Zener_35 by Mark Waldron-Hyden
"'Trees as a Musical Controller' is a series of recordings created to demonstrate the use of trees as percussion instruments.
"Drum sticks, drum sets and many other percussion instruments are carved from trees, sculpted in a way that produces extremely varied and specific sounds. 'Trees as a Musical Controller' wants to explore the varied and specific sounds at the source, pre-manufacturing, and observe if a style of playing and a style of composition can be developed from it.
"The use of these initial recordings as source materials for digital compositions was also explored, furthering the tree’s potential as percussion instruments. This potential progresses this project to a place where trees can create full works of digitally composed music with minimal editing involved. This was achieved through specific composition techniques developed in tandem with adapted pedagogies, through the research and sonic exploration of trees’ musical potential.
"The composer Alvin Lucier’s concepts of exploring resonant spaces within everyday objects – see 'Chambers' (1968) and 'Nothing Is Real' (1990) – played a part in inspiring these works. This curiosity Lucier displayed acted as an inspiration to explore the sonic qualities of these simple branches and trees that are encountered by us every day.
"With regards to the digital composition aspect, the goal here was to achieve a digital audio workstation equivalent to the sound artistry of artists like Maria Chavez – see 'Of Technique: Chance Procedures on Turntable' (2012) – and Yasunao Tone – see 'Solo for Wounded CD' (1997). Where they used physical machines and sound sources to create “collapsible structures” as Chavez puts it, the unpredictability of non-quantized clip dragging and cutting was used to collapse the sonic structure of the audio recordings and, as Chavez describes, “rebuild it after its collapse”." - MW-H
Limited cassette editions, home-dubbed using Sony high-speed pro-studio tape-to-tape printer.
For all your Ganzfeld state needs.
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