starting to explore amplified breath & spit sounds

mapping bit reduction to expression pedal

bet denagel is an ancient rock-hewn church, part of eleven such churches at the Lalibela world heritage site in Northern Ethiopia. One of the smaller structures on the site, bet denagel has little external vista and is instead is principally comprised from a subterranean space, delineated by columns into twelve smaller areas.

The piece is comprised from a network of interrelated blocks of musical materials through which the performer can travel at will. The gut strings of the Baroque instrument are also substantially detuned, creating an extremely unstable instrumental canvas on to which these materials are placed. In being executed on the instrument, the materials are effected and further transformed by a barrage of cracks, squeaks and pitch-falters: as if the musical ideas have become engulfed and encrusted by the timbres of the instrument itself.

The piece was written in collaboration with the violinist Emma Lloyd and is dedicated to her in friendship and gratitude. bet denagel was first premiered by Emma Lloyd on September 16th 2013 in St. Cecilia’s Hall, Edinburgh.

Credits
Peter Furniss - Audio Consultant; David Lloyd - Sound Recording; Emma Lloyd - Violin; Matthew Sergeant - Composer

bet denagel (2013) (for solo Baroque violin)

Talking with Trees is a series of attempts at addressing specific trees in Swedish, Finnish or English. This is a freestanding sequel to the project Meetings with remarkable and unremarkable trees. This episode is in English. It was recorded in Kaivopuisto Park in Helsinki 18.10.2022.

Pine - 18 - Eng

The melodic and harmonic material in this piece was generated through a 12-tone row. In the first instance, the ‘white notes’ (as on the piano) were removed from the series in order and the opening playful section is based on these notes only. These pitches, but in retrograde, also form the basis of the clarinet line when it first enters.

The remaining notes of the prime row are introduced for the first time in the following ‘still’ section and as these pitches inflect the harmony in-turn, a much heavier and darker effect is created. Each instrument is then given a solo before coming back together for a calmer replay of the opening. 

Vera

Improvisation. Bb clarinet + live electronics.
3.7.2015 ECA Alison House LRA, University of Edinburgh.

This 15-minute exploratory improvisation explores a live processing effects rack put together in Ableton Live. It includes digital distortion, harmoniser, looper, granulation & stereo delay. I use a very simple 3-part harmoniser and see if it can stretch over a few minutes without getting tired. There is one change here, from a kind of 7th chord at the start to parallel major 3rds in the 2nd part.

Again, I use just the K1X pick-up mic mounted inside the clarinet, which doesn't pick up the accompanying seagulls and traffic noise in the room at the time... very useful for recording in a less than quiet environment!

The 'virtual rack' has the following audio effects:

All tracks:
EQ Eight — 8-band parametric EQ

Track 1
MaxSpectralHarm — a Max for Live object that allows for up to 2 parallell harmonisations, with configurable pitch, panning and delay times. I fine-tuned the intervals to a chosen chord (-6 /+3 semitones) and adjusted mid-flight to -4/+4 (creates an augmented triad).

Track 2
Glue Compressor — mapping the pre-compression (make-up) gain to an expression pedal (0 to +18dB) allows me to go in very close to extremely quiet sounds such as breath, spit and key noise. With the output compressed, it's not going to blow anyone's ears out if a louder sound is released (eg. at 11:33 ). I've been using this for a couple of months instead of a simple volume pedal and its quality of 'magnification' is proving very effective. 

Ping-pong Delay – variable here by mapping the global tempo in Live to a foot control button. Adds layering and a sense of dimension to a solo track.

Redux — bit-reduction distortion. A kind of 'pixelating' of the sampled sound... here in 12-bit (CD quality is 16-bit+), with variable downsampling mapped via MIDI to an expression pedal). Comes into its own at a healthy listening volume on responsive listening gear. Not to everyone's taste. Still experimenting with this... to be honest I cut some of it out in mixing, but at the opening and final sections I'm happy with what I was finding. I like its uniquely digital quality, and the unpredictability of response that produces a very full-spectrum (if occasionally over-dominant) result. 
Work-in-progress.

