir in church. Occasionally I snuck in on Saturday and improvised on the big church organ.


My grandmother owned a small pump organ which I explored. I loved improvising and would play the grand piano my grandmother owned for hours just roaming around— finding little moments, or patterns I might repeat, or transpose…


I use to experiment with differing pianos (our old upright at home, and a very large out of tune piano at a camp in Maine) by putting things like tacks into the hammers, or sliding plates between the strings, or screws and bolts, also opening it up and playing the strings directly – sometimes plucking and sometimes hitting with a percussive mallet. I also explored playing very quietly with the sustain pedal on.


As a kid I recorded this with one of those cheap Norelco cassette tape recorders. I heard about cage’s prepared piano much later… Unfortunately, the tapes got thrown away. I was very moved by the 2nd side of The Low album (Bowie and Eno) in terms of getting me interested in composing quiet music, and side 1 for experiments with new kinds of percussive sound, digital delays, and fascinating arrangements, and giving myself the permission to explore experimental music myself – this was 1977.


I began to get a series of tape recorders to make tapes on, mixing crudely with a “realistic” 4 track mixer from Radio Shack. The initial recorders I had were a Teak 4 track Reel to Reel, a Uher reel to reel which would play at extremely slow speeds – 15/16; and a Norelco micro cassette. I made 4 track tape loops and also used answering machine tape loops and built-up layers of repetitious systems, some with found sounds like planes, and birds, lawnmowers, and power tools mixed with piano and electric guitar – ambient noises like cars going over a bridge... I also played melodica and children’s toys. I taped a hair dryer to the mouthpiece of the melodica to make a mini organ I could move around in space. I also explored many kinds of ways I could control the sound.


Additionally, I also build crude instruments – a big wooden box with strings stretched – I could play with chopsticks that bounced off the strings deriving interesting rhythms. I found a children’s toy call a Muson which I could do crude sequences, (and slow down greatly) and began to experiment with toy drum machine (Synsonic) from Mattel, and a small casio electronic keyboard. I often would record a loop and play it back at a slower speed to transform the sound (or sometimes do the opposite – record something slow and play it back at a fast speed… Sometimes the sounds were very rich (or I might edit and not use some of the experiments). I bought a wonderful Sony Professional Cassette recorder which I really loved… With the reel to reel I sometimes made very long loops that went out into the room and went around a pencil or pen taped to the chair with either masking or duct tape.


I moved to San Francisco to attend the SF art institute and started to experiment with other musicians, instruments, and new kinds of performances. I experimented with acoustic guitar that I played by hitting it with my fingers setting off two notes at once – a very percussive feel. SFAI had a beautiful little portable synth which was my first encounter with analogue patching. Again, at that time I was still exploring loops and tape speeds. I made some performances where I would sing live with tape backgrounds. We rented bars and made them temporary clubs. It was the height of Punk and New Wave so there were also experimental venues.


I did a huge driving tour called Architectural Hearing Aids with Carlos Hernandez. I made music to be played on a driving tour of San Francisco – using the city as a Readymade… I was mixing in the front seat music made to loop and then crossfade live on a mixer in the front seat at the appropriate moment on the tour for specific architectural settings. There were multiple speaker systems in the car and one speaker pointing upward on the roof we played in a tunnel. We would drive 3 people per night on this very special tour.


I went on to study my Master of Science in Visual Studies at MIT. I got to work with The Center for Advanced Visual Studies, the Film/Video Section (exploring early interactive Video), the Visible Language workshop and The Music Department. This was when the Media lab was just opening.


It was at MIT that I was introduced to FM synthesis, Computers and Midi, Digital Delays, and Samplers. I was using Performer software on my first apple – a little SE with a whopping 20 meg hard drive. I could also edit DX7 sounds on it and then send them via MIDI to the keyboard. I bought a Deltalab Effectron  II digital delay with some fascinating looping and editing features ( I gifted this to Craig Tattersall) . I explored A one second sample that I could inject sounds into making short rhythmic loops that would infinitely repeat… I also bought a DX7 2xe which I still use to this day. I bought quite a nice sampler – an Akai S900, and for some time moved away from tape, but did also some hybrid things that might include samples of tape. I bought a strange device that would translate audio into a digital signal (a Sony 601es) which recorded digital sound on vhs video tape! This was the precursor to DAT tape! So, at that time I suddenly had digital masters.

