Aims and Objectives.
This creative response is an artistic enquiry based on Ambrose Field’s notion of digitally manipulated Renaissance music, that is, early music sources set in contemporary backgrounds. The piece was produced using the same compositional objectives and rules as employed by Field in his Anagram project.

Background.
Field’s Anagram project is piece for electronics and vocals. Here, Field is concerned with combing technologies and people along with ideas derived from 16th century Renaissance music. The piece employs recontextualised found materials and timbral extension organised through a set of compositional rules and objectives.

The source material used by Field is by 16th century composers. In the Anagram project, this source material is first edited on the page to produce a vocal edition for the singer to work from, a recording of the material is then produced for Field to manipulate. ‘This process is transcontextual, a process by which taking something from one context and taking something from another context and slamming them together you get some kind of new meaning but you haven’t had to do anything to either of your source materials. This is a powerful compositional, musical idea’ (Field, 2011). The sources are not corrupted but are presented exactly as they are and performed as stylishly as possible. This presents an alternative, postmodern viewpoint on the original music.

Ave Verum Corpus (Manipulated) borrows stylistically from Field’s Anagram in the same way that Field borrows from 16th Century composer Gombert’s Musae Jovis. That is, a solo vocal line floats above an intricate and moving dense texture. Field echoes this in his response to Gombert through a manipulation of textures. This is done in two ways. Firstly, sound treatments and processing are applied to fragments of recorded vocal through a granular re-harmonising which links timbre to the that of the soloist, thus keeping a sonic unity. Secondly, played synthesiser parts are added. In Field’s piece, these pad-like textures are framed in a mid-90s aesthetic by employing Roland D50s and other technologies of the era. It is the notion of combining technologies with the human performance of early music, whilst maintaining a constant aesthetic that underpins this creative response.

Field proposes a set of self imposed limitations on the working processes. These rules are applied for practical reasons as the combination of computers and live performers generates many avenues for potential exploration meaning the project would take too long to complete. The rules help to focus the piece and achieve specific objectives.

Rules.
Original compositions are re-performed and recorded, not sampled from other recordings.
The source material can be re-organised in time. Fragments may appear out of order to their original position.
The source material can be shaped, edited and re-positioned but not re-composed.
All parts are to be performed. There is no automation or command lines, for example.
New material is generated by re-interpretation of the structural design of the original pieces.
The piece is to be respectful to the source material, not a pastiche.

Production of Ave Verum Corpus (Manipulated).

Selecting the source material.
The composer chosen as the focus for this creative response was selected with two criteria in mind. Firstly, to be from a similar period to that of Field’s and secondly to have a local (Lincoln) connection. The source material was chosen for aesthetic reasons; the piece was to be vocal music, slow in tempo, in a minor key and not have too much complexity in terms of polyphony. The piece chosen is the motet Ave Verum Corpus by William Byrd (1605).

Recording.
The first stage was to record the Byrd piece. For this, a four-piece vocal ensemble rehearsed and performed the piece and this was recorded into Pro Tools using a Rode NT1A microphone. The whole choir was recorded in mono as a guide and then each member of the ensemble recorded their part individually, again in mono. The vocal parts of bass, tenor one, tenor two and alto could then be processed separately. No click track was used during recording as the piece was to be created “off the grid” (that is, no timing correction or quantization was to be used). The room tone on the recordings was kept to a minimum through the use of an acoustically dry room as a neutral recording was desirable for the manipulation and processing stages to follow.

Manipulation and additional parts.
Field is interested in timbral extension not, however, in dissonance or micro-polyphonic imitation. Harmonic, polyphonic densities are created digitally to fill out the spectral space in both Field’s piece and my own. To achieve this, the Reaktor Player ensemble The Mouth was used to process the vocal recordings. Here each performance was in turn manipulated through the Reaktor plug-in and various parameters of the sound’s timbre and envelope were modified to give each part its own place in the composition. The bass vocal was used to create the majority of the new parts. Each part was then re-recorded back into Pro Tools as an audio file rather than as a real-time processed part. This process was repeated three times building up different textures with each pass. Three performed MIDI parts were then added. These are harmonic drone/texture parts created using Absynth and Ultra Analog VA-1 played in through the Korg Kontrol 49. Again, these parts were printed to disc as audio files.

