The Morning Line plays

In »Ambre, Lilac«, timbre, pitch, duration and structure as well as density, direction of movement and the speed of sound movement in space are composed. I wanted to create sounds that are so strong that one not only associates colors or bodies with them, but feels them as pigments themselves. Especially the quadrophonic synthesis method, in which a sound consisting mostly of many small particles is placed in a spatial environment, served this purpose. As a result, a sound can either unfold from one point within the four loudspeakers, or it can be spaced out over the entire room. The same sound can be heard, slightly shifted in time, simultaneously from several places at the same time in full length. In doing so, the same frequencies and spectra always evoke different effects. Thus, the sound can be perceived either as representational, as an environment, or as space.

A short sample from an Indian raga with sitar and tampoura forms the point of origin for new sound worlds in »Ambre, Lilac«. I deliberately limited the modification of the source material to the change of order of the sound particles and resampling.

The size of the particles ranges from milliseconds (granular synthesis) to several seconds. The sound particles were read out in different rhythms forward or backward and each was given a specific pitch, reverberation amount, volume and spatial position. Each one of these particles is a complete event. That is, it is equipped with a complete parameter set. The parameter sizes are results of different algorithmic processes. The most important algorithm generates a fractal structure, which, in turn, generates pitches, sound locations, reverberation components, and so on.

The piece was generated in 1994/ 95 by using the »Common Lisp Music« music synthesis and signal processing package developed by William Schottstaedt (CCRMA, Stanford) and Heinrich Taube (ZKM | Karlsruhe), and Fernando Lopez's (CCRMA, Stanford) »dlocsig« software for acoustic modeling of spatial motion on the NeXT computer network at the ZKM | Institute for Music and Acoustics (now Hertz-Lab).

»Carlo« is an involvement with madrigals by Carlo Gesualdo (1566 - 1613) and an attempt to link two completely different principles of tonal composition: the madrigal’s tonal composition with its tonal or chromatic-harmonic form related to vocal abilities and contemporary structural ideas influenced by the technique of serial music and mathematical concepts of order. The latter are rooted in the attempt to detect new gestalt principles and to generate a contemporary structural movement with high complexity but straightforward accessibility.

The idea of using a Renaissance madrigal as the substance for a modern composition at first gives the impression of being the result of postmodern mentality. However, one must differentiate here between a postmodern technique of quotation and the heterogeneous implementation of foreign material into a new context. Our current musical culture is by no means based on contemporary music solely. Contrary to earlier cultural periods, it projects different epochs and cultures into the present age with its historicizing view. Thus, our time is a mosaic of different styles, cultures and times. Quite naturally, these separately originated musics are combined with each other in our perception. In »Carlo«, this combination is intensified to a matter of life and death: the new is built from the old. The old building becomes a quarry - it is changed, expanded, torn down and destroyed, as it has always happened in architecture. Therefore, this work is also about an attempt to answer the painful question of why this new thing should come into being at all.

A commissioned work of the Musicological Institute of the University of Cologne 2004.

Created at the ZKM | Institute for Music and Acoustics (now Hertz-Lab).

In »Cellularium«, physical models find different possibilities of articulation. Most of the audible sounds were produced with different models of a string using the »GENESIS« software (ACROE, Grenoble). However, the models used produce not only individual sounds, but also entire phrases. Many of the guitar-like sounds are therefore completely generated by a physical model and were only transposed. Besides reverberation, no other sound effects were used, so the original models are unchanged. 

»Cellularium« was created in the studios of the ZKM | Institute for Music and Acoustics (now Hertz-Lab) on the occasion of the 20th anniversary celebration of the ZKM | Karlsruhe and was developed together with a visual score for the light installation CHROMA_LUX by the artist Rosalie, consisting of 3125 LED spotlights. The premiere took place on 09.10.2009 during the opening of the exhibition »Imagining Media@ZKM« in the foyer of the ZKM | Karlsruhe.

