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THE DECIBEL SCOREPLAYER AS A PORTABLE MEDIUM FOR SPATIAL PERFORMANCE

6/9/2020

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Although the decibel score player was developed as a vehicle for the synchronous presentation of scores for performers, the audiofile capability opens the potential to use the app in the presentation of audio only and other synchronisation dependant audio activities. In the scoreplayer, formatted scores (.dsz. files) can be networked if they have the same file name and are of the same format (for example “scrolling”, “slideshow” etc), however the audiofileembedded in any instance of a .dszneed not have the same file name.
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Spatial audio arrangements for the GreyWing ensemble performance Artificial Field at Cool Change Gallery 09.09.18 Barrack Street, Perth.
Therefore the number of channels of synchronisable audio available to a composer is only limited to the number of iPads in the network. The ability to pair with Bluetooth speakers provides an extremely portable option for multichannel audio in site specific performances. This facility has been used to perform a range of multichannel works.
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In recent performances by the new music ensemble GreyWing, the scoreplayer has been used in this fashion to perform works by in site-specific and small-room concert locations and also as a source for multiple click-tracks.
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In the work Njookenbooro, each iPad was connected via bluetoothto a speaker (red rectangles) allowing for independent spatialisation of 11 unique stereo channels of audio. Performers (blue circles) read by thescoreby  screenlightfrom the iPads. They were synchronised across an ad hoc WiFi network that was broadcast from a laptop. Solar lights were used to mark the pathway to the performance for the audience.
The facility has also been used to deliver (via headphone), synchronous and independent click-tracks to avoid the necessity for a multi-channel audio interface and headphone amplifier.
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Sanctuary is an example of an "independent" click-track work - this visualisation shows the accelerating and decelerating impulses in four separate audio channels.
The timer clock display on the Scoreplayer has also been used to synchronise parts in works with traditional and timepoint style scores.
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Peter Ablinger's Book of Returns is a collection of 30 extraordinarily contrasting 40 second modules. The modules include: solo-pieces, solo-electronics, a cassette player, a single note or a scale, a performative situation,  experiments with microphones, field recordings, picture projection, and, also what Ablinger describes as “ensemble situations”.
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Ablinger says it is “always the connection between modules, the edge, is the crucial part: the perfect cut”. ​The facility to coordinate multiple channels of audio on iPads via WiFi was used to precisely synchronise the unfolding of each module and its contrasting performance practice.
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some words about: limited hangout: in the field

