becomes a chord …………….

The Sea Becomes a Chord

In preparation for this project at the Sound Festival in Aberdeen this weekend

“What is your favourite sound in the world that isn’t a musical instrument or piece of music?”

a couple of demo tracks containing

Dropping something heavy into water
Thunder
Pocra Quay (from Pete Stollery)
Birds
The wind at Malin Head
Children’s voices
Rain on a tent
Throwing stones onto a frozen lake
Walking in deep snow
Walking through a herd of cows in Switzerland

Chorus loops composed by Music and Communities students and played by synthesised sounds ……………
The Wind
Rain
Standing on Union Street
Child laughing
The sound you get when your head is underwater
glass smashing
walking in deep snow
falling leaves
the crackle of frying eggs
transferring liquids from a can into a glass

ReSound demo

Sounds from Rednote Ensembles “NoisyNoises” to be used in an installation on Sunday 4th

rednote sounds

more here

http://sound-scotland.co.uk/sound_events/resound/

SoundSpiral is a uniquely interactive audio playback environment, holding forty-eight speakers within a specially-designed inflatable venue.
The first work to be shown in the space will be Babel Spring, by Amie Slavin and Duncan Chapman.

The whole project is the brainchild of Amie Slavin who has made an extraordinary piece using multiple languages for it’s first incarnation. The music I have made takes fragments of these languages and using specially designed granular processing creates pitch based music out of them.

There’s much more about the whole thing here

http://www.soundspiral.net/?page=Home

My piece started off as 48 Midi files …….. here they are played by a Marimba sound

48 channel marimba in order

and here (slightly rearranged) played by the granulated voices

Stereo mix MP3

May 12th Workshops………………

Here are a couple of things from last weekends workshops in Spalding and Holbeach.

The Spalding piece is played by a large group using instruments and voices speaking lists of sounds that they associate with their locality. This will become transcribed and mixed with drawings of horizon lines (as in the Field Of Sprouts piece) to create a section for full orchestra……

Spalding Workshop Mixdown 1

Holbeach Fog

In a small workshop with three enthusiastic young people we created this section of music. At the end the fog will lift and become a very low sound (double bass rumble) and very high one (Violin harmonic) with transcriptions of birdsong in the middle. The fog music is always falling and is an exploration of the idea of the land becoming inundated , in the past by the sea and now by the fog……………..

This is an orchestral simulation played by computer so some of the sounds are not accurate representations of how it will sound when played by the LMP.

Hobeach Fog

Demos: As part of the preparation for this I created these two short pieces for string quartet which were performed at LMP concerts.

1: Horizon melody and a field of sprouts…….. uses the contour of the landscape in this photograph to generate a melodic line played by the first violin, the second violin plays an accelerating and decelerating pulse following the edge of the field while the lower parts play rotating material based on the shape of the plants…..

which sounds like this

Horizon melody and a field of sprouts mp3

2: Rural Scene with Red Arrows……is an arrangement of this field recording for string quartet

Rural Audio mp3

the quartet version

Rural and Red Arrows mp3

sonogram of field recording

with thanks to LMP players

Nicoline Kraamwinkel (Violin)

David Angel (Violin)

Simone Van der Giessen (Viola)

Sebastian Comberti (Cello)

As part of this years Huddersfield Contemporary Music Festival

a late night performance of Rhubarb Sounds

Thursday 24 November

Creative Arts Building Atrium, 10PM
Free event

more information here http://www.hcmf.co.uk/event/show/246

photo © Alex Beldea

Here is a short version of the performance

Isabel and I scan the floor at Bretton Hall for interesting creaking sounds …………

Over the last 15 years Isabel Jones and Duncan Chapman have been collaborating with each other ,they have co-composed numerous films, recordings, installations and performances including their album ‘Corrosion’, the music for Salamanda Tandems performances and their eight year personal documentary project ‘8 Dark Januaries’

Since 1994 they have met every January to start the year with some sonic research that involves the creation of an original piece of music. This process has been partly one of self documentation as well as a way of reviewing the last 12 months in sound.

The works produced have therefore become a kind of snapshot of our individual and collective work and travels from the preceding year. By “documentising” ourselves we have sought to create an oasis of reflective practice that both looks back and forwards. On many occasions we have discovered connections in our sound palettes and worked these into the pieces.

Sonic materials have included field recordings from all over the world as well as voice, live acoustic instruments and electroacoustic processing.
January 2004

january 2004

January 2005

January 2005

January 2006

january 2006

January 2007

January 2007

January 2008

January 2008

January 2009

January 2009

January 2010

January 2010

January 2011

January 2011

Horn and Rabab revisited

Made and played by

Elisha Millard aka Electric Farmer

Odira Morewabone

Webster Siame

Duncan Chapman

1st piece

Ruscha @ Wolves 1

2nd piece

Ruscha @ Wolves 2

3rd piece

Ruscha @ Wolves 3

More information on the exhibition here

http://www.wolverhamptonart.org.uk/wolves/exhibitions