Eine VERNACHLAESSIGBARE MAENGE:

nr.1 pangea
(works-in-progress)
nr. 2 -prime gradient (pg)
nr. 3 - anthropic principle (ap)
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(the name -- translated: "an insignificant detail")
Eine VERNACHLAESSIGBARE MAENGE: nr.1 pangea is an 11mins-25sec
extremely subwoofer-dependent stereo electroacoustic composition, ideally
performed on a large acousmonium. This composition was designed and composed
in the private studio of H.E.R. Kryptic Visions, in Berlin (Germany), in the winter
2010-spring 2011.
This work is dedicated to Virginie Adkinson-Deforges, France
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(reflections)
It probably goes without saying, that things are only significant in relation to other
things, a fact complimented by its converse.
From my earliest exposure to electroacoustic music, I've often, and repeatedly,
found myself in concerts longing for a lament or serenade and pained by the
incessant necessity of bombardment, aesthetically wonderful though it might be in
moderation.
For decades, now, I've struggled to discern whether the digital medium, itself,
encourages expression exclusively in exaggerated superlatives or whether the
nature of the message can only be rendered significant through boisterous
rambunctious exclamation.
One is tempted to wonder if the constant raised voice might acknowledge a fear,
or knowledge, that no one is really listening. Finally, the powerless and fearful
screaming is a well documented and common delusion to distract from the obvious.
Ein vernachlaessigbare Maenge actually translates, more literally, to "an ignorable
amount"; this quantity is that part of the music, and the sounds from which it
ensues, which is missed if you don't strain to hear it. It is fleeting and transient
though significant. It is often too brief to be identified while too moving to be
ignored. It is that part which is typically overlooked entirely on first hearing and
makes all successive hearings a necessity.
It is a distant place, where the sound goes, and the path which it takes, on its way
to evolving into silence. It is those sounds most easily covered by the brash and
insistent ones. It's a kind of crystalline snowy sparkling fairy dust which is left in
the air, tossed by breezes, after wonderful things happen and sometimes signalling
the passing of the bad times or the onset of terror. It is much like the stuff which
thoughts and memories are made of, memories which linger long after all traces of
the event have irretrievably dissipated. It's maybe even an unforgettably faint but
startlingly familiar fragrance, familiar though one could scarcely say of what.
"an insignificant detail" starts out with the minuscule minutia of massive crowds,
reduced to human breath. It ventures on to include miniature and massive
sculpted vaulted and tunnelled spaces, both empty, echoing nothingness and filled
to the brim, sounding out subtly but tumultuously the unidentifiable.
Yes! It is the intangible minutia which somehow creeps, imperceptibly, under your
skin and moves, while always unquestionably insignificant.
(a compositional approach)
The process described below produced a series of twenty-three sound-events,
presented in sequence over a period of some thirteen minutes (later shortened to
11:25).
In fact, there are two series of twenty-three sound-events, later called the mini-
sub-events and mega-sub-events, the difference simply resulting from shrinking
the mega sub-events. Ultimately, each mega-sub-event is paired and preceded by
its transposed corresponding mini-sub-event, rendering twenty-three double sub-
events.
In some ways, they are the analogue of twenty-three variations on a theme or an
evolutionary monologue, delivered in twenty-three statements but expounded on a
single circumspect idea.
Later, in this composition, these statements, variations or soli become engulfed and
entwined in and give breath to a fleetingly translucent and transcendental world.
They are often overshadowed, in part or wholely, sometimes piloting and
sometimes devoured by the ensuing drama of an electroacoustic discourse.
The identity of the actual sounds, the individual sounds, are ultimately as
irrelevant, now, as they were from the outset. As a matter of fact, I challenge
anyone to find the named sources in this work. They are not used as sounds, but
rather as micro-composite building blocks.
What I needed from them (my wizardry) was not the actual sounds, themselves,
but the hallucination, the evoked and the time-warp which they already
commanded.
The first sound, simple, a temporal evolution, primal, clocked but not rhythmic,
intensity extremes, periodically evolved: a gangster-rap sub-bass groove.
The second sound was elemental and composite, of countless thousands (of people)
in a vast space, indulged in irrational elation, producing and commanding pitch and
harmony (but, significantly, not melody): a South African vuvuzela-stadium.
The third sound, tibetan chant, ethereally modulated sameness, finely articulated
but delicately spacious and obscure, was, like the second sound, put through the
ranks (virtually identical transformational procedures: filtering, transposition,
spacialization, layering). Just like with the vuvuzela world, the super-event (the
groove envelop) was extracted and imposed, producing the twenty-three incident
series of individual events (sub-events) which became the foundational pillars.