16/10/2019

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In 2018, the Limited Hangout: in the field project, a series of site-specific long form compositions responding to the sonic/physical environment of a chosen locale, using tools such as acoustic measurement and analysis, topographical mapping, physical structures and weather conditions of specific spaces and times.
This presentation discusses performances presented so far in the the Limited Hangout project as well as 2 other works by the author willson's downfall [2018] for three instruments and field recordings, and decompression [2019] for 144 musicians and the St. Pauli Elbe tunnel. These works explore a number of approaches to the creation of site-specific music and means of establishing connections and interaction between sound and site, including the use of field recordings, topographical information, transcriptions, resonant frequencies of an 864 meter two tube tunnel respectively to interact with site-specific locations. The paper discusses methods of synthesising big data sets, for the generation of scores for acoustic instruments and electronic audio components and approaches to creating spatial audio environments within existing ambient natural environments. These approaches are compared to the work of composers such as R. Murray Schafer, Matthew Burtner, Marta Tiesenga, Vanessa Tomlinson and Charles Underriner.
A series of 6 site-specific performances responding to the sonic/physical environment of their chosen locale. 6 composers are challenged to create sounds interacting with particular environments using tools such as acoustic measurement and analysis, topographical mapping, physical structures and weather conditions of specific spaces and times. The initial concept was to limit the audience for each performance to 30 and to only supply the precise location will only be shared a week in advance of the performance.
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Sage Pbbbt
Narrows/Expands/Elides [2018] 29 Jul 2018 5pm
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Josten Myburgh
Shaking small tambourines like afterthoughts [2018]
​Oct 28 2018 2pm
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Lindsay Vickery
njookenbooro [2018]
​2 Sep 2018 8pm
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Pippin Kenworthy
Cyclic Chaos [2010/19]
​19 May 2019 515pm
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Olivia Davies
Tunnel Music [2018]
​30 Sep 2018 5pm
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Vanessa Tomlinson
The Tropics [2019]
​19 July 5pm
The project began as the offshoot of a recording of Chaz Underriner’s Nocturne 4 for 2 or more performers for the GreyWing album nature forms I. Ten musicians were assembled at 930pm on 11 Nov 2017 at Herdsmans Lake and the serene experience was a catalyst to explore further works of this type. Nocturne 4 comprises 3 layers: soundscape (using 10 sound files of field recordings and sine tone arrays that we played back using bluetooth speakers); sustained pitch instruments; and cuts and filters (performers may cut off (or back on) the playback of a sound file or their sustained instrumental pitch). Instruments were spatialised according to the pitch content of each part and 4 microphones (arranged in a uniplanar quasi-ambisonic pattern) were used to capture the performance.
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Sage Pbbbt Narrows / Expands / Elides [2018]  29 Jul 2018 5pm
The first performance in the Limited Hangout series was Sage Pbbbt’sNarrows / Expands / Elides. The site for the work was the underside of the Perth Narrows Bridge –the central conduit between the north and south sides of the Swan river. The piececonsists of three movements; the first two attempting to “explore ideas of (non)striated space and (de)colonization” and the third reflecting on the problematic nature of such attempts.
In her notes Pbbbt states: 
As a starting point, the piece takes one of my favouriteincidental sound (non)installations in Perth (…)  this space offers up an intersection of different modes of spatial division—roads, paths, cycle paths and trains lines—that themselves navigate the geographical terrain. (And these spatial divisions and physical incursions manifest over the dreaming, history and sense of place of the Whadjukpeople of the Noongarnation; which I am mostly deaf to and ignorant of.)
Movement I: through a clumsy musickalanalogy of de-striatification/ de-colonization
Follow map lines but interpret these through a strict grid system (4m); ​
Glissandi between notes, clear (but less strict) rhythm (4m)

​Glissandi, free; explore the 
space (4m)


​Imagined 
map—play (?m)
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II: Too [~20 minutes]
each player should follow one soundline[trains overhead, traffic overhead, traffic passing, bicycles passing]

play in lines; 

lines that at first play mimetically with your soundlines
III. Ellipsis... [? minutes]

Players are invited to engage with section three in any way that makes sense to them and respects Noongarculture including in ways that undermine the first two sections...

lines that move towards accentuating the sonic effects caused by the curves in the road, the interactions of sounds, the Doppler effect... 
lines that move towards accentuating the sonic effects caused
lines that move towards accentuating the sonic effects lines that move
lines that move towards accentuating the sonic 
lines that move towards accentuating 
lines that move towards 
lines
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njookenbooro [2018] for 12 performers at  Herdsman Lake 2 Sep 2018 8pm
The site for the performance of njookenbooro was a walkway jutting into Herdsman Lake(Njookenbooro) in Perth.
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The first section of the score was created through the transcription of prominent environmental frequencies which were mapped directly onto a spectrogram of a field recording made at the location several days earlier.
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Instruments were colourcoded (using colourstaken from photographs of the site) and were also displayed as “parts” in which the performer’s notation sits “above” the greyed-out notation of the other performers.
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rising water

4/9/2018

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New piece for GreyWing for the concert Artificial Field - rising water. A field recording by Leah Barclay of flood waters in Queensland was resynthesised: firstly by using frequency data to control amplitude and amplitude data to control frequency; secondly by "threshing" - using and sustaining only the strongest sinusoids (the lower spectrogram); and finally by "freezing" the frequency spectrum at points of prominent amplitude transitions (the upper spectrogram). The spectral freeze points were then used to derive a sectional formal structure for the work. "Lyrebird" software was used to create a "base" score representing strongest sinusoids and coloring them according to their timbral qualities. This score was then separated into three colours (timbres) and distributed to the three instruments (bass clarinet, electric guitar and harp). Then layers sometimes obscuring this score were built by transcribing shapes from the "thresh" and freeze" spectrograms. The variation in this  material was used to define the sectional structure (which had been derived from the data in the original recording). Thanks to Leah Barclay for letting me use another of her fantastic field recordings. Below is the opening few seconds of the "full score".
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kurui [2018]