Structure and Mixing.
The overall structure of the piece was not changed, however, to shape the piece, some sections of the voice parts were removed. The only surviving part in its entirety is the bass vocal. This was a creative decision in the process of composition, the desired effect was to have the piece build up with successively added layers. The section 3m 30s into the piece is the most dense. Here all four vocal parts play together along with the supporting synthesised elements. The new synthesised and manipulated parts were balanced against the original vocal recordings. Sound shaping was achieved through traditional methods of EQ, compression and spatial positioning (panning and reverb), all done within Pro Tools.

Tools.
Rode NT1A
Digidesign MBox2
Korg Kontrol 49 USB keyboard
Pro Tools LE8
NI Reaktor 5
NI Absynth 5
AAS Ultra Analog VA-1

Thanks to Phil, Tom, Ben and Dan.

Ave Verum Corpus (Manipulated) Mix 2 by mandrill1

David McSherry – U?+ from Clear Notice on Vimeo.

Video interpretation by Robin Fuller.

So, it’s finally out! Clear Notice’s debut album Enter Calico is now available on iTunes, Amazon and Bandcamp.

Back in April (on April Fool’s day actually!), I was asked by my Twitter friend Kieron James if I’d like to contribute to a compilation album of Electronic music he was putting together. I’d not written any music for two or three years and I thought it would help me focus some ideas together for one of my MA portfolio pieces so I agreed to write something for it. I’m very glad I did too as it’s turned out to be such a strong album and one which Kieron has done a sterling job of compiling, promoting and generally making sure the whole thing happened. And, there’s still the iPad app to come with some very interesting videographers contributing.

I got a pretty good grade for my portfolio too

SGT – 400
Part one is the soundtrack for the Siemens animation. As I explained in an earlier post, the animation is for corporate purposes and is a slow motion fly-round of a 3D model of a gas turbine engine. I tried to incorporate some recordings I made of the engine sounds but they are full of screaming mid and high frequencies which masked any musical parts I put it near. I managed to squeeze it in near the beginning of the track. The complete artefact is yet to be finished; there’s still a voice-over to record and mix.
SGT – 400 by mandrill1

UD+
Part two is a stand alone music track I composed for the forthcoming Clearnotice compilation album. I really enjoyed working on this track as I was free to take it wherever I wanted. I ditched my usual Logic and wrote the track in Ableton (to which, I’m still a noobie), and mixed it in Pro Tools. Pure Tone did a lovely job of mastering it. The starting point for this track’s composition was a beat I made that was influenced by a Jeff Mills track. There is also a nod to Delia Derbyshire (in some of the little sprinklings on top) and the drones are a mangled Marcel Duchamp sound poem. You can hear a 30 sec preview of the track below. There are some great artists scheduled to appear on the album – I’ll post more information when it is released later this summer.
U?+ Preview by mandrill1

Appointment
The third piece is the one I had the most difficulty with. It is a score for a short film. The film focusses on a WW2 veteran and includes some flashback scenes to significant moments in his wartime experience. I wanted to avoid the obvious orchestral instrumentation as much as possible and create an electronic score but, due to the period setting of some of the scenes, this proved to be difficult and I compromised with a hybrid of the two. This is my first attempt at scoring for film and I found it very tricky; always being mindful of the key points in the narrative and supporting the dialogue or action when required. I discussed the piece at great lengths with my supervisor (the writer/director of the film) and it went through six iterations until we were both happy(ish) with it. I also didn’t have split dialogue and sound effects mixes to work with, meaning some of the dialogue was very low level. You can hear the full score below and, although it works much better with the dialogue/effects track and pictures, I’m still not completely happy with it.
MA Film Soundtrack: Full Score by mandrill1

My first piece is a soundtrack for an animation for an engineering company. This is a real-world brief that came to me through my job at the university (there’s no payment in it, unfortunately!) and the requirements are very, well, brief: ‘mainly bed with energy (not excessive) and with instrumentation to sit behind commentary.’ The animation is for corporate purposes and is a slow motion fly-round of a 3D model of an engine – the odd panel floats off to reveal what’s underneath. Exciting stuff.

