Pastlife Laptops and Attic Instruments

-for Brian Sacawa

The laptop on which I am writing recently had a stroke. I have no idea when it will die from its internal electrical burns, but my dependence on it allows me little time to take it in for repair..

The tools at our disposal are so ephemeral, every new piece of technology so ripe for obsolescence. I was able to salvage one last sound file off of my previous laptop before it crapped out. That sound made it into the mix you are about to hear (or are listening to currently). Something of this situation was in my mind from the beginning of the composition process.

Digital creations have something of the impermanence of a Tibetan sand mandala.

While I am caught in the web of Babylonian technology, I also aim to work in the spirit of detachment from object-grasping, using the tools at my disposal with the intention to uplift and make heads nod.

tech-y section (with some aesthetic relevance):

This piece owes its existence to an ephemeral piece of digital technology called Final Scratch. This is a program/device that allows the user to manipulate sound files, stored on a computer, through the physical interface of 2 turntables and a mixer. Using specially grooved vinyl, the computer can recognize exactly where the needle is on the record and instantly responds to any changes in speed or direction. A sound file can thus be mapped onto each turntable and controlled by normal DJ techniques, cutting the channels with the mixer.

This technological circumstance suggested a creative path as follows:

1. Compose drum patterns and bass line (assembled in Reason program), with some found-sounds mixed in.
2. Write out exposition of melodic material for alto saxophone, to be played over electronic mix.
3. Record Brian playing the written out exposition plus an improvisation on the material.
4. Cut up the recorded phrases, filtering and triggering them polyphonically over the drum patterns, bass line, etc., in the Reason program.
5. Record additional layers by scratching with Brian’s phrases on the turntable, and additional scratch layers using freshly-recorded sounds (such as individual strata from the mix) as well as old records of John Cage, World Saxophone Quartet, etc., thus completing the playback electronic part.
6. Compose of the full saxophone part, developed through cutting-up/rearranging/extending/linking ideas from the exposition, interpolated with some material notated from Brian’s recorded improvisation (somewhat transformed). An element of live improvisation is also called for in sections of the score. Contour lines are introduced to suggest transformations of material “in the fingers” from other parts of the score, in dialogue with the electronic mix.

7. Performance: piece may be played with electronic part as is, or, with live turntables scratching/mixing an additional improvisatory layer.

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