Godot Podcast #1
I've been neglecting Sonic Event for nearly a month now, but for good reason. I've been working feverishly on composing music for a production of "Waiting for Godot" by Samuel Beckett. This production, directed by Kate Sinnett, opened on the campus of St Cloud State University in Minnesota and featured women cast in the lead roles as well as comprising nearly all of the crew.
I've decided to document some of my compositional process in a series of Podcasts. You'll see the Podcast in the player on the sidebar.
The first episode describes the process that I used to create many of the sounds heard in the underscoring - pitch tracking. Based on recorded voice, I created software (using CSound) to analyze the pitch and amplitude content of the file and then recreate, using a timbre chosen by me, a "melody" of the predominant pitch material of the voice matched with the amplitude envelope. In the case heard in the Podcast, I divded the octave into 50 equal parts, so there are lots of microtones. I won't go into more detail (for that you'll just have to listen!).
I hope you enjoy this and please comment!
I've decided to document some of my compositional process in a series of Podcasts. You'll see the Podcast in the player on the sidebar.
The first episode describes the process that I used to create many of the sounds heard in the underscoring - pitch tracking. Based on recorded voice, I created software (using CSound) to analyze the pitch and amplitude content of the file and then recreate, using a timbre chosen by me, a "melody" of the predominant pitch material of the voice matched with the amplitude envelope. In the case heard in the Podcast, I divded the octave into 50 equal parts, so there are lots of microtones. I won't go into more detail (for that you'll just have to listen!).
I hope you enjoy this and please comment!
posted by Kristian Twombly at 10/22/2006 09:30:00 PM
2 Comments:
Ah, wish I had some with the speaking parts as well...I'm glad that you enjoyed this first bit. Other than sometimes inviting guests into a composition lesson, how often do we as composers get to speak, in depth, regarding our compositions? As I'm sure you noticed, I just barely scratched the surface on what was going on in that short example. I glossed over the aesthetic reasons for using that technique (beyond an attempt to make the voice unrecognizable), I briefly mentioned why I chose to use that particular technique in that location (in other words, coordination with the text), I didn't go into how/why I time stretched certain parts of it...but a lot of that can get too technical. I hope that I relayed the essence of what my thoughts were going into the composition of that one cue. Hopefully I'll soon post another cue (or two).
Ah, forgot to mention the part about the 50 divisions of the octave.
I tried many different options and settled on 50 mainly because I wanted to heighten the deviation from the typical 12 part division. This meant more microtones - and also in performance, the juxtaposition of Sheena's live performance and this version was more apparent than a "corrected" version. All in all, it seemed to me to be more unsettling, even though choosing such small increments is actually more realistic than the 12 part division.
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