»Deconstructing Double District« was originally created as music for a video of the same name by Volker Kuchelmeister. It combines the visualization of a dance duo in stereo 3D with spatial sounds and gripping dramatics. The result is an infinitely changing three-dimensional acoustic form with varying rhythmic movements and speeds. Crucial to the work, which lasts just under five minutes, is the dramaturgical unfolding of the music. After the abrupt beginning, its energy spirals ceaselessly upward, only to suddenly fall back into nothingness in a turbulent climax. This form immediately captivates the listener, so that the work is presented purely acoustically at the sound pavilion »The Morning Line«.

»De la Nuit« was composed in 1999 for the Berlin festival Kryptonale and premiered in decommissioned, underground water tanks in Berlin's Prenzlauer Berg district. The basis for the sound conception and for the formal design of the piece is the acoustics of the tanks. In this case, the space under the ground was a kind of inspiration for the spirit of the piece.

The signal manipulation sources used in this piece seemingly have nothing to do with each other: a sample of a folkloristic Bulgarian instrumental piece, a short sample of a song by the band Massive Attack, and some metal sounds created with the physical modeling software »GENESIS« (ACROE, Grenoble).

While the sample of Massive Attack is hardly recognizable, the Bulgarian folklore was counterpointed with transpositions. The strangest moment of the piece occurs at its end, when the folklore sounds reversed along with some metallic gong tones. Not only were the sounds created in the physical model, but also the rhythm, phrasing and volume. This is done by a very slowly vibrating object, the mallet, which allows the musical shape to arise entirely from pendulum movements.

Using a compositional object as a source for a new work is a special situation. In the creation of a work composed out of samples, there are two very exciting factors that determine the spirit of the resulting piece. The first factor is working with the sample itself. Will it be completely destroyed or will it resist all attempts of modification? Is a new structure developed with the help of the sample or does it continue to be an isolated event?

A piano event, for example, can be modified by various methods: it can be stretched, shortened, inverted and modified in the spectral range and still remain an event; it can be used several times in different pitches, spatial positions, reverberation amounts, or one combines all these methods to create a complex structure that is different from the previous event.

The second factor arises when combining several structures, all of which have a different character. A new musical story or an entirely different timeline develops from these patches. In addition, both psychoacoustic and aesthetic aspects must be considered. One sound or structure can mask another if it is in a similar frequency range. Two sequences can merge if they have similar speed, pitch and sound substance. These problems must be solved signal processing techniques such as transposition, stretching, or looping.

The process of combining these different structures goes beyond a classic mix in which only modifications to amplitude and duration are made. There, many possibilities are tried out and discarded again. Sounds are further processed mostly in the form of transpositions and tested in the most diverse combinations. In the resulting composition, only 10% of the generated structures are finally used. The remaining 90% were necessary to make exactly the right combination of elements possible.

Rather than calling it a mix, I would consider this a combination of interpretation (responding to the content of the structures) and compositional idea (opposing the structure with something). In the finished composition, listeners can form an opinion whether the individual elements fit together to form a meaningful whole.

They may find that a musical narrative is developed through the piece, that the sounds are capable of creating tension and different levels of energy, that a crescendo is more than its increase in dynamics, or that the work is more than the sounds of which it is made out.

»De la Nuit« was created with the programs »Snd«, »Common Lisp Music« (William Schottstaedt, CCRMA, Stanford), »GENESIS« (ACROE, Grenoble) and »Common Music« (Heinrich Taube, Illinois) and performed on SGI computers at the ZKM | Center for Art and Media Karlsruhe.

The acousmatic, 42-channel composition »Falling« was created for its world premiere at the Centro de Cultural de Belem in Lisbon. On the occasion of the Beethoven Year 2020, Falling deals with a very late composition of the master: »Die Große Fuge« (op. 133). This string quartet provided the tonal material for all the sounds in the piece. For »Falling«, the material was turned completely upside down, pressed into new energetic shapes, and thus pursues an independent dramaturgical course. Nevertheless, individual phrases or chords of Beethoven shine through again and again. For this, one does not have to know the underlying composition and can also get involved in this expansive work without this background, which has some surprising twists. If the material is charged with energy more and more at the beginning, if time is compressed more and more, this collapses after a while and turns to the timeless, the expansion of the moment. Some chords of Beethoven are expanded into infinity, similar to the expansion of time near places of extreme density, as is the case with black holes. What remains is the experience of a short moment in an extreme duration.

