Matt Gonia at Glenn Bach & Aaron Ximm Blog#3 Film 202

Blog entry three Glenn Bach & Aaron Ximm

I am at Glenn Bach’s Film 116 class held in the Mitchell Building at UW-Milwaukee and it’s three pm. The show is about to start. There is a three person set-up with their laptops, large speakers, and of course their work. Glenn Bach greets the class and other visitors and announces that today’s performance would be an improvised, unedited, unrehearsed experience. Nearly 75% of all the soundscap is improvised. The show opens and Glenn Bach, Aaron Ximm, and Seth Warren Crow begin to generate their field recordings. It is quite for a second and then the sounds start to fade in. There is rapid bubbling, talking in what seem to be Russian and lightly dripping water on wet leaves which is very subtle. The sounds of rain falling, church bells ring far away, a heavy bass hum, sounds of a tub of water being disturbed by movement or churning, a women speaking in French as wood floor boards rattle lightly under footsteps. All seem familiar but also seem foreign or alien to me. The performance is balanced as each of them play their recordings and form a steady rhythmic composition of sound.
The unique and interesting sounds continue to play and while a new and non-traditional musical piece is created. The three man performance continues to play for the next hour. The time fly’s by unnoticeably. As I listen to all of these sound recordings it makes me think back to a quote that Glenn Bach presented to my class in his guest lecture of November 17, 2008; a quote that was said by Aaron Ximm, “The world makes its own music, but we rarely listen with naive ears.” As I listen to all of these field recordings I feel as though I am a witness to something more. Glenn Bach said in his lecture that, “Field recordings in general are a sonic equivalent of a photograph, a snap shot of sound.” This assessment that Glenn Bach made seemed to be very true although I couldn’t see the sound waves or exact place and time these sounds were captured. However I could in vision my own images to accompany these great sounds. Glenn Bach had said in his lecture “Going out to get field recordings requires a commitment to the moment and practice; temperance of the environment and patients.” I experienced this practice when I was in Glenn Bach’s Film 116 class but considering the level of commitment, the extreme patients, and the appreciation for when those moments come to capture the perfect sounds.
At the end of the performance Aaron Ximm took the time to take questions form the audience. His closing comments to the viewers came across as ultimately valuable in that he said, “Always bring your gear, when ever your ear catches something you’ll be bale to catch it; take the time to get longer takes, 5 minutes or more doesn’t matter what you record with as long as you use it.”