Recital 2020: Structure(s)

I mean maybe I should have been blogging (ew?) all year for this - unfortunately I only just decided to do it so I'm gonna try catch you up in 4 or 5 posts of all my thinking and work over the last year.

If you don't know by now, my whole recital has been ~inspired~ by a book I read from in 1st year actually, it's called Background Noise: Perspecties on Sound Art by Brandon LaBelle. Most potently by Chapter 8 which talks about Alvin Lucier and the importance of voice and acoustic space, as well as (other) early electroacoustic composers working with this idea of "Sound Architecture". Sound Objects, as I understand, are like sculptures of sound - they're little "units" of music that can be played by performers.

I've used this type of composition to create certain blocks; Stalactites & Stalagmites, Starlings, and Lucifer's Penthouse. In a piece like mine where it's essentially a giant, "minimalist" (Rene, 2003), Radigue-inspired drone, I thought it might be worth creating some disruption in case anyone decided to sit and listen to the whole thing. So I was trying to make sort of "landmarks" to create a sense of place and flow, which means the linear progression deviated from my intended slow developmental piece and turned into more of a block form.

The Starlings and Lucifer's Penthouse are just computer effects but the Stalactites and Stalagmites are built into the actual recorded audio which is just guitar amp with a lead plugged in so it's really noisy. To start the crystal formations, I used a technique I happened upon while making my practice tracks called Subtractive Studies. On "You're Too Cold To Me" I tapped the end of the lead and then of course applied effects (heavily). It gave a really effective boom sound which I thought would work really well for this block. This is one of the only sections with different audio tracks being layered, the booms are meant to sound spontaneous and natural so instead of cutting and pasting 1 part of audio, I did a unique take for each speaker.

As I was saying - Brandon LaBelle's book sparked an idea for me. When I listen to music (especially electronic styles) I get kind of swept away into another world I guess. I think music is really powerful like that - it's why we use it to enhance movies and tv shows. And so I had this idea to create a place with ~just~ sound. Certainly I think a specific and uniform timbral palate was important for this which was one of the driving reasons I used only guitar amp and voice. Another important point for me was the presentation of the music. Below are a couple of journal entries so you can see my intention and the progression of the ideas.

Despite the 3 sculptural sections, I do think it's still quite developmental in linear measurements. In terms of the actual space though it was meant to be '3D' developmental which is interesting because to create that I had to compose in blocks (layered on top of each other al la Varese). It has been tricky to know if this will work or not as I am using the same track just layered a million times and processed slightly differently in hopes that the "infinitesimal difference" will indeed, as (Radigue, 2009) would say, "unfurl into space in their own language".

Lysloff, R., & Gay, L. (2003). Music and technoculture (Music/culture). Middletown, Conn.: Wesleyan University Press.

Radigue, E. (2009). The Mysterious Power of the Infinitesimal. Leonardo Music Journal, Vol.19, pp.47-49. MIT Press.

LaBelle, B. (2011). Background Noise: Perspectives on Sound Art. New York: continuum International.