My first attempt is at something quite neutral sounding in terms of genre (other than it’s an electronic piece). With its steady pace it is cold and detached but also quite hi-tech sounding. It is minimal with arpeggiators that float throughout the piece with a few glitchy random rhythmic elements. These could be interpreted as machinery coughing and spluttering – not what I imagine the client is hoping to evoke, I’m sure! I’ve not heard back from them yet so there may be a major tweak or re-write ahead.

16m 19s to go.

Engineering Animation Soundtrack (tweaked) by mandrill1

A lively debate around copyright and (in my opinion) how overzealous copyright laws obstruct the development of new music and culture. If you’ve not heard it before, Nate Harrison’s Can I Get An Amen? (2004) is an excellent investigation of these issues using the iconic Amen break as a case study.

Analysis

The following is a series of notes taken from reading and discussion around Kasdan and Appleton’s rather paranoid text on the influence of technology on the composition process Tradition and Change: The Case For Music (1970).

In traditional Western music there is a division of labour between the composer, the performer and the audience. In the West, the score narrowly defines how piece should be performed.

Systems of the East, however (India, Indonesia, Japan), are much looser allowing for variation on the part of the performer. In ‘World Music’, for example, the audience can be much more a part of the composition itself.

The rise of the virtuoso performer saddles the composer with a burden. The virtuoso tended to neglect the score and in an attempt to reach the audience with an accurate recreation of their work, composers would clutter their scores with instructions to the musician. This would result in complex demands on their performance and musicians would gravitate to earlier, simpler works. Commercial considerations, such as the cost of a symphony orchestra, would also impinge on the compositional process.

This separation of roles of the composer, performer and audience have been changed with technological innovation. Technology allows the composer to communicate directly with their audience without an intermediary. In electronic music the composer is also responsible for the performance, every beat, texture or fragment of sound is intended, or at least edited, to sculpt the composition and performance to the desired shape.

As an electronic music composer, how much do your tools of choice inform your music making? Who (or what) is in control, you, or the technology?

By processes of continual sonic metamorphosis on the single ‘clink’ of two wineglasses, Trevor Wishart’s Imago (2002), constructed with self-designed software, is an attempt to answer this challenge in sonic art.

Published in 1970, the Kasdan and Appleton text amusingly and perceptively predicts an “instantaneous realization” available to the composer of the near-future in a “semicomputerized studio”:

“A small keyboard, similar to that of a typewriter, would be used to specify the original, electronically generated material. Once specified, the sound would be played and the composer could make any changes desired. This material could then be stored on a computer memory and could be instantly recalled should the composer want to hear it again or develop the idea further. Once completed the work would be transferred from the computer memory to recording tape and made available to various ‘performance’ media: radio, record companies etc. The composer could carry out this process in his own home using a data-phone connection. The significance of electronic music, in which the composer deals direct with sound, lies not in the use of new material but in the fact that the composer is communicating directly with his audience without an intermediary.”

It’ll never happen

Reading for next week is Analytical Methods of Electroacoustic Music by Mary Simoni, A Guide to Musical Analysis by Nicholas Cook and Gerd Leonhard and Dave Kusek’s The Future of Music (good job I’ve already read that one) along with a whole load more.

So am I glad I’ve decided to load myself up with even more stuff to do? Of course I am! After years of writing and producing music, it’s a chance for me to dig deep into critical environments, social context, analysis and theory. To write some more music and reassess some of the music I’ve made in the past, maybe even finding more reasons as to why it sounds the way it does…. as Tony Wilson would have said: “Praxis makes perfect”.