cantibus cicadis - demo
This demo was created using the current state of my custom synthesis engine, _awed, which is designed to emulate and complement the sonic qualities of the cicadas and distribute those sounds through a multichannel speaker array. Open source field recordings of cicadas are used to emmulate the environmental situation of an unperformance. These sounds are analyzed on site to find a fundemantal frequency that the _awed engine is tuned to. The audio file presented here is an excerpt of a longer piece, approximately 23 minutes long, but the unperformances will have much longer durations, 1-3hours depending on conditions at the site.
This recording was made with an augmented version of the instrument created for the purposes of stereo playback. I have performed with it at several public events in person as well as streaming. Below is an image of the interface, here deployed on a Norns audio computer and manipulated with a fader bank and multi purpose grid controller. All hardware functions are programmed by me, for this specific purpose.
The image is from a streaming performance that I performed earlier this year, which you can view here if you are so inclined.
The following excerpts illustrate how I came to this current project.
tenuis
This first excerpt is from a longer piece, 7:19, which I began in '21. It is using a looped field recording of a stream as a natural noise source that is filtered and delayed to extract the tones that we hear. This was my first hands on effort to manipulate the natural world. And it is a technique I have expanded into realtime sources for this current project.
shores:constant
This excerpt is the next in my journey, this time, instead of using real world sounds, I set out to synthesize real world sounds, in this case the waves on the shore. The piece has no beginning or end, except for when we choose to engage or not. It is built with a modular synthesizer and some custom software and when engaged, will play on forever, creating a world that feels similar, but is never the same. I liken it to opening a window that is facing the shore. More can be heard here.
Now I am taking a combined approach to the previous excerpts and deploying them through a multi channel speaker array in situ with the natural noise source, cicadas, that I am inspired to work with. Thank you for your time and consideration. I hope you have enjoyed this bit of insight.