PDE 3: Source recording 3: Cello

PDE 3: Source recording 2: Bowed Guitar

PDE 3: Source recording 1: Bowed Cymbal

Although there are few superficial similarities between the finished exercise and a typical piece of musical minimalism, elements of the compositional processes employed here are common among minimalist composers. Completely removed from the comfortably tonal meanderings represented by such figures as Phillip Glass and John Adams, the piece takes influence in a number of ways from Americans La Monte Young and Steve Reich, as well as the Dutch composer Louis Andriessen. Techniques including drones, exploration of processes of rhythmic development, as well as the organisation of tonal material function here in a way comparable to the works of these composers, albeit on a microcosmic time-scale. The sounds (one bowed electric guitar, one bowed cymbal and one cello) were recorded individually and subsequently edited and mixed.

The recording of the guitar was comprised of a long, slow bow along the bottom E string followed by some bowing on the higher strings. Fragments of this sound were edited and looped, multiple layers of which created deep continuous drones. Along with these sounds are loops built from the decay of the bowed cymbal sound. Bowing cymbals can achieve a number of striking effects, as can be heard in the opening sound. The cymbal loops are initially simple decay tones, however, roughly half way through the work a series of looped cymbal sounds is gradually introduced whose rhythmic interplay forms the basis of the latter half of the piece. The pattern of fades applied to the loops is disrupted more and more as the sounds fade in, resulting in increasingly significant rhythmic displacements. Throughout this, the previously dominant guitar drone is continually subsiding, revealing as it does so the discordant relationship between the cymbal tones. The cello recording, a disjointed ostinato, acts as a textural element throughout the entire duration, sounding alone at the conclusion.

The music of La Monte Young, popularly considered to be the originator of minimalism, is remarkable for its exploration of drone and repetition over extended time periods. His works explored the psychoacoustic effects of hearing particular intervals over such durations, including the perfect fifth, but he eschewed the diatonicism of later minimalists by avoiding the interval of the  third in his compositions. His influence can be heard in the drone of the bowed guitar content, as well as in the discordant cymbal tones, similar effects to which he achieved in both instrumental and electronic compositions.

Steve Reich is widely acknowledged for his innovative approach to rhythmic and durational relationships over time. This can be most readily identified in his phase music, which consists of a single line played by multiple sources that gradually fall out of time with each other, forming a wide variety of shifting rhythmic patterns as the separate elements slip further out of sync. Originally conceived as tape experiments involving small segments of human speech, Reich later wrote a variety of phase pieces for acoustic instruments. The shifting rhythms of the emergent cymbal loops in this PDE recall Reich's approach of a perceptible process of metric organisation.

The most renowned of the European minimalists, Louis Andriessen combined elements of American minimalism with a tonal sensibility derived from the European atonal tradition. The timbral elements of some of his compositions remotely reflects the cymbal sound employed in the exercise.
Although these techniques derived from minimalism have been implemented in this exercise, the miniature comparative duration of this piece limits the resemblence substantially. The final result sounds more like post-WWII European textural composition.

PDE 3: Minimalism

PDE 4: Source recording: Bowed GTR 96kHz-44.1kHz

When approaching PDE no.4, it was intended to try and examine Russolo's 1913 manifesto in the context of the contemporary technological environment. A sound piece was created in response to this process using technology unique to the era since Russolo's death as the primary compositional device. 

The source recording for the short piece was a bowed guitar that had been recorded at a sampling rate of 96kHz before being imported into a 44.1kHz pro tools session, causing the recording to playback at the wrong speed. Given the nature of the original bowed guitar sound, the version affected by the discrepancy in sampling rates sounded intensely deep and slow, with a seemingly static quality created by the exaggerated time between sound events. Small sections of this recording were extracted, processed and arranged to build the largely subdued, insular soundscape. Small amounts of delay and artificial reverberation were applied to selected channels. The deep, undefined texture of the piece is unsurprising given that all of the sound material was derived from the single source. The resultant unity of sonority, along with the meditative, reserved nature of the arrangement, were intended to demonstrate a divergence of views on the artistic integration of technological innovation to that propounded by Russolo in 'The Art of Noises'. 