26/8/2018

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kurui [2018] for bass clarinet, piano​/​melodica and percussion was written for a performance at the Cooroora Institute on the Sunshine Coast of Queensland. The performance was part of my sub-residency within a residency by Clocked Out (Erik Griswold and Vanessa Tomlinson) at the Griffith Conservatorium in Brisbane. The institute’s name is derived from the name for possum in the Gubi Gubi language: kurui. Although it is a scrolling score the notation is relatively traditional, aiming to bridge the space between 'faithful" transcription of sound on its own terms and a more "interpretive" transcription of sound in human "musical" terms. 
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A recurring motive is the distinctive grunt and repetitive "huffs" of the Queensland possum.
In these examples spectrograms of possum sounds are aligned with the notation to demonstrate the approach. Despite the "noisiness" of the possum sounds - significant pitch components are also evident and these are transcribed into pitched material particularly for the piano/melodica and bass clarinet. The contours of prominent pitched components were initially sketched directly onto the spectrogram and then "lifted-off' and adapted into a more traditional notational framework.
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The characteristic screech emitted by the possum is transcribed for melodica and bass clarinet multi phonic. Other lower pitched noises are orchestrated by percussion and mid-range glisses by piano.
A variety of grunts and short squeals are also transcribed.
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The work ends with the repetitive huff/clicks of the possum. Some of the prominent pitched content is highlights on bass clarinet and melodica.
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willsons downfall [2018]

26/8/2018

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​The score for willsons downfall [2018] was written for a performance at Harrigan's Lane a property in the Great Dividing Range on the border of New South Wales and Queensland.
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​The "verticalised" contour of the feature was used to determine the volume and left/right spatial orientation (image to the right) of each of three field recordings created by Jocelyn Wolfe. The recordings form the sonic connection to the terrain, forest and river topographies represented in each of the performer's scores.
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​The performance was part of my sub-residency within a residency by Clocked Out (Erik Griswold and Vanessa Tomlinson) at the Griffith Conservatorium in Brisbane. The work continues a line of exploration of site-specific work responding to environments, field recordings and landscapes.
The score was created in Perth and relied upon satellite and terrain mapping of the Willsons Downfall locality around Harrigan's Lane. In particular it was assembled from topographical information related to three principal features: the Boonoo Boonoo River, Mount Lindesay Road and the tree line of the Bookookoora mountain ridge (Image to the left). Each feature is represented in the work by one of the performers. 
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​Stylised representations of the surrounding landforms were then attached to each of the three lines according to their horizontal and vertical distance on the map (see below). The lines (but not the stylised representations) were then stretched out horizontally to represent the work's 8 minute duration spatially.
The image below is a "recompression" of the full score showing 
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​The final score (excerpt below) comprises the lines (representing the volume/spatiality of the field recordings) and the stylised representations of terrain, forest and river.
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Two GreyWing Debut Albums

12/3/2018

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Two GreyWing Debut Albums
GreyWing
Sunday, March 25 at 6 PM - 9 PM Eric Singleton Bird Sanctuary, Bayswater
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Friday, April 6 at 6 PM - 9 PM Gallop House 22 Birdwood Parade, Dalkeith WA 6009
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more on lyrebird

8/10/2017

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The performer’s relationship to Lyrebird in the example below is the most “score-like”, in that the pitch, rhythmic and dynamic contours of the bullfrog croaks from the field recording are adhered to with a great deal of  precision. The task is perhaps simplified because the pitch range of the croaks is limited to about 3 semitones, however the spectrogram indicates that this method of synchronisation of the recording and the performance by pianist and composer Michael Terren is effective in this instance. 
​
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Some interviews...

17/9/2017

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TLQ#7 -
Lindsay Vickery
 September 14, 2017 

in TLQThe same questions, asked to different improvisers in Perth. Credit for the idea, and some of the questions, goes to the amazing Addlimb archive.

and podcast
MAKING CONVERSATION,
EPISODE 16: REBECCA ERIN SMITH INTERVIEWS LINDSAY VICKERY

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generative accompaniment

28/5/2016

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In the process of developing the work Field Notes, I made a Max patch to analyse field recordings and derive pitches, translate them into MIDI notes and record them as the basis of a score. It became easier to record the MIDI output into a Logic file where they could be further threshed into information that might become a score: the Max Patch was quite capable of generating data that was too complex to transcribe into a traditional score. (In fact it brought into focus just how little information can be captured in a traditional score: because of the temporal grid that the score imposes). In any case I found that the output could also be used to generate an interesting accompaniment for an improvisation. The sample below demonstrates this idea - using an electric piano sound that (to me anyway) sounded a little like the Zawinal/Corea accompaniments found in Mile Davis' Bitches Brew. I'm yet to turn this into a viable performance tool: it took a lot of tweeking to get the output heard here.
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The trouble with rhizomes...

