ATC Jam Session hosted by Carla Cryptic

If you are familiar with ATCs (artist trading cards), you know that they are the size of baseball trading cards (2.5 x 3.5 inches) and are usually traded with other ATC artists one on one, through ATC swaps, or through ATC trading sessions. One of the online groups which is a haven for ATC artists is The ATC Exchange. It's a group I've enjoyed for many reasons over the years, not least of which being the group leader, George Kovats. There are some truly great artists in the group and many of the group's members are open to experimentation and challenges. A few years ago, at George's request, I hosted an exchange called the Jamboree and it was a great success so I was happy to say yes when George asked me to host another ATC Jam swap this year. I'm calling it a Jam Session this time around since I sing Jazz and making ATC Jam cards is basically just a form of collaborative improvising as is the best of jazz.

To read more about what ATC Jams entail and to get more details of this particular swap, please visit my Jam ATC blog post at IUOMA (International Union of Mail Artists). If you have any questions after that, please feel free to send me some email at carlacryptic@yahoo dot com. Also, I have a series of pages featuring my own ATCs and links to many ATC groups and artist pages at my mail art website Cryptic Web. You are always welcome to stop by there. :)

Please note that there is a deadline for letting me know you're going to participate and it is MAY 22, 2009. There is also a fee for participation to cover shipping costs.

I am really looking forward to doing something like this again and hope to see some of you reading this now in my mail queue by the 22nd! :)

Music at iCompositions and Consemble

I'm having a lot of fun making music again for the first time in decades and it's all because of iCompositions and Garage Band. For most of my life, I struggled with recording equipment (how to afford it, where to set it up, how to use it, etcetera)... then Garage Band came along. My Digio1 and ProTools never really got used but my macs with GB installed are getting used practically every day. It's easier than I would have believed to record vocal tracks with a fairly low noise component, even in rooms which are not 'clean'. After using SoundSoap on the files, they sound almost perfect (perfect being studio quality). That's just amazing.

After I started using GB to record myself again, I found iCompositions, an online community of musicians and listeners which grew out of people's love for GB. It's an international community full of people with diverse backgrounds creating music in all genres and it's easy to upload music there, share it, discuss it, and - even better - find people to collaborate with. I loved it right away but didn't really have time to get into it as much as I wanted to until this year.

Currently, I have 5 or 6 pretty diverse pieces of music (one recorded poem as well) available to listen to on my artist page and I'm about to upload several more. I welcome you to come check them out and bookmark my page for future listening. It's at Carla J. Patterson at iCompositions.

In the past month, I've also contributed to an experimental music project I really like called Consemble. A mail art friend named Paul Ramsey is the man behind the curtain and he has created a wonderful experience there for artists and listeners alike. Come check it out because it's way too hard to explain unless you read his intro to the project. So far, I've participated in Consemble E: Electric Soul, but there are many other great musical ventures going on there at any given time. There are 4 or 5 which are still open for contributions so please consider that as well. You don't have to be a musician to add to a consemble! But, if you are a musician, there are even greater rewards in store for you because it's a place where you can play and experiment to your little heart's content and see the results within a day or two. Every time you play a consemble "CD" (you need a Shockwave plugin for your browser to do this), the music you hear is different. Here's a link for the Consemble E:

Consemble E: Electric Soul

I hope you enjoy the music and poetry. Please note, too, that I'm open to collaborations so drop me a line if you have something in mind. :)