A commissioned work of the »Arte No Tempo« Lisbon

A glass harp is an instrument on which sounds are produced by sweeping or striking chromatically tuned glasses. Glass sounds occupy a central position in acousmatic music, since their timbre changes during the sounding from noise to a definable tone. The spectrum of sounds ranges from bowed to struck sound gestures to the definite sound of breaking glass.

The composition »Glasharfe« experiments with these different qualities. Within dense structures created by algorithmic techniques, the properties of sounds can change significantly. These degrees of change even extend to metal or wood sounds in some passages, although they are only transpositions of the original glass sounds. Alongside the sounds produced with glass, piano and celesta sounds can also be heard, both of which can also have a crystal clear sound. In addition to timbre, structure also plays a crucial role. This is created by the distribution of rhythm and pitch of the sound particles. Furthermore, spatial information is assigned to the sound particles.

This work was produced entirely in the 192kHz process. Special high-frequency microphones were used even during the recording of the sounds. On top of this, the high resolution of 192kHz offers the advantage of being able to transpose the sounds up and down without the loss of harmonics.

»Glasharfe« was created in the Studios of ZKM | Institute for Music and Acoustics (now Hertz-Lab) as a commission from the French Ministry of Culture and was premiered on March 25, 2006 at the Salle Olivier Messiaen of INA-GRM in Paris.

Nyx is the goddess and personification of night. Hesiod wrote in his »Theogony« (11.116 138) „Erebus created chaos and the dark night Nyx; Nyx gave birth to the bright atmosphere Aether and the day Hemera, whom she conceived from the union with Erebus, her brother."

The work »Nyx« is one of the first existing works whose fundamental musical structures are based on physically modeled compositional material. Not only the sounds but also the playing structure was modeled with the software »GENESIS« (ACROE, Grenoble). As a kind of an antagonist to this physical models I use a quotation from Claude Debussy's (1862–1915) »Sonata for Flute, Viola and Harp«. Rather than creating an acousmatic piece that relies more on sounds and noises than pitches, a kind of melodic structure developed on its own. As the acousmatic sketches became more and more difficult, I began to play with incredible ease with the Debussy quote. This piece is more of a prosaic story with lots of colorful imagery. Since its nuances are drawing attention, it requires a different kind of listening. Most of the time, the pitch is the axis to walk along. It is the glass to look into the structure of the sound. Pitch is only one level of perception apart from rhythm, timbre and structure, but probably the most obvious one. As soon as it is known or understood in the sensory perception process, listeners should follow it.

»Phrenos« is a piece using both overly dynamic contrast and dynamic processes to trigger synaesthetic experiences. The work is intended to infuse listeners and guide them through their own emotional landscapes.

To this end, »Phrenos« consists of three types of sounds:

• The crescendo and some pitches from Johannes Sebastian Bach's famous piece »Air«.
• A crescendo from Nicolaus Huber's piece »Auf den Flügeln der Harfe« using one pitch.
• Laughing and three spoken words.

The correlations between the instrumental samples are obvious. In addition to stylistic differences, these parts both use a very long crescendo. In the piece itself, these sounds were fused together by a special technique using FFT-analysis and resynthesis with formant filters by William Schottstaedt. The resulting sounds were then mixed together further processed.

In addition to these sounds, the voice recordings of a voice provide an important counterpoint. They seem more alive and contain a different kind of energy which does not get lost even after heavy processing. The voice can be heard almost unchanged in some moments of the piece, but mostly it is the source of repetitive processes. These processes are generated with »Breeding«-algorithms using recursive structures. Thereby, one sound triggers two others. In the course of this process, the structure condenses to hundreds of absolutely synchronized sound layers. Through the recursive programming used, an interesting structure can be developed with few but highly complex codes, which can be heard multiple times within the piece.

I call these algorithms »Breeding«-algorithms, because from one sound two more are triggered, then from these two sounds four more are generated with a different pitch evolution and so on. In the final state, several thousand slowly evolving sounds are audible as a kind of sonic change in the signal. All sounds either use the same duration and onset, sounding parallel or repetitive, or they begin to use different durations, so that the parallel starting time slowly spreads out to a non-uniform appearance.

The recursive structures were placed in 4-channel space. The additional use of delays and special dynamics curves was necessary to create a more natural impression.