30/4/2016

2 Comments

 
In the sense proposed by Deleuze and Guatarri, some of the earliest examples of rhizomatic works in Western Art music, include, Karlheinz Stockhausen Klavierstück XI [1956], John Cage Concert for Piano [1958], Pierre Boulez Third Piano Sonata [1963-], Mauricio Kagel Prima Vista [1962-3] and Earle Brown Event Synergy II [1967]. (It is perhaps notable that it was not necessary to negotiate functional harmony in a rhizomatic context in any of these works). These are works allowing for a multiplicity of re-orderings of different but determinate pathways to be explored, not simply exhibiting the non-linear “asignifying ruptures” found in Stravinsky’s Symphonies of Wind Instruments [1920] [19] or Charles Ives Holidays Symphony [1913] [D. Thurmaier. Time and Compositional Process in Charles Ives’s Holidays Symphony. PhD Indiana University, 2006, 26-82.
], or “lines of flight” [J. Gilbert.  Deleuze and Music. Edinburgh U.P., 2004] as found in jazz improvisation [J. Barham. Rhizomes and plateaus: Rethinking
jazz historiography and the jazz-‘classical’ relationship. Jazz Res. J., 3, 2, 2010, 171-202. ].
Boulez, for example, describes the Third Piano Sonata as a Labyrinth, in which,
The itinerary is left to the interpreter’s initiative, he must direct himself through a tight network of routes. This form, which is both fixed and mobile, is situated, because of this ambiguity, in the centre of the work for which it serves as a pivot, as a centre of gravity [P. Boulez. Sonate, que me veux-tu?. Perspectives of New 
Music, 1, 2, 1963, 32–44: 41].
A number of problems beset the first generation of paper-based rhizomatic scores:
  • since the audience always experiences the works in a linear fashion, sequentially in time, their indeterminacy is unverifiable: the audience cannot compare the pathways chosen to those that were not. In this sense, the rhizomatic qualities are evident to the performer(s) alone;
  • performances are arguably undermined by the fact that any particular instantiation may have been potentially been less satisfying than another;
  • there can be no overarching cartographical representation of its the structural potentials for the audience inhibiting communication of the structural/performative principles in play;
  • the length and complexity of alternate “pathways” are limited to passages accommodated by the printed score (Klavierstück XI uses a very large sheet of paper (53 x 94 cm), and a balsa wood frame to stand it upright);
  • the quality of “immanent choice” that is one of the affordances of a rhizomatic structure, can only be executed by a single performer unless conductor(s) are used, (Event Synergy II), otherwise the route through the structure must be pre-determined (Concert for Piano, Third Piano Sonata, Prima Vista);
  • indicating and limiting the number of potential connections between pathways is extremely difficult;
  • Western music notation is almost exclusively read horizontally from left to right, meaning that pathways remain on a single plane and cannot easily be joined together 2-dimensionally;
  • although pathways may consist of varied musical materials and therefore result in diverse musical outcomes, the sounds themselves remain situated in the instruments that make them, excluding the possibility of communication of the rhizomatic structure through the form-bearing [S. McAdams. Psychological Constraints on Form-Bearing Dimensions in Music. Contemporary Music Review, 4, 1, 1989, 181-198.] parameter of spatialisation.
As Žižek noted in relation to the cinematic qualities of novels immediately prior to the emergence of film, the burst of rhizomatic musical works in the 1960s seems “to point towards a new technology that will be able to serve as a more ‘natural’ and appropriate “objective correlative” [S. Žižek. The Art of the Ridiculous Sublime. Seattle Washington: University of Washington Press, 2000, 39.]. The appropriate technology was graphical computing, but its emergence was still more than 30 years away and compositional concerns moved on to other diverse issues including Spectralism and Minimalism. Despite the permeation of rhizomatic concepts in New Media [R. W. Sweeny. Dysfunction and Decentralization in New Media Art and Education. Fishponds: Bristol, 2015, 79-108] and literature [G. P. Landow. Hypertext 3.0: Critical Theory and New Media in an Era of Globalization. Johns Hopkins U.P., 2006.] from the 1990s onward, musical notation proved stubbornly resistant to adaptation to the screen.
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Early in 2015 OSC communication was implemented for the Decibel Scoreplayer [C. Hope, A. Wyatt, & L. Vickery. The Decibel Scoreplayer: Enriched Scores for the iPad. Proc. of the 2015 ICM Conference, Denton TX, 2015] allowing for works combining the scoreplayer with synchronized audio processing and spatialisation on a networked computer. This re-opened the possibility for exploring rhizomatic scores with synchronized audio processing and for controlling the movements of the instruments in structurally significant ways
To address these issues a computer-coordinated solution to the problems of rhizomatic presentation of musical compositions with live performers was developed allowing for the creation of precise, unique but variable, multiple versions of rhizomatic works, in which the both the audience and the performers share in the exploratory immanent choice available in this approach, and spatialisation and digital processing are aligned directly to the emerging formal structure.
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Although each of the works Ubahn c. 1985: the Rosenberg Variations [2012], The Last Years [2012], Sacrificial Zones [2014], detritus [2015] and trash vortex [2015]  utilizes a rhizomatic score comprising a network of connections, the formal structures that emerge in a performance derive from the manner in which the performers traverse the score.
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Ubahn is the most programmatic of the works and its structure mirrors this in a game-like manner. The individual parts are free to move around the map unless they reach the 'Alexanderplatz' node at which point they are switched to the East German Ubahn system (the black lines in the top right hand corner of Fig. to the left). Upon transfer to the “Eastern Block” their screen is replaced with a “Graffiti Score” (comprising elements of the East German national anthem overlaid with drawings and images by Jon Rose). The performers play the graffiti score as a piece of indeterminate graphic notation. When all players have reached East 
Berlin the graffiti score begins to peel away revealing a five part harmonization of the East German national anthem in traditional notation, which they perform to end the work. Ubahn then, is a concatenative structure [A. Coenen. Stockhausen's Paradigm: A Survey of His Theories. 
Perspectives of New Music, 32, 2, 1994, 200-225.] comprising a freely rhizomatic first section, an indeterminate graphic notation section and a final traditionally notated section. The rhizomatic section has an idiosyncratic form in the sense that the pathway materials are quiet and combine together as a background layer, while the nodal points contain soloistic material. This arrangement highlights the nodal points and provides a contrasting, indeterminate texture.
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detritus explores the “territorializing” [G. Deleuze, & F. Guattari. A Thousand Plateaus: Capitalism 
and schizophrenia. Minneapolis, University 
of Minnesota Press, 1987: 317. ] idea of the refrain, an element of rhizomatic structure also discussed by Deleuze and Guattari. They state that the refrain “organizes a limited space around a center in order to keep “the forces of chaos” outside as much as possible” [ibid]. In detritus the score always commences from the same point, a distinctive passage lasting about 10 seconds. At the conclusion of this passage the pathways trifurcate and continue to progressively proliferate. The structure emerges as a consequence of the repetition of this process for different periods of time (between 19 and 145 seconds), allowing a variety of pathways to be charted.
In this way the consequence of the rhizomatic score structure can be emphasized through the exposition of diverse outcomes originating from the same starting point. The use of a Refrain acts against what Deleuze and Guattari would call the ‘deterritorializing’ effect of indeterminate movement through the rhizomatic score structure.
Each performer in detritus has separate parts. The parts are horizontally (temporally) coordinated in the fashion typical of traditional music. This means that when the performers move together their parts are audibly more synchronized than when they are independent of one another. The semantic graphical score was assembled using rhythms and pitch contours from fragments (detritus) of a traditionally notated ensemble piece, cities sunk in endless slumber [2012] for violin, clarinet and piano.
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trash vortex takes something of an inverse approach: each part eventually converges upon successive nodes in the rhizomatic score. As the pathways taken from one node to the next vary in duration, each player pauses once a node is reached, “hovering” there until all players have joined them. Tracking the trajectories of each player allows for electronic processing to reinforce the stasis of successive players through emphasis on spectral manipulation of their sound. This structure might be termed a ‘Convergent Nodal’ form, and is a unique implication of rhizomatic structure.
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