When expanding on the different sections, the group felt it important for the ‘musical’ content, to each be distinct in their representation of the different sections. For the creation of the ‘chaos’ layer, representing the panic caused by fear, I felt it was best to take a free improvisation approach to the section. Free improvisation is a musical style that instead of relying on any formally recognized framework to improvise on (scales, harmony, tonal centers, etc.) improvisation is completely free, left totally up to the impulse of the player (Caconne, 2018).
For my improvisation I used a tool called the repeater orchestra, a piece of software which repeats what the performer plays at different times. Here is a demonstration of the tools use, in performing the Terry Riley work in C.
Bryant Smith: Repeater Orchestra Performance at CodePen Chicago, June 29 2016 on Vimeo
When using the website, there is a warning, saying that if you don’t use headphones it can “create some gnarly feedback” (Smith, 2o16). However, this kind of gnarly feedback that is created with the repeater orchestra is very useful as part of creating a chaotic aesthetic.
The improvisation itself involved the use of voice, percussion, and the repeater orchestra, in a mostly empty echoy room. Thankfully, my old room in Glasgow was currently empty, and was therefore able to use for recording in a reverberant space.
I then took the improvisation, added some further effects, and created this track.
Sources
Canonne, C. (2018). Rehearsing Free Improvisation? An Ethnographic Study of Free Improvisers at Work. Music Theory Online, 24(4).
Smith, B. (2016). Repeater Orchestra. Available at: https://codepen.io/barefootfunk/pen/ZWoLm.
vimeo.com. (n.d.). Bryant Smith: Repeater Orchestra Performance at CodePen Chicago, June 29 2016. [online] Available at: https://vimeo.com/172845834