»Phrenos« was commissioned by the ZKM | Center for Art and Media Karlsruhe at the Institute for Music and Acoustics (now Hertz-Lab) on their computer cluster mostly using Silicon Graphics computers and William Schottstaedt's »Common Lisp Music« software synthesis package.

After working with granular synthesis and physical models, I became interested in a sound quality that was more or less already present in all these techniques: noise.

The sounds I used in »Spin« started with digital noise. These were video or data files that were read into a sound editor as raw data and then modified to make the information structure within the video file audible. Naturally, I was looking for files that contained some periodic information so that they can be interpreted as a more or less pitched or repetitive sound quality. Once I had modified these sounds, they were cross-composed with other previously created algorithmic structures. This process resulted in various more or less noisy sounds, ranging from hiss to some "dirty" timbres.

Combined with some samples of stringed instruments and modified voices, I created the narrative form of »Spin« with the intention of generating an experience of noise. In addition to the version presented purely acoustically in the sound pavilion »The Morning Line«, there are also alternative versions of the work with, among other things, video material by Bernd Lintermann.

The organization of urban life with all the necessary elements such as architecture, technology and social behavior constitutes a unique cultural achievement of mankind. Those conditions, necessary for the development of such complex, self-evolving living environments as our cities, are formed, in particular, through communality, synchronization and communication, but also through the interaction of individuation with community, and of reality with ideal. For me, the essence of urban reality lies in culture and therefore also in the arts. This essence is given expression through music and the voice, in this case taking architecture as an acoustic base.

In the soundscape »Urban Voices« fragments of a work by the Renaissance composer Carlo Gesualdo (1566 – 1633) are assembled into a series of different aggregate states. From the many to the single voice, from the surface to the articulated rhythm, they depict basic forms of human communication, prerequisites for urban life.

The sound material used in »Repetitions« exclusively consists of samples from Igor Stravinsky's (1882 - 1971) »Le sacre du printemps«. These samples were granulated, i.e. divided into small and smallest sections and then layered on top of each other again. In addition, each of these grains was individually altered in pitch. These two simple audio editing methods alone lead to complete change in the music. The resulting texture ranges from flat sounds without contours, to dense chains of impulses similar to shattering glass.

The granulation process is like eating and digesting a material, which in this process is broken down into its molecules and then assembled into new structures.

For the presentation employing »The Morning Line«, a completely new version of the composition was created and adapted to the possibilities of the pavilion. If the listeners move, a different mix is created at the respective position in the pavilion. In this way, listeners create an interactive composition for themselves. Listening thus becomes an active process characterized by decisions of movement and standstill.   

»The Gates of H.« was generated from a 120 second sample of a folk song sung by a female choir. Algorithmic structures are applied to the sound, altering the pitch and time position of parts of the source sample to create a granular synthesis structure. The idea of modifying a sound image in this way is to apply a new structure to an existing image and place it over the sound like a mask, this mask being in time and pitch rather than in space and color.

The result is a sound that exposes either the algorithmic structure (while the sonic image becomes unrecognizable), or the sonic image (if the duration of the grains is long enough and the pitch is not extremely altered). I was particularly interested in the transient states of the grain, where timbres or voices become audible depending on the length of the sounds: The recipients seem to hear events that create an association with a human voice, even though they do not actually sound like one. Thus, the perceptual process of the listener jumps back and forth between the context and the content of the grains.

The tension between the source sample and the algorithms gives the resulting sound a lyrical or dramatic effect, while the recognizable voice images seem to create surrealistic scenes with strong associative power. Since I passed the Auguste Rodin sculpture »La Porte de l'Enfer« [The Gates of Hell] almost daily on my way to the studio at Stanford, a connection was unconsciously made between the bronze sculpture and my piece.

The sound processing techniques are limited to sample rate conversion and pointer operations. The piece was created exclusively digitally on the NeXT-Net at CCRMA, Stanford using William Schottstaedt's »Common Lisp Music« synthesis language, Rick Taube's compositional language »Common Music«, and Paul Lansky's mixing program »RT«. It won the Prix Ars Electronica in 1994, and was made possible by a DAAD grant from the German government.