AUDIUM I
August 2, 1962 (one day show)
SAN FRANCISCO STATE COLLEGE Gallery Lounge
Program Note Excerpts:
SPACE AUDIUMS: An electronic music concert, space-audiums, conceived and executed as movement through space.
SPACE AUDIUMS is a joint project between Stanley Shaff and Douglas McEachern.
The notion of sound location, travel and dimension in time and space are elements this concert will explore. Sound and its travel through space has attracted limited interest amongst composers. This is due primarily to physical limitations of the musician and his control of the sound environment. With the advent of electronic means, the spatial positions, which sound defines, can take on new provocative relationships. SPACE AUDIUMS is an attempt to control and reveal this expanded sound world.
“Some of these notions began about six years ago as an outgrowth of my experience with Seymour Locks combining light with sound. Since then, McEachern and I have collaborated with the Anna Halprin dance group. Periodically, concerts were given at my own studio.” Stan Shaff
AUDIUM II
October 17, 1963 (one day show)
San Francisco Museum of Art
AUDIUM: “An electronic music concert, conceived and executed as controlled movement through space.”
Electronic music composed by Stanley Shaff; Programming equipment designed and constructed by Douglas McEachern.
Performed at S.F. State, with the word Space Audiums changed to Audium (16 speakers) 12 speakers surrounding the audience, 4 speakers, mounted on mobile-like construction above the audience, rotated to give Doppler effect as well as variation in sound location.
AUDIUM III
October 15 and 16, 1964 (two days show)
San Francisco Museum of Art
AUDIUM – An electronic music concert, conceived and executed as movement through space. Development of “Mobile” Speaker Placement.
Oct. 15th “Insight” discussions for high school students on the Art of Our Time:
“Contemporary Music and Contemporary Art – Is there a parallel in intention and content? Stan Shaff, contemporary composer, and Doug McEachern, electronics expert, using their specially built “Audium” equipment, will demonstrate their experiments in programmed “spatial” music and discuss the relation of contemporary sound to visualization through sound stimulus. Is there such a thing as non-music or non-art? Are the old boundaries between temporal and plastic arts no longer valid? INSIGHTS explores new ground in their special inter-arts program.”
Program Note Excerpts:
In the rendering of this expanded sound world, AUDIUM defines new relationships between composer, performer and audience… The first AUDIUM performance (controlled movement of sound events) was in 1960. ….Ensuing programs brought refinements to the space control units and gave new insights into the overall program presentation. In Oct. 1963 the techniques in their current form were presented here at the Museum. The present concert is an extension of these notions.