In 1998, Mark Menzies asked me to write a piece for violin and computer that somehow captured the spirit of the blues. A couple of years later, when my father died, the idea came back to me. My father was a big fan of early ‘downhome’ blues, so the piece ended up being an amalgam of elements of downhome blues and my memories of him. Besides direct references to early blues made through sample modulation, oblique references are made by a certain amount of flamboyancy, virtuosity, and quirkiness.
- Excerpt (mp3 Music File - 1.6MB)
- Score (PDF Document - 197KB)
Posted 8 years ago at 12:00 pm. Add a comment
The video for this piece was shot in the winter of 2000/01. I wanted to use video that needed no processing and explored the framing of objects and scenes. The excerpt below is the most recognizable in the whole piece: it is of Niagara Falls (Canada side) during The Festival of Lights.
Most of the sound was produced in Max/MSP. I wanted to play similar sounds over each of the five channels in 5.1 surround, which produces a very immersive effect. For the part heard in the excerpt I used a technique I call Temporal Filtering (or more specifically Spectral Cataloguing) that is described in this paper published in the proceedings of the 2001 International Computer Music Conference.
Some images from the piece:
Posted 8 years ago at 12:00 pm. Add a comment
