Christina’s bio is this.
Composer, vocalist, multi-instrumental electronic musician, and multimedia artist Christina Wheeler’s spans an array of styles and forms. She blends a mix of songs and improvised electronic music from vocals, sampler, theremin, QChord, autoharp and Array mbira. A Los Angeles native, Wheeler has performed and recorded with a variety of artists, including Ryuichi Sakamoto, Chaka Khan, John Cale, Laraaji, Roscoe Mitchell, Art Ensemble of Chicago, Matana Roberts, Marc Ribot, Murcof, and A Guy Called Gerald. Wheeler’s work with David Byrne included international tours and appearances on The Late Show with David Letterman and PBS’s Sessions at West 54th Street. MTV’s AMP featured her music. Recordings include work with Fred P, Benjamin Brunn, Shinedoe, Ripperton, Vernon Reid, DJ Logic, Mocky, and Jamie Lidell. Her duo with Nicole Mitchell, Iridescent, opened the Angel City Jazz Festival. Next, she will release two albums, Songs of S + D and Tres Es un Número Mágico: Kaleidoscopic Triptychs.
By the sounds of her work, I’m interested to see her setup when performing with all these instruments. As well as how she makes this balanced. I find sometimes that with an abundance of instruments and objects for a performance things can become overly complicated.
Music & Sound Inquiry Questions
By Christina Wheeler©
I read through the writing she has written. I have no backstory except being told to read it before the lecture. I found it had similar ideas to the Bonsata article we went through in Milos lecture a week ago. I do find that thinking about performances in this way and being very critical can help us understand what we are doing and why. Even if we do things unconsciously I do believe that once we can understand there is always room for elevation in terms of message or aesthetic decisions being made.
“Are you performing in a traditional theater? If so, where do you want to be and perform?
Christina Wheeler
Onstage? In the audience space? In the balcony? A combination of those places?”
I found this specific quote to be interesting. I’ve always thought about the performance position as something really interesting. The typical stance is to be on a stage as a musician. To almost be above the crowd. I prefer always to be in the space of the audience, to be amongst the people I am performing to. I feel a lot more connected and I feel it creates a sense of equal power play in the space.
Christina Wheeler TheLabSF Performance
In this performance, we can see her setup easier. Although far away I can pick up a theremin on the right with the antenna. perhaps a synth and her laptop I presume running Ableton. I listened for a few minutes and felt really captivated, she creates soundscapes using effects and daisy-chaining them until they become massive. The drone-like sounds really bring you into a state of trance while listening. I enjoyed it thoroughly.
Post Lecture Reflection
She beings by speaking about her childhood. She was born and raised in a household surrounded by musicians in LA. Both parents played instruments and so it was always assumed she would do music, it was almost exciting for her to be able to choose what she wanted to play.
After high school and studying and doing music throughout her teenage years she studied at Harvard, following that a masters in New York. She continued to speak about how she ended up in Berlin and doing what she does currently which is performing and producing scores for films.
The very first instrument she got was the theremin, the reason why she enjoys using the theremin is because it has a sine wave. You can do a lot of manipulation with the instrument and its very performative. I havent seen someone use the theramin as she does.
Theramin E is the next instrument, its an eletric version of the original thermain. You can set in a scale, and select a variety of modes as well. So its an updated version of the classic theremin. It also has variety of effects. She uses the effects on the theremin and then sends it to her laptop to create another layer of effects to really push it beyond what its designed to do.
Next is the autoharp. It’s a traditional instrument, you can hold it or play it on the table. There are lots of different gestures. So when its on the table its more delicate. When holding you can dig into the string and get more texture. It has a pickup so she’s able to send the jack stereo outputs and process it through a variety of guitar pedals. This has 36 strings so it can fufill this desire that she wants. For example to do huge walls of sound as well as extended technique playing. If you press the buttons and strum you get chords. They are simple and only triads. It references folk music and pop music.
I found her lecture interesting to see how someone else has their setup for performance. Mine is currently very simple and to the cannon of a hip hop artist. I’ve allways had thoughts of how to expand it but the space of a normal show doesnt allow me to expand my thoughts and ideas like a gallery or private space would. I never want to play on a stage with bright lights on me but more amongst the crowd with a designed space.