g II a _. The Michigan Daily I michigandaily.com I Thursday, September 23, 2010 OGO: AkAftift o se 9000:60 e xxx 727 e® se see ese + 1 e e!e a®e Dee a tMe 4 *see 000 ®eee s 000 *00 4 e a 0*0 a® 4 0*9 POO 1 :00 :00*00 weekend - essentials ON STAGE Got a friend and a viable vehicle? Then head to Detroit to see Brit import Foals rock out to electro- house party beats at the Magic Stick this Saturday night. Com- plete with infectious hooks and funky beats a la Talking Heads on tracks like "This Orient," this show will definitely leave you wondering how this post-punk band remained in obscurity for so long. 8 p.m., $15. Try ON DISPLAY Tomorrow through Monday, Sept. 27, influential Japanese artist Danny Yung will be displaying his com- ics at Palmer Com- mons. The exhibition, "TTXS - Soliloquies and Dialogues," will be corri6'miented by a roundtable discussion with Yung tomorrow at 2 p.m., also at Palmer Commons. The com- ics will also be on dis- play at the Confucius Institute from Oct. 4 through Nov. 30. Free. PERFORMING ARTS TECHNOLOGY BRINGS 'U' INTO THE STUDIO n a Thursday, the eight their own projects," explained Asso- students in School of tiate Professor and PAT Department Music room 2057 all face Chair Jason Corey. the wall. Each one sits As complex as it seems - especially at a workstation outfit- to the non-PAT students, for whom this ted with a Korg Triton is among the only courses of its kind synthesizer connected available - PAT 201 is only the tip of to a speaker, a Mac desk- the tech-arts iceberg. top and a recording console that's lit- In Corey's "Contemporary Prac- tered with buttons and knobs. This is tices in Studio Production I" course, PAT 201, "Introduction to Computer advanced PAT majors delve into the Music," and the students are about to ins and outs of recording and mixing write what, for many of them, will be methodology. In a timbral ear training their first high-tech composition. class, they learn to distinguish slight For Professor Jennifer Furr's first changes in frequency. And in Assistant assignment, students will fashion a Professor Georg Essl's "Performance short piece using Logic, the Apple, Inc. Systems," the instrument of choice is music production program preferred the cell phone. By the end of the semes- by the Performing Arts Technology ter, students will actually perform a department. Besides having to comply 100-percent cell-phonic piece that they with some basic compositional rules compose themselves. (six or more tracks, "quantize" - arti- "Traditionally, there's, 'Here's the ficially aligning the notes using Logic instrument builder, here's the per- - where necessary), the students get to former, here's the composer,' " said show off by picking from a list of spe- Essl, who has a joint appointment with cific techniques to apply to their com- the School of Engineering. "But (in positions and must integrate some sort 'Performance Systems') we're kind of of synthetic "sweeping gesture," Furr saying, 'You know what, defining what explained. an instrument should look like is like "It basically introduces students to composing.' electronic music, a little bit of histori- "So we kind of break down those cal survey - important pieces of elec- barriers and say, 'You're a little bit of tronic music over the past 50, 60, 70 an engineer, a little performer, a little years - and gets students working on bit of a composer, and we don't have to "WE DON'T HAVE TO H ONOR T HOSE TRADITIONAL ROLES.I THINK THAT'S KIND OF A PAT THING." honor those traditional roles.' I think that's kind of a PAT thing." From Garage to Studio Many PAT majors were introduced to their future course of study by a technology hardly more professional than a cell phone: thatirrepressible anyone-can-be-a-musician program, GarageBand. "I started playing in a band my junior year of high school," said PAT senior Peter Raymond. "After I started with the band, I realized I had Garage- Band, and I had one microphone from connecting to a digital piano. So we originally just used that one micro- phone to record everything that we did. And then from there, I just started reading more about recording, and I decided that was really what I wanted to become involved in." Raymond decided to go out for PAT on a whim, after having already been accepted to LSA. For the application, he had to send in a portfolio with one stereo recording (two channels of sound), one multitrack (multiple mics picking up different musical parts, not necessarily at the same time) and a performance piece of his choosing. "I didn't have any technical train- ing," Raymond said - but he did read into the subject, and he did have Pro Tools ("kind of the big name in the recording industry," he explained). Able to quickly compile the requisite pieces from his personal computer noodlings, Raymond' applied one month before the MT&D deadline and was accepted. That sort of gradual and casual introduction into the music production world isn't specific to Raymond. Mack- lin Underdown, a PAT sophomore, also fell into recording on his own, and has BY SHARON JACOBS ASSISTANT ARTS EDITOR yet to experience a more polished pro- duction style. "I've never personally recorded in a studio or been at a recording session at a really nice studio - all the stuff I did growing up was in my bedroom," Underdown said. "I bought a computer and some software and a microphone and was just kind of doing my own thing." Some PAT majors start off with even less in the way of state-of-the-art tech- nology - although Raymond pointed out that nowadays, recording equip- ment is cheaper than ever before. "Once (recording techniques) switched from analog to digital, it was a lot more accessible to a lot more peo- ple, because the prices came down," Raymond said. "Everybody can have a MacBook with GarageBand and get started that way, just like I did, and you don't really have to own anything to do something in GarageBand. "I definitely think that it's tougher if you don't have the resources to get started on, but there are kids who have come here that don't own any equip- ment, or haven't owned any equip- ment." What Raymond, Underdown and many other PAT majors did have, how- ever, was a solid background in math and science, and a desire to integrate practical academics into an artistic course of study. Getting Technical Underdown and Raymond both expressed pride in being part of the University's PAT department over simi- lar programs at other colleges and trade See PAT, Page 4B FILM The American Roma- nian Festival is back (!) and this Friday the Cannes-winning 2009 film "Police, Adjective" will show in the Helmut Stern Auditorium. "Police, Adjective" follows a Romanian policeman who refuses to arrest a youth for offering hash to his schoolmates. What results is a story of conscience and hier- archy. $10; pre-show talk with festival Execu- tive Director Marian Tanau starts at 7 p.m. CONCERT Ellis Paul is a former athlete who gave up sport to focus on gui- tar and write his own charming acoustic melodies - sort of like a talented Jack Johnson. But unlike Johnson, the New Eng- land singer-songwriter Paul has earned praise from Woody Guthrie's daughter and released 14 folky CDs, plus a book of poems and sto- ries. Plus, his music has been featured on "The Real World." Catch Paul at the Ark at 7:30 p.m. this Saturday. $15. PHOTOS BY MARISSA MCCL AIN DESIGN BY MO STYCH