Category Archives: 2003

Music composed in 2003

Pro Manko de Edzino

[play] Pro Manko de Edzino
2003

This piece was written in my first semester at Wesleyan University for a concert of short works called “Five Minute Wonders.” This recording is from that concert. The performer is Neely Bruce.

This piece was written while I was missing my (then) wife, who was studying in Paris, France while I was studying on the East Coast of the US.

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Aelita Dreams of Mars

[play] Aelita Dreams of Mars
2003

I remember making this piece, but I can’t remember crucial details, such as the original title. Fortunately, I realised the importance of keeping notes on what I was doing:

Recorded april-july 2003
MOTM and minimodular
theremin-ish patch used on aelita sound track (april)
the rest recorded june 30-july 1
copy of first-mix sent to sonic circuits in 2003

program notes: blah blah blah new sounds old sounds.

I can say with certainty that Sonic Circuits did not select it and that I have since improved my note-taking process.

The parts of it that sound like a theremin were generated with my MOTM analog synthesizer. In April of 2003, Christine Denton and I presented some collaborations at Jack Straw in Seattle, Washington. We worked on a soundtrack for the revolution sequence of the silent Soviet film Aelita Queen of Mars and the theremin sounding parts appeared in that soundtrack. Since Leon Theremin was Russian, it seemed appropriate.

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Scitilopolitics

Scitilopolitics
2003

I read about an acoustical phenomenon where when researchers divided up recorded speech so that each consonant and vowel sound was separated, and then played back the recorded speech with all of the parts in correct order, but with each sound reversed, listeners were unable to detect the reversal. I decided that it might be interesting to write a piece that would make people aware of this phenomenon by crossing the threshold of inaudible reversal and audible reversal. I used a short speech that George Bush gave on terrorism and destroying American culture. The speech was nominally about terrorism, but on repeated listening, it became clear that it was more about causing American culture to shift rightward, to criticize Hollywood and to push the idea of individual responsibility instead of socialized responsibility. Because of the repeating of the speech, which gradually breaks down, the friendly experiencer listens carefully, grasping at meaning. The subtext is brought to the surface in that way.

The second part of the piece uses this process but in reverse. It uses a lesbian separatist philosophy text, Lesbian Philosophy: Explorations by Jeffner Allen (Palo Alto: Institute of Lesbian Studies, 1987). I picked out four phrases related to violence and terror. The ideas expressed were as radical as Bush’s but from the opposite ideological spectrum. I run the algorithm in the opposite direction, because I take the opposite view of the words. Allen also talks about violence, terrorism and victim hood, but unlike Bush, her words are ultimately empowering to her reader, giving her readers freedom instead of taking it away. Her viewpoint is equally extremist, but exists in reaction to what Bush proposes.

I found that the second movement made the piece much more bearable. Listening to George Bush talk about destroying culture for five minutes made me very tense, but the soothing voice of Jessica Feldman reading about women uprising acted as an anecdote to Bush.

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