Vermeer’s Mirror (2009)
Acoustic and electronic instrumental recordings are used in this work to provide a musical analogue of the photographic techniques used by Vermeer and other renaissance artists, who employed the camera obscura to project a representation of the subject onto the canvas. This detailed, photographic-quality image was used by Vermeer to provide detailed templates for the composition of each work. Vermeer also made use of the mirror to provide perfectly focussed smaller details of the subject which were then painted into the larger composition. The resulting works benefited from a vibrancy and detail that was not otherwise possible.

The instrumental phrases used in this acousmatic work provide the sonic references for the music and are drawn from much larger, composed musical structures which were written for this piece. Each note of the original material is ‘painted’ using the computer to re-colour, re-texture, re-synthesize and re-contextualise the source material throughout the piece. Colouring and textural variations are achieved by making use of spectral processing, detailed editing and envelope shaping, for example. 

An intended effect of this treatment of instrumental sounds was to create ‘roughness’ and dynamic variations in the music that would normally be associated with live performance. The music should have a sense of imperfection and improvisation in the sound, and an unusual level of ambient granularity in the sonic textures resulting from the layered processes of ‘re-painting’ each individual note of the composed material. Use of pitched sounds permits the investigation of (microtonal) melodic and harmonic development, to be explored concurrently with a more organic, spectromorphological approach.


Vermeers Mirror (2010)

I visited East Fortune Market in East Lothian in 2009, with my mics hidden under a thick hat to keep out the worst of the wind. The soundscape is presented here as it was recorded (complete with occasional wind distortion), as I moved slowly around the market in a circular route and pausing occasionally to look at stalls and listen to the banter. Low frequency sounds were particularly interesting as I walked past the stalls where various generators rumbled, droned, and moved in and out of phase, along with some musical interludes from the CD stalls. 
At the time, I wasn’t aware of the shorter snippets of conversation that I was recording: it was too visually distracting and I was often just trying to avoid bumping into people as I wandered around. When I listened back afterwards, the comedy of the banter and the variety of accents in the different conversations suddenly became clear. The one voice that stood out as a highlight was the butcher, with his headset mic, performing from his huge van at the end of the market: “chops, chops, chops, chops, chops… and there’s more chops…” Most people seemed to be standing around, just watching the show.


East Fortune Market (2009)

Binaural soundscape recorded with DPA 4060 mics and Fostex FR-2LE. Listen with a decent pair of headphones if you can. The pace is quite slow: it was a nice, sunny day and nobody seemed in a hurry to buy or sell. One obvious difference between 2009 and 2014 is the presence of the motorbike racing track near the market, which wasn't running in my previous visit. This was a pleasant surprise to my ears, and it made an interesting dynamic contrast to the snippets of conversation as I circled the market. Overall, the market was quieter than in previous visits: sonic evidence of recession, perhaps! Certainly, some of the stalls were vacant this time. Recordings are presented as they were recorded, complete with some wind distortion. The original was over an hour long, so this is the second half of the recording, when the market was a little busier. 

East Fortune Market (2014)

East Fortune Market 08 June 2014

DT/P represents three manifestations of Duty Cycle (D=T/P):
 
1. Firing neurons, muscle fibres, and cellular activity. 

2. Electrical motors: overheating, and cooling-down. 

3. Variation of pulse-width; cyclical modulation of time and density.

The sounds for the piece were taken from many different sources made by the composer, such as recordings of improvisations on synthesizers from the 1980s, windchimes, xylophone, clock chimes, contact microphones, and field recordings made for the piece in 2014. 

Sound processing was done using original patches made in  Reaktor, with additional editing in Audition. 

This stereo mix by Ewan Stefani (2015). Selected for ICMC 2015, UNT, Texas. 

DT/P (2015)

Based on studio recordings of 19-division trumpet, Nítján explores the spatialisation of improvisations by the composer and Stephen Altoft. Musical themes include spectral dissonance, pitch-textures and boundaries between noise and pitch. Designed for 8-channel spatialisation, oscillating panning techniques are used throughout the piece to separate distinct lines within textures and create spatial ostinato patterns and counterpoint.

Nítján (2016)

This is a live performance of the Recon Analogue Synthesizer Ensemble, featuring 16 Novation Bass Station 2 synthesizers played live by (in this case) 15 people. Thanks to Jez Riley French for making the recording. Video projection and live sound for the event was by Lumen. 

RASE Live The Tetley 25June2016 Part 2

Lametta is a study of cross-genre composition and convolution techniques to map the spectrum of sounds to rhythmic patterns. I was particularly interested in mixing field recordings with electroacoustic techniques. This mix was an attempt to reflect an unstable emotional state and sense of disorientation that I felt at the time.

Lametta (2007-2009)

The Quiet Place (2017) explores boundaries between dissonance and consonance, and different forms of dynamic spatial movement when performed in 8-channel surround sound. Pitched spectra, rhythms and spatial effects are created from convolution of the sounds of steam trains, noise patterns, and voices blended with analogue synthesizer timbres. Each of the parts in the composition was derived from improvised performances which were then edited, or convolved with recorded sounds and simple spectra. Subjectively, the music represents a process of re-focussing attention between the outside world and internal emotional responses.

The Quiet Place (2017)

The Astronomer is based on material originally composed in 2010 for a piece called Vermeer's Mirror. Here, the heavily-processed acoustic and electronic instrument sounds are re-arranged and shaped into a more fragmented and dark piece that re-imagines the painting of the same name by Vermeer. The spectrogram of the work reveals complex 'meteor-shower' patterns of high frequency transients. Compositionally, my intention with this material is to try to balance the basic parameters of pitch, spectrum, and rhythm so that they are equally important and interesting over the work.

The Astronomer (2017)

This is a miniature acousmatic work for FM synthesizer with quarter-tone tuning and soundscapes of water and steam. These sounds are convolved with the sounds of tapping an array of gas cylinders at different microtonal pitches to create a shroud of extended partials around the synthesizer phrases.

Artwork by Skitter.

Minotaur (2017)

Musically, the work explores the disruption and abrupt termination of repeated patterns to suggest short episodes of pulses and rhythms that are never fully resolved or developed. 
Most of the sounds in the work come from recordings that I made from inside an upright piano, and inside a clock. These sources are juxtaposed with short samples of Baroque string orchestra. Patches in Reaktor and Max were used to create spatial movement (in the 8-channel version) and rhythmic modulation of playback position within each sound. 
The title of the piece comes from a line in Norman MacCaig’s poem ‘Sounds of the Day’, where the dark sounds in the poem, and silence that follows them represent the intense pain of grief and loss. The relevant extract from the poem is:
When the black drums rolled, it was water
falling sixty feet into itself.
When the door
scraped shut, it was the end
of all the sounds there are.
You left me
beside the quietest fire in the world.
(Norman MacCaig)

black drums rolled (2019)

This is a piece written for an Arts Council of England / Sonic Arts Network commission in 1999. First performed by BEAST at the ICA in London (20th March 1999), and then subsequently on BBC Radio 3 (March 2002). SansCulture was my first experimental piece combining the sound world of electronic dance music, with musique concrete composition techniques. I love the sound of analogue drum machines and synthesizers, so this was a labour of love to assemble thousands of samples from different instruments to create new patterns and odd-sounding grooves. Ewan Stefani

SansCulture (1999)

Ewan is a composer of weird and wonky electronic music by night and academic synthesizer enthusiast by day.

Ewan Stefani

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