All I needed from the groove was the temporally sculpted intensity of its evolution,
with its form building tendencies (a Schoenberg reference).
The entire groove, approximately three minutes, was extracted through tuned
filtering and normalized to maximum volume, so that only bass and sub-bass
remained. This was gated, to remove intermittent vestiges, while some harmonic
tuning was performed during the extraction.
In half-octave steps, this groove was analyzed, stretched and resynthesized until
the prescribed length of nearly thirteen minutes was achieved. Special attention
was paid to avoid DC drift.
The resulting thirteen-minute super-event, contained twenty-three spaced sub-
events, with individual evolutionary identities. These sub-events were serially
extracted, to produce twenty-three separate sound files which were sequentially
realigned, maintaining the original order, while altering, for dramatic and
structural relevance, the relative durations between the sub-events.
Two events were, eventually, eliminated without shrinkage, to interrupt the unity
and integrity of the original super-event, as it was, in my composition, to serve an
intrinsically divergent role.
I've gotten ahead of myself, having failed to mention that during my initial period of
floundering and thrashing, confronted by an empty vessel, I had found myself
reading reams of science fiction literature (as is often the case before starting a
new work) and going to concerts of fugues, both orchestral and instrumental.
From this wash of fugues, I became mesmorized by the thrill of intricately
formalized integrity, rationalized in contrapunctual music. I became convinced that
pursuing this minutely formalized integrity seemed a worthy challenge.
I decided, trying to electroacoustic the fugue was a worthy challenge; and thus,
the twenty-three sequenced similarly individual events; fugue events instead of
fugue themes and counter-themes.
Once the sub-events were sequenced and spaced, a new thirteen-minute super-
event, the envelope, was extracted and imposed on the second sound (South
African vuvuzela stadium), which had been convoluted in an imaginary a high-
frequency compromised space with progressively less reverberation.
This extracted super-event envelope was also imposed on the tibetan chant sound.
Before imposing it on the vuvuzela stadium, the stadium sound was preprocessed,
removing all the sports-commentary and extemporaneous noises from a live T.V.
broadcast, balancing levels on the retained sections and harmonically tuning the
cacophony of tens of thousands of plastic horns (the vuvuzela).
Considerable attention (weeks and weeks) was given to sculpting the individual
(23) sub-events.
These two super-events, resulting from the imposition of the new thirteen-minute
super-event groove-envelope on the vuvuzela stadium and on the tibetan chanting
monks--were sculpted, always, respectively, as two group-events, ensuring an
evolution through the twenty-three sub-event incarnations, always with the
understanding that each super-event would become but a single layer in the
sandwiched fugue events.
Before layering, however, each super-event (the two with their twenty-three
sequenced sub-events) was spacialized sent through spaces varying from
stadiums, to tunnels, to caves with temporally evolved delays, multi-tap delays,
echo or reverb. The resulting spaces were appropriated to individual (respective)
sub-event, sometimes singly and sometimes transitioned.
These two layers were each sliced into three layers, each of which was frequency
compromised; whereby, higher frequency layers decayed sooner and faster than
the middle and lower frequency layers.
Their tails were primarily extended (low-frequency layers) or curtailed (middle and
high-frequency layers) by parameter control-file shrinkage, and gate-sequencing.
When the pre-sandwiching sculpting was complete and satisfying, some fine-tuning
was done, to specific sub-events on specific layers, until the desired identities had
progressively taken character. Then came the intensity and volume sculpting,
followed by the sandwiching. The respective, three-frequency layers of the two
super-events were then recombined. This was followed by layering of the two
super-events.
This new mega-event (evolved from the layered super-events) was then processed
in a manner simulating simple (brief) speed variation on a reel-to-reel or turntable.
Special attention was given to compensate or balance the lengthening and
shortening which resulted from simulated physical pitch-shifting, to roughly
approximate the original sub-event length(s) and spacing(s), compressing both the
energy and expressiveness of the original layered mega-event.
The individual, now shrunk, sub-events were then cut into twenty-three separate
sounds (files) and, subsequently, mapped back onto the temporal template of the
thirteen-minute mega event, thereby pairing the mini-sub-events with their
corresponding mega-sub-events; though, shifting before the mega's, to end
approximately a half-minute before each mega's begin.
As the mini-sub-events lengths vary, individual adjustments (positioning) were
necessary to avoid haphazard overlap or telltale delayed association.
Completing this phase meant, essentially, completing the foundation; though, many
developmental dramatic-evolutional and structural design questions loomed, bigger
than life, begging to be addressed.
I had, naturally, assumed that the first paired sub-event would start the
composition.
Every effort to open the piece that way seemed either emotionless, mechanical or
too abrupt.