I was also included in New Music America in Miami where I did ambient recordings of the landscape and then a series of pieces of music from each. This was called Details from the Book of Notice, 1988. Most of the music was quite quiet in nature. I made large prints in each of the above-ground rail stations – Notice the Sound of… Each light rail station had a different thing to listen for on a large print, and suggested listening to the radio broadcast which included the sounds in tape/midi pieces…


At MIT I started to make Video with text and music. These were quite often quiet. My video work S. He, 1983 is in the collection of the museum of modern art  (Image Music Text)…  this tape showed internationally and changed my life. I then worked on a number of interactive video works and later VR. Note: video versions of the above works can all be listened to/seen in part at billseaman.com – my website.


I didn’t really start releasing cds and albums and do collaborations that were released until sometime later beginning with a collaboration with The Humble Bee – Craig Tattersall. We named our band The Seaman and The Tattered Sail and produced the very elaborate album called Light Folds (2013) [Fluid Audio]. Supko and Seaman collaborated on the album s_Traits (2014) (experiment with AI)  [Cottongoods] and we were commissioned by the Mary Biddle Foundation and premiered an experimental generative opera exploring AI as subject matter, entitled The Oper& (2018)[video found online]. F(noir) by seaman featuring vocalist Marissa Bergmann and was released in 2015 [Eilean]. My solo release was entitled Erasures and Displacements(2017)[Eilean]. I released a work entitled The Ephipanies (2017)[Fluid Audio]. The Topologies of Blue by Seaman was 2019 [Fluid Audio].


Also in 2019 was Layers of Memory in The Quiet Voice of Motion, with Offthesky [Fluid Audio]. Motions of Dust with Rutger Zuydervelt was released in 2020 [Oscarson].

In 2021 I made a 3rd album with Tattersall, the band was named by Tattersall - The Humble Seaman – 120 5x5 [Rottenman Editions]. Seaman with Xu released smlsnd in 2021 [Facture]. The Long Sky with Michael Grigoni was released in 2022 [Longform Editions]. I released two collaborations with Stephen Vitiello – The Clear Distance in 2023, and an earlier EP, The Other Forgotten Letters, 2022 [Room 40].


I also have undertaken multiple collaborations including work with Daniel Howe on an album entitled Minor Distance, with Remixes by Tattersall, 2020 [Cottongoods] and more recently Dispositions (2022) [Oscanson] ; Seaman and Tattersall released a major project under the name – The Seaman and the Tattered Sail — Standing on the Precipice of Tears (2021) [Fluid Audio] (this release fell apart.. . Seaman and Stephan Spera released Architectures of Light in 2022 {Handstitched]. Seaman, Tim Diagram and Stephen Spera released The World Was Turning Before in 2023 [Laaps]. Forthcoming with Monika Bugajni is Map of Reflections, 2025[Elm].


Please can you describe a bit about your general philosophy and process as an artist?


I often have an overarching idea about the kind of sound I am looking for. I compose as a process of construction where I bring in fragments of things and short solos, often using chance methods, I slowly find the music as a rich set of processes of layering and then cutting away. Sometime I make drastic changes in the bpm… I often explore octaves in things that become displaced in the overlay…


What does quiet details mean to you and how did you use that to approach this album?


All of the layers we were sending represented quite quiet approaches to building up the tracks. There are a number of subtle layers made up of piano and piano abstractions --- as well as micro ambient sounds. This is the perfect embodiment of quiet details - it was part of our sensibility was there from the start. I recommend headphones to hear the tiniest of details…

Please can you give us an overview of your studio and favourite instruments?

