Year 1: L7 Electronic Music Portfolio
With each of the following “provocations“, the listener’s own experience: feelings, thoughts, ideas, can be considered part of the “musical experience“. The general aim is to draw out curiosity in people within subjects that they perhaps do not encounter on a regular basis, or might have never pondered before.
Provocation No. 1
People will hear unfamiliar sounds, word juxtapositions that may be unexpected, will do things they have perhaps never done before in nature, and may subsequently think and reflect on notions that they have not pondered before. With this, the consumers own experience, feelings, thoughts, can be considered part of the “musical experience“
This first provocation should be listened to and then reflected on while sitting safely in a forest, making physical contact with the grandest tree that one can find. The single, detached words occurring in a regular spacing of several seconds reflect a specific category of wonderment, which directed the choice of words, yet, the listener is free to examine the relationship between words and sounds in along whatever path arises for them. Similar to the way you can look at a painting for as long as you like, the result of the project is, in part, what the listener ends up thinking about when it is done.
After listening and reflecting, it can be revealed that this piece is constructed with prehistoric times in mind. It is often suggested that the sounds of some of today’s large birds are perhaps most similar to the sounds some dinosaurs made millions of years ago. All of the electronic sounds in this piece are derived from samples of exotic bird sounds, used with permission from “Bird Kind“.
In choosing the collection of single words for this project, the question: “did love exist 65 million years ago?” functioned as a binding concept.
Provocation No. 2
*ideally viewed in 4k at a close enough proximity that the screen occupy’s most of the viewer’s field of vision.
The video-component of this piece was animated from a single photo, captured in South Dakota via a long-exposure photograph of the night sky. Many of the sounds were custom-designed in Native Instruments’ FM8, processed using varied techniques in Pro Tools, and combined with organic string sounds. The piece is organized into three sections, which aim to evoke separate senses of Awe, Fear, and Exhilaration, respectively. Throughout the piece, a programmed tie between volume swells and brightness oscillations aim to augment an immersive and hypnotic effect from the infinitely approaching collection of stars.