Frog Peak Collaboration Pieces Notes
Larry Polansky
July-August, 1997 Lebanon, New Hampshire
FP Collaboration Pieces Notes 7/16/97 Bregman Electro-Acoustic Music Studio Larry Polansky
Pieces:
Chris Choir
Four Boys Mannin' #10 (Charles Grafton Hawthorne)
Time Studies (1-7) (Tyler "Speedboy" Kingdom)
1. Chris Trio
2. Chris Quartet
3. Chris Sextet
4. Chris Crowd
5. Chris Solo
6. Chris Quartet 2
7. Chris Mob
Chris Morphs
1. Chris Morph #1
2. Chris Morph #2
3. Chris Morph #3
4. Chris Morph #4
5. Chris Morph #5
Chris Choir
17 pitch shifted versions of the source material, fading in to full volume at 1/n * the soundfile length,where n is the pitch shift value. That is, the 17th "harmonic" takes (1/17 * 66) seconds to fade in to full volume, and then fades slowly to silence over the remainder of the piece. The fundamental (non-shifted) voice fades in over the duration of the piece. Each voice pans gradually completely from left to right or right to left over the duration of the piece.
Four Boys Mannin' #10
(Charles Grafton Hawthorne)
The original file is changed in speed, pitch, and length (using varispeed) 6 times, in the superparticular ratios 6 : 7 : 8 : 9 : 10 : 11 : 12, forming a mensuration canon. That is, where "6" is the fundamental (original soundfile), successive voices start proportionately later and later into the piece, depending on their length. All voices end together. Each voice fades in from nothing to full over its duration, and is panned to a different location in stereo space. The pitch/speed/length ratios form a kind of just "scale": fundamental, minor third, perfect fourth, perfect fifth, major sixth, neutral seventh, and octave.
Time Studies (1-7)
(Tyler "Speedboy" Kingdom)
The seven Time Studies are the first use of the normalized time-variant time compression/expansion feature developed by Larry Polansky and Tom Erbe and implemented by Erbe in a beta version of the program Soundhack. In each study, some time-variant curve controls the time deformation of the phase vocoder. That curve is normalized so that the resultant soundfile is the same length as the original. The musical idea is that of complex and constrained heterophony: a crowd-simulator, or smoothly but intricately varied delay system.
(1-4) The Trio, Quartet, Sextet, and Crowd use some subset of the same six randomly time-variant time compression/expansions, all normalized to the duration of the original soundfile.
1. Chris Trio
Each of three time deformed voices is panned to different stereo locations
2. Chris Quartet
Same as the Trio, but four voices.
3. Chris Sextet
Same as the Quartet, but all six of the time deformations are played together.
4. Chris Crowd
Same as the Sextet, but each voice fades in one after another.
(5-7) In the Solo, Quartet 2, and Mob, the same normalized time shifting process is used. In these studies, however, a specific rather than random time-variant curves are used. In Quartet 2, and Mob, the curves are sinusoidal functions which repeat between 5 and 10 times over the course of the soundfile, and whose amplitude increase towards the middle. In other words, time deformation is least at the beginning and end of the soundfile (increasing the synchrony of voices) and greatest towards the middle (increasing the asynchrony of voices).
5. Chris Solo
The time-variance curve for this one voice starts and ends at about double the length of the original file.
6. Chris Quartet 2
Four voices with the above described amplitude varying time-variance curves.
7. Chris Mob
10 voices are used, combining the randomly time shifted voices of Chris Sextet with the sinusoidally time shifted voices of Chris Quartet 2.
8/1/97
Chris Morphs (1-5)
Each morph uses the original soundfile as the source, and Tyler "Speedboy" Kingdom's Chris Mob as the target. Different spectral mutation functions are used for each morph:
1. Chris Morph #1 LCM/IUIM
2. Chris Morph #2 LCM/UUIM
3. Chris Morph #3 Stereo morph, ISIM
4. Chris Morph #4 Stereo morph, 1 and 2 to each channel
5. Chris Morph #5 Stereo morph, a mix of 3 and 4