I work with Abelton LIVE housed on an Apple Macbook pro. I have a large monitor I plug into the laptop. Beautiful Focal monitor Speakers. I sometimes work with Bose Headphones on. I often make libraries of sounds I can directly interact with to compose the works. These are sometimes short samples and sometimes sequences of notes and/or chords. Each work explores a process of finding the music by exploring the libraries, making many chance and chosen juxtapositions. I build up the tracks one at a time. Later I cut away and sculp the arc of the music, sometimes copying entire sections and repeating them. I sometimes play with the speed of playback (changing the bpm). I alter and abstract sounds in Ableton, and explore differing effect trains, and Max Convolution Reverbs (and historically with Ableton Reverbs). I do a series of libraries of my own which include many different instruments — grand piano, abstracted piano, Ebow guitar, DX7IIE, electric guitar, non-locations sounds recorded off of the internet, digital drums (vast individual sample library) and percussion, location recordings, abstracted rhythms, drones, glitch sounds, spoken voice, and sung voice, mellotron samples – flute and strings, analogue synth, Turing’s instrument samples, fragments from movie soundtracks, glass harmonica samples, etc…



I work with others and arrange their samples and solos as a part of my composing. This includes Piano, Violin, Clarinet, Contralto Clarinet, Bass Clarinet, Sax, Voice, Oboe, Contra Bass and Electric Bass, Trumpet, “treated” instruments used in libraries, as well as “dusted and decayed tape sound” from Tattersall, treated piano, location recordings of voice and noises, classical music fragments, drones, flutes, synth bass, differing analogue synths, many different drum machine samples, and electric guitar. Each album on my Bandcamp site points to the people I collaborated with in terms of building libraries and or performing solos…


Please can you give a quick breakdown of how you made each track?


The tracks were done in a very organic manner – sending materials back and forth, each exploring the others materials with close listening and intuitive responding. I think Tomo and I started in Feb. 23, 2023 possibly earlier... via facebook? Or I wrote him via the bandcamp page... not sure. I was listening to his Laaps release and felt like we both liked pitch shifting of piano. I am not a trained piano player (I did fail my lessons as a kid and would go home and improvise for hours... also I did prepared piano when I was quite young not knowing a thing about Cage. Ableton LIVE let me make the shift to this very physical kind of composing using fragments of improvisations and libraries that I built up or that were that were solicited from others. I often gave very simple instructions to the players – e.g. play long minor 3 note sections…



For the album I would also sometimes play with abstraction of Piano (as did Tomo) - pitch shifting things - sometimes greatly to get errors from the digital which I might edit and use... and using other tools from Ableton Live to build piano drones (taking off the attack and extending the decay) etc. I also ask others to make libraries for me. Tomo was interested so I sent some sparce linear beginnings of possible work as stereo mixes and stems - I think he was working using a different system than Abelton Live, Logic possibly? (what I sent included the occasional layer of drones and violin, and clarinet and also some libraries of my improvisations. I was totally open to how he would explore these [cut, copy, paste, reorder, layer or disassemble, etc... and add his own piano, piano abstractions and quiet noises (micro ambient sounds) etc. The album unfolded in a very intuitive manner where we each listened closely to the others work and responded. We had a kind of innate understanding of the quiet feel we were going for. It was a very organic process and I couldn’t really go through each one and unpack it --- you can hear the subtle aspects of the layering…



Part Two with Tomoyoshi coming next week.

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One shout-out today to Neil Mason and Moonbuilding - honoured to be mentioned as “(one of three) must-have recurring monthly releases” - this week covering Duet.


Big thanks to him for the on-going support, head over there and help him get to 1000 subs before the end of year :)

MOONBUILDING WEEKLY


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Loads of new followers in Bluesky recently, come say hi if you’re there:



Also on Instagram and others - all links here https://linktr.ee/quietdetails


Much love and have a great weekend :)


Alex


quiet details studios - mastering and audio services


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