Russolo's enthusiastic embrace of “noise-sound” and the sonic possibilities of the modernised industrial society, penned in 1913 and addressed to “Balilla Pratella, great Futurist composer”, was without doubt an early landmark in the development of modernist musical thought, delivered from outside of the musical avant-garde establishment of the time (the second Viennese school etc.). Discussing the increasing acceptance of free dissonance in the orchestral music of the time, he identifies the limitations inherent in the medium of traditional instrumentation and suggests a new, continually enlarged palate of the noise/ sounds of the mechanised age, including a fervent embrace of the sounds of modern war.

In this PDE, Russolo's liberation of the sonic possibilities of technological advance is recognised. A current/ contemporary technological format (digital audio, specifically sample rate) is manipulated in order to create a novel noise/sound. However, the nature of the resultant sounds and their mode of acheivement are at odds with Russolo's project. Russolo championed rapidity, acceration and expansion whereas the tone of this piece is contemplative and insular. In this PDE, along with the recognition of his contribution, Russolo's didacticism, as well as his fanatacism for presence, progression and domination are rejected. In this sense the piece is both a homage to and critique of 'The Art of Noises'. 

PDE 4: Homage to Russolo's 'The Art of Noises'

PDE 5: Source recording: Washing Machine

One recording was used as the source material for the fifth PDE, in which musique concrete techniques were to be employed. The recording was of one full cycle of the composer's old washing machine, a source of unending auditory astonishment. The machine was captured close from behind by a dynamic microphone, while a distant large diaphragm condenser captured a more distant signal. The positions of the microphones in relation to the washing machine were subject to change, due to the ancient contraption's unpredictable yet consistent ability to bounce itself around the room.

Once the sounds had been captured, they were categorised by type in order to simplify the editing of the long, monotonous recording. A variety of sounds were identified. The categories of sounds used in the final mixdown included rushing water sounds, sounds of light activity from the machine and sounds of heavy activity and movement from the machine. The second of these categories was accompanied by a continual high pitched clicking sound. This was isolated by filtering, looped then the individual microphone signals were moved out of time so that the clicks formed mesmerising rhythmic patterns which, in their tone, actually do recall the early concrete experiments of Pierre Schaeffer. The first category, the rushing water, was filtered and effected and used as a sonic backdrop, against which the clicking sounds were introduced. Abrupt interjections arise from the third category, after which the background sound disappears, the stark shift in texture highlighting the rhythms produced by the second sound category. A  new background sound rises in the mix before the deep interjections return. 

This piece seems, out of the PDEs presented here, to be the most adherent to the thematic stimulus. Others take aspects of the theme presented to forge something new, whereas this piece is thought to be a faithfull example of a work of music concrete. This is betrayed not just in the nature of the sounds (mechanical, from real life etc.) but also in their arrangement. The contiunous yet shifting texture created by the ongoing introduction, repetition and variation of individual elements is common to much musique concrete. To the composer's mind, musique concrete was and important and influential, yet ultimately short-lived movement; a good piece of musique concrete seeks to remove a sound from the representational connotations of its causal incident and, in doing so, reveal something about the nature of sound itself. 





PDE 5: Musique Concrete

PDE 6: Source recording: On a Balcony (Devonshire st)

This field recording was conducted from a second floor balcony overlooking Devonshire St. Surry Hills at 10:30 on a Monday morning in October, 2011. A pair of AKG C414XLS large diaphragm condenser microphones was positioned on the balcony, connected to a Boss BR-1200 digital recorder operating from within the residence.

Listening back to the recording, there were a few elements of interest. These were, in particular, the spacial effect created by the cars passing through the field of the microphones, bird sounds, the indecipherable sounds of voices, engines starting and the close sounds of the wind blowing light objects on the balcony. At one point a car passes that has just started pumping some second rate urban spew, which is obviously hilarious and completely makes the recording.

From the original five minutes, the stereo recording was edited down to one and a half minutes, keeping the most significant and interesting sounds and fading across the edit points as appropriate. Although extremely simple, with zero application of signal processes, it is considered that this was an effective field recording ion a number of ways. Primarily, it accurately captured the atmosphere of a given situation, the only contrivance being the placement of the microphones and the choice of edit points.

LWilliams