Earth Sighs Introduction
19920201 Earth SIghs Talk Notes
warmup
thanks for coming
very rewarding to see the turnout
families, freiend colleagues
hope you’ll stay so we can talk during the break
which will be after my piece
or after the second half
why did i write this piece
the twitch
ORGASM of the EAR
possible to set up musical moments of such emotional impact
twitch in the head
spine tingling
don’t know how many of you can share this
obviously very personal and subjective
for someone its puccini
for others it the theme from the Flintstones
in fact -- show of hands
HOW MANY HAVE EXPERIENCED IT?
last experienmced by live music including rock concerts or whatever
last ecperienced by listening to a recording
this piece is mostly for you
for the rest, I beg your induklgence,
maybe tonight will be the first time.
Ive always taken this to be a precious moment of transcendency
I mean if music can triggering such a strong response occasionally
what does it do to our consciousness at the constant
and subliminal levels to which we are often exposed
classical
originally, delicate 20th-century piano music
then organ music
Bach - Messiaen - Durufle
reminded when visited Notre Dame
this piece has a bit of organ aesthtic
later, MIles Davis
lot of previous interest for the past decade was
usually jazz-based improvization
in improvizing with programmable machines
Friday Night Music and Pacific Rim
CCRMA Summer Concert and
later, hanging around
increasingly rarer --
THIS piece
having assembled this orchestral instrument
cant just use it for jazz and rock
no place for the performer
treid to take this piece that way - it doesnt’ work
spared you my bass playing
have to make my twitching own music
left with a compostion
roots in thory
tempered by the ear
what was needed was a piece somehow incorporating all of this history
will end up as one movemovent in a larger continuous composition
which will include jazzier and rockier stuff
for me this piece does it, even after the dozens of times I’ve heard
it
-- which is why I can offer it to you tonight
why not just roll tape -
mainly degradation in sound quality
instruments live are capable of far more dynamic range, detail
also, if you like excitement -
in a system of this size any billion of things can go wrong
so, I, at least, will be on the edge of my chair
the name ofthe piece is Earth Sighs
no hesitation about offering a personal statement
not a representationalist
but you need to draw inspiration froom somewhere
an earlier version of the piece was merely a Largo
one day while working on it I fell into a daydream
in which I imagined a beautiful planet brimming with life
but populated by some dim-witted animals
intent on systematically destroying it
I laughed at their stupidity -- until I awoke
and realized
couldnt figure out how this fit in to my aesthtic, or
not so much a depiction of the earth sighing
as of a reaction of sighs,
and even anger on behalf of the earth
where the ideas came from
music possible
wrote at the time MIDI was being born
on the basis of a strong reveiw in CMJ
sells oh 2, maybe 3 copies a year
you may have seen Robert Haft of Crown Books cradling it in last weekend’s
newspaper
But anyway,
sort of a tonal managhement system
its point was to describe an efficient way of handling all the new toanilites
that MIDI was giving us access to
improviztions
some of the string parts originated as imporvizational musings on a piano
keyboard.
Fortunately I was playing from teh T8 which has a very quickly-accesses
sequencer, that happened to be running
able to transfer those parts into the system
the instruments
the system is an equal partner in the sound - sometimes a hostile one
these things dont run themselves
by the way, dont ever say to a computer musician “Gee you don’t
even have to play any more.”
every miracle is counterbalanced by an arbitrary limit or design oversight
everything you can do is outnumberd by a thousand more that you can’t.
handling these without relying on tape things is virtuousity
how do you listen to it
eyes closed
visuals suggestive
aesthethic like French Pipe Orgn mMusic 20th century
movements or sections
six regions or chpaters
personality or mood
tonality programmed
Other conceopts
rhythm
subliminal
fairly freee but there are alignements which ocur at various points
takes its time
harmony aguiding force
music possible
provides ways for efficiently coding modes of any tonality
sort of
moves back and forth
polytonal
arbitrary harmonies to shift attention repel the ear from listening there
- the prettiness is not obvious
timbre - ultimately
evocative power through the juxtaposition of various (all) techniques
analog, FM, Vector Synthesis, sampling, multiple effects
attempt to explore the effect of shifting harnonies by shifting overtones
the interest occurs as you switch between various sounds
after a sound in which you can’t tell what’s
electronic vs acoustic
sampled vs synthesized sound
gotten decent at stirring things up
dont even try to guess - you’ll be wrong
not afraid of noise
or exploring low end
maybe holding a note longer than usual to allow it to develop completely
and mingle with its neighbors
ultimately, this is not normal music
how do we know this?
example
edit up a complete classical etude, or even stride piano part
send the notes out MIDI
it will play with many many sounds on the typical synthesizer
but if you were to take the MIDI notes that cre coming out of the computer
during Earth Sighs
and send them to a DX7 or D50 or M1,
you would nothing remotely resembling what you are about to hear
THIS IS BECAUSE THE MUSIC IS NOT REALLY IN THE NOTES -- IT’S IN
THE SOUNDS,
their programming, layering, timing, equalization, processing and so forth
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