Output details

'Under the Yoke', for electric guitar, flute, trombone, percussion, narrator and laptop with 8 channel sound

'Under the Yoke', for electric guitar, flute, trombone, percussion, narrator and laptop with 8 channel sound. Performed on 2010-09-24 by members of Ensemble United Berlin, Tom Hall and Katy Price. Commissioned by the SuperCollider Symposium 2010, Berlin. Kleiner Wasserspeicher, Diedenhofer Straße, 10405 Berlin.

(see SCORE print-out attached / as PDF on CD-ROM; audio recording and conference infos see WEBLINK / CD-ROM)

The research imperatives and constraints surrounding Under the Yoke were:

• a meaningful collaboration with poet Katy Price (see WEBLINK / CD-ROM)

• the creation of an entirely algorithmic composition ‘sonifying’ source materials relating to the 19th Century Luddite riots;

• writing software to achieve the above using SuperCollider software for synthesis and sequencing (relating to my other research, e.g. REF Output 1 Hall_Coll);

• write a SuperCollider to open source notatation programme LilyPond translator;

• make an live 8 channel electronic part using the same software and processes used to compose the fixed score;

Under the Yoke is an entirely algorithmic instrumental composition, requiring much SuperCollider software code for its creation. Whilst other Computer-Assisted-Composition tools exist, none I knew of in 2010 enabled the creation of both an algorithmic score and live algorithmic electronic part using the same custom compositional processes (it is however beyond the score of this account to detail this here). The electronic part is a subtle accompaniment to the instrumental parts, and can be head on the recording as occasional samples of both ‘natural’ and ‘industrial’ sounds, as well as synthesised piano chord fragments. In performance, this algorithmic part runs in real time and is thus unique each time.

The instrumental parts are independent of each other, parts are aligned at the beginning of each of the 16 single minute sections (there is no overall score of the piece). Melodic material is algorithmically derived from data from the ‘Timeline’ of Sale (1995 see Weblink / CD-ROM).