7th Post - 1st Test = New Ideas

On Monday (13th Jan 2014) I tested my piece, as it is (see 5th post), in the Scott 105 using 9 computers. I was quite surprised by the results. It sounded very different to the approximation that i produced in Logic. Hearing it spread out around a large room on multiple machines was very useful and ideas that i had ruled out from the prototype piece such as complex rhythms and lower frequency sounds seem much more possible and even necessary.





Aspects that i felt worked well were the glitchy-found sounds and the other percussion sounds that seemed to jump from machine to machine. This is something that i will build on. Sharp, short sounds seem very effective as your ear can easily detect them appearing in different places in the room. I like the idea of creating complex rhythms that seem to jump around the room in sequences or at random and i think there is a lot of potential for this.

The melodic ideas were fixed to particular versions and although they sounded nice, they were a bit boring but pad type sounds maybe useful to counter balance the percussion. The glockenspiel worked quite well as it is semi percussive and you could hear the delay type effect between different machines.

Overall i felt that the piece became a bit boring after about 2 minutes and there was a lack of lower frequency sounds. The speakers on the IMacs can cope with frequencies down to around 100hz so i can use some bass and kick drum sounds to remedy this. Another idea that struck me was building up chords or drones gradually with a single note on several different computers. I am definitely now thinking of writing separate versions of the same piece for up to 10 machines. David Strang suggested using sine waves to do this as they will interact with the harmonics and resonance of the space. He suggested looking into the work of Phill Niblock who builds up multiple single tones to make dense, sustained drones. He describes his work on his website. 

“I recorded tones played by an instrument (by an instrumentalist), arranging these single tones into mutli-layered settings, making thick textured drones, with many microtones. In the early days, I prescribed the microtones, tuning the instrumentalist, when I was using audio tape. Later, I used the software ProTools, and made the microtones as I made the pieces.”

                                                                                                                                      Niblock (2013)
I like the idea of building up chords or drones using individual tones on separate machines but i want to sequence them and have them move around the room in interesting ways, maybe moving in and out of sequence with the the percussion sounds. 

I think my piece is starting to move away from the original idea of the clouds of sound which are a feature of Phil Kline's work and is becoming a composition for multiple machines that will have aspects of a surround sound piece. However, i still want to incorporate some of the original ideas as well as the newer ones. Another consideration is adding another layer of control by networking the computers and having access to volume, mute and speed of play back from one master computer. This would require some work in Max MSP but it should not be too complicated and would also allow me to have playback of the different parts of the composition from the Max patch on the computer. The audience members could select a part from a drop down menu as instructed or at their own choice depending on how the piece develops.

This aspect of a hidden layer of control could bring an interesting dimension to the work, possibly similar to the competitive compositions of John Zorn or Iannis Xenakis where players try to gain control of the piece. If I have control of volume and mute perhaps the people sitting at the computers will notice and turn the volume back up. 

There is certainly a lot to consider but my main focus is still the composition.