Under the Yoke
Dr Tom Hall, REF 2014, item 3
Audio
This recording is a live recording from the Berlin Kleiner Wasserspeicher concert referred to below. It is a binaural recording, best listened to over headphones for immersive ‘3D’ audio.
Score
REF Statement
Under the Yoke, for electric guitar, flute, trombone, percussion, narrator and laptop with 8 channel sound. Performed on 2010–09–24 by members of Ensemble United Berlin, Tom Hall and Katy Price. Commissioned by the SuperCollider Symposium 2010, Berlin. Kleiner Wasserspeicher, Diedenhofer Strasse, 10405 Berlin.
The research imperatives and constraints surrounding Under the Yoke were:
- a meaningful collaboration with poet Katy Price;
- the creation of an entirely algorithmic composition ‘sonifying’ source materials relating to the 19th Century Luddite riots;
- writing software to achieve the above using SuperCollider software for synthesis and sequencing (relating to my other research, e.g. REF Item 1);
- write a SuperCollider to open source notation programme LilyPond translator;
- make an live 8 channel electronic part using the same software and processes used to compose the fixed score;
Under the Yoke is an entirely algorithmic instrumental composition, requiring much SuperCollider software code for its creation. Whilst other Computer-Assisted-Composition tools exist, none I knew of in 2010 enabled the creation of both an algorithmic score and live algorithmic electronic part using the same custom compositional processes (it is however beyond the score of this account to detail this here). The electronic part is a subtle accompaniment to the instrumental parts, and can be head on the recording as occasional samples of both ‘natural’ and ‘industrial’ sounds, as well as synthesised piano chord fragments. In performance, this algorithmic part runs in real time and is thus unique each time.
The instrumental parts are independent of each other, parts are aligned at the beginning of each of the 16 single minute sections (there is no overall score of the piece). Melodic material is algorithmically derived from data from the ‘Timeline’ of Sale (1995).
Reference
Sale, K., 1995. Rebels Against the Future / The Luddites and Their War on the Industrial Revolution. Reading, Mass.: Addison-Wesley.
Programme Note
for flute, trombone, guitar, percussion, narrator and laptop combines contemporary narration, algorithmically composed instrumental parts (based on Luddite folk-songs) and laptop 8-channel algorithmic melodic synthesis and playback of treated recordings of sounds from the natural and industrial worlds. The piece examines, at different historical and aesthetic distances, the textual and musical remnants of 200 year old Luddite events in the UK and is a multi-layered reflection on what can be considered the natural and the technological.
Text
Dr Katie Price has written about the text she created for the composition here and here.