The idea of working with Lawrence Bradby came after seeing
his contribution to the Sonimation commission. I very much
liked the poetry used in that work, so we got together to
discuss what sort of piece we might make If we worked
together.
Poetry, like music is a time-based art, which normally
moves linearly from beginning to end. We thought it would
be fun to challenge this idea, and to see if it was
possible to 'distort time'.
Lawrence picked a theme as I felt that if he was to write
the words of the poem, he would need something he could use
instinctively, rather than me dictating to him what he
should think about. He picked the theme of the river Wensum
in Norwich, and went for walks there to gather thoughts and
ideas. He also showed me a couple of poems as reference, to
indicate a type of style he had in mind, for example:
'River-doors' by Sean O'Brian. He also showed me some of
his previous work as an example.
In turn I played Lawrence some works which I felt would
bring significance to my part in this work: 'Scherzo' by
Andrew Lewis I particularly had in mind with his
manipulation of his daughters' voices. I also played him
some more commercial work: 'To Cure a Weakling Child' by
Aphex Twin, again for the actual sounds produced. I also
played him an Underworld track 'Pearl's Girl' for the pacey
rhythmic style of speech-song.
We talked about which aspects we both liked and discovered
we were both quite keen on taking small motives and looping
them. This actually led to how we were going to structure
the piece, in that I had a visual plan of blocks of
different lengths overlapping different layers. I asked
Lawrence if he would be able to write a list of one-word
lines, a list of two or three-word phrases, and then longer
phrases etc. This would give us building-blocks of
different sizes.
One-word
Short phrases
Paragraph
Lawrence came back to me with exactly that - and better
than I could have imagined! I then built a small pd patch
which would enable us to play the different building blocks
using the computer keyboard (though midi would also have
been a possibility) as an interface. The idea of this is
that we would be able to play different combinations and
hear what things would sound like together. I also set up a
loop with some bassy samples taken from the recording, to
provide an example of what else we might include in the
work
streamed
sample (ogg vorbis mp3) of small building blocks through
PD
The next couple of hurdles were to decide how much
processing of voice there should be and what type. I was
aware that voice is great for processing as it tends to be
so rich in range, timbre and gesture, but at the same time,
it is easy to fall into cliches with certain processes
where a popular sound effect would be the result of the
process, rather than catching the less common qualities of
vocal processing.
Another issue was whether we would be able to position the
words and phrases on the 'canvas' together. I knew Lawrence
wanted a part in actually arranging the element of the
poem: of coururse! But knowing that I tend to stop every
few minutes to spend time altering a sound or making a
loop, I feared that this would be excruciating for anyone
else to sit through!
In the end this piece has never come to fruition, though I
would still like to realise it eventually, as I feel that,
as a concept it works really well. Lawrence and I are still
in touch though busy with other things, and hopefully the
work we have put in so far will not go to waste.