Output details

Strings and Tropes

Strings and Tropes (August 2012.) Stereo acousmatic work. Duration 22.23.

This piece is a study in string sounds, in particular plucked and scraped strings. It explores 1) how techniques of time stretching can draw out pitches and textures 2) how repetition at different durations and speeds can articulate space and time 3) the relationship between gesture and texture as they share the same space.

Many of the lengthy time stretch manipulations were used for a performance piece at Wet Sounds, 2011 in Glasgow's North Woodside Pool. Thanks to Joel Cahen for the invitation. It has taken over a year to reinterpret this material and contextualise it within a semi-pitched framework. Pitch centres are derived from short samples from Zheng master Sun Zhuo. My thanks to her for generously allowing me to use a number of small samples. Her performance was graceful and fluid, yet at times the pace and ferocity of movement reminded me of the intricate links between sound and (body) motion.

Strings and Tropes focuses upon context, aligning sounds and transformations often with reference to the core source material (A melody from Xiang Shan She Gu – The Temple Fair at the Xiang Mountain) and the broader idea of a trope, an interpretation and re-contextualisation of material within an established framework.

This work continues my research into theoretical ideas thrown open in my text book, Sonic Art: Recipes and Reasonings, in particular the roles of gesture and texture in determining structure.

www.adrianmoore.co.uk

Strings and Tropes was completed in August 2012 in the composer's studio.

Strings and Tropes is a concert work emanating from a performance piece that took place in a swimming pool (with speakers above and below the water). Knowing that this work was to be played alongside works that would make extensive use of live triggering (the other artists exclusively used Ableton Live), this work built upon methods used for Fields of Darkness and Light, working solely with electroacoustic sounds, triggering scored files above and below water making sure that joins between sections were maintained. The work was necessarily of long duration as participants were swimming and relaxing in the pool. Whilst practical research fed the playback process, the material lent itself to recontextualisation into a fixed form with primary source material being drawn from zheng recordings as mentioned in the programme notes. This work probes the potential for developing materials over long duration but adds considerably more stereo diffusion opportunities as it contains greater variety (not necessarily diversity). Strings and Tropes was premiered in Edinburgh in 2013 and has received online streaming from Electrocd.com.