Convolution Reverb Pro - a Max for Live object that allows me to play into a virtual space (here it's in fact York Minster). Very nice reverb with a very long (7sec+) tail — useful for creating space & time and offers rich texturing of breath and other textural sounds. 

Track 3
Looper — I'm not so interested in straight, locked down, 4 in a bar looping. What I'm doing here is taking a 7-bar continually overdubbing loop with a gradual fade (c.30% feedback). Ableton's Looper is tricky to learn, perhaps because I'm trying to get it to create a loop that doesn't sound overtly 'looped'. I'm still working with it, but it allows me to create layers of texture, and with the 7-bar (variable tempo) distance, it provides spectres of previous material which can be responded to or left alone, providing time to rest / reset etc. This feels quite important when planning longer improvised sets, where physical stamina is a consideration.

Grain Delay – my understanding of granular synthesis is pretty minimal, but Ableton's objects allow for a process of learning-by-doing/listening. Just drop an audio effect into a track and tweak the settings until something sounds interesting. It's possible to then refer the manual or an external source of information about the theory after hearing the effects. 

Full specification:
—Rumberger K1X mic
www.thomann.de/gb/rumberger_k1x_…ckup_clarinet.htm
—RME Fireface UCX audio interface
—Macbook Pro 15" 2.3 GHz/i7/16GB RAM (OS10.9.5)
—Ableton Live Suite 9.1.8
—mixed in Reaper v4.721
—Buffet Crampon RC Prestige Bb clarinet
—Portnoy BP3 mouthpiece, hand-finished by Ramón Wodkowski
www.ramonwodkowski.com

re:duke (2015)

Performed by Pete Furniss, clarinet and David Leiher Jones, piano.
Performance score available at https://www.swirlymusic.org/music/chamber-music/solo-instrument/richard-dudas-sonata-for-clarinet-and-piano/

Sonata for Clarinet and Piano

Performed by Pete Furniss, clarinet.
Performance score available at: https://www.swirlymusic.org/music/chamber-music/solo-instrument/variations-for-clarinet-solo/

Variations for Clarinet Solo

Prelude No. 2 for Clarinet and Computer

Performed by Jared Redmond, piano.

For piano and real-time electronics.

Esquisse (in memorium Jean-Claude Risset)

Monstera Deliciosa (for acoustic sustaining instrument, synthesized sustaining instrument, percussion and computer)
Master's Recital, World Music Hall, Wesleyan University, 1997

Performers:
Tabla and other percussion: Ben Harbert 
Found percussion: Robert Nasta
Clarinet: Joseph Getter
Computer: James Smith
Electronic Woodwind Instrument: Heather Dea Jennings

Improvisational shape interpretation.

Monstera Deliciosa, 1996

Gettting to grips with Logic and home recording during Covid.

Farewell to Stromness - Peter Maxwell Davies

Clarinettist, improviser, educator, researcher. Lecturer in Music Performance at The University of Manchester. Caffeine addict & food obsessive. 

Website coming soon. 

I play clarinet, bass clarinet and occasionally other things, often with electronics. Tracks here are a mix of performances & studio experiments or 'sketches'. I'll be updating the feed soon, and releasing some material later in 2023-4 ... 

2013-17 Practice Research PhD at the University of Edinburgh (ECA), supported by he UK Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC). 'The Present performer: a humanised augmented practice of the clarinet.'
https://www.era.lib.ed.ac.uk/handle/1842/31433


twitter: @petefurniss / #clarinetronics
insta: @el_furnerino 
blog: petefurniss.wordpress.com [archive]

re:duke (2015)

Pete Furniss

Recent comments

Pete Furniss

Pete Furniss

Related tracks