1970 Dartmouth Electronic Music Competition
-- LINER NOTES --
For the last three years, Dartmouth College has held an annual competition for electronic music. The winners and finalists' works from the first competition were released by Vox two years ago and we at Dartmouth felt gratified by the warm critical response to the recording. We were also pleased that the competition gave the public an opportunity to hear some of the best works by new and younger composers.
The judges for the second competition were Lars-Gunnar Bodin from Sweden, Charles Dodge and Pril Smiley from the Columbia-Princeton Electronic Music Center and Kenneth Gaburo from the University of California, San Diego. They chose the winning works anonymously after listening to nearly one hundred different entries. The winning composers were Peter Glushanok, an experienced film maker who has a small electronic music studio in his home, and Peter Klausmeer, a graduate student at the University of Michigan. The two finalists were Walter Kimmel,who is director of the electronic music studio at Moorhead State College,and Raymond Moore, who is a recording engineer for a large record company.
There were over two hundred entries in the 1970 competition which meant nearly a week of listening for judges Sal Martriano from the University of Illinois, Francois Bayle of France and James K. Randall of Princeton University. Again the prize was divided between one of Chile's leading composers, Jose Vicente Asuar and Richard A. Robinson, the director of the Atlanta Electronic Music Center. The finalists were Jean-Claude Risset who works in Marseille, France, but who realized his work at the Bell Laboratories in New Jersey,and Jonathan Weiss, a Composer in his early twenties who is in residence at the R.A. Moog Co. in Trumansberg, New York.
The listener to this album will hear enormous diversity in the approach used by the different composers. The following comments about the works were written by the composers themselves.
Jon H. Appleton, Director
Dartmouth Electronic Music Studio
Side I - 22:53 Min.
IN MEMORIAM FOR MY FRIEