Stereophonic Computer Music Variations on a 66" Vocal Performance
Text & Performance: Chris Mann
Music Composition: Kent Clelland
Duration: ca 7:18
Seven variations on a spoken word text by Chris Mann featuring custom spectral analysis/resysnthesis algorithms which would later become the basis of the Native Instruments product ‘NI-Spektral Delay.’
In a two-year collaborative internet project, Frog Peak Music (A Composer’s Collective) invited composers to compose a short piece based on a 66 second soundfile of a text written and read by Chris Mann. This 2-CD set is a massive and varied sound voyage through the voice and its transformations.
It was a hot summer night in May... not some ordinary heat, but a
full moon high-desert heat that can only exist in such rattlesnake,
scorpion, and tarantula infested altitudes such as Val Verde,
California. The occasion was a birthday party I think... or a going
away party? or an end-of-semester party? Or perhaps even all three.
In any case, the moon was full, the semester had ended. I was not
exactly homeless, but didn't really at that point in time have a
particular place to call home. And so it came to be that I would
move into the scorpion, snake, and spider infested desert where the
summer heat was so intense and so dry that my computer would turn
itself off after 45 seconds of power-on-time due to the heat
overload sensor. Therefore this composition was largely developed
during the dark of night, as the temperatures dipped down towards
mid 80-degrees (Fahrenheit).
( ( but I diverge... back to the party... ) )
Over the course of the evening I had numerous conversations (seven
to be exact) with women I had not yet met (no surprise being that I
tended towards digital hermeticism in those days). The *most*
striking aspect of these 7 distinct conversations was that they
were all laden with a particular yearning to know the future (by
all parties.) We were (all) at the crossroads of our careers
and freely discussed our plans, fears, and ideas on the
near-to-mid-term future. We also had a very strong connection
(every one of us) in that Susan Allen had played a very significant
role in our lives in the past months-- and this was a theme that
pervaded each of the seven individual conversations. In the days,
weeks, and months following this cathartic evening I thought much
about those conversations: so much so that I composed a variation
(and spectral processing algorithm) for each of the conversation
partners of that evening.
In the order they appear in the composition:
1) Heather
2) Isabella
3) Tara
4) Caat
5) Amanda
6) Elena
7) Gwenivere
Many thanks to all seven of these women plus Susan Allen for the
inspiration and direction. I hope you are all well, wherever you
may be...
|K<
__software used:
* Tereza, proprietary Spectral Processing from Kent Clelland
* SoundHack, by Tom Erbe
Seven Sisters Under a Full Moon appears on the Compilation CD
"The Frog Peak Collaborations Project"
available through Frog Peak Music: www.frogpeak.org/fpprojectsfront.html
Seven one-minute variations on a vocal performance by Chris Mann.
Each variation demonstrates a different spectral processing
algorithm developed by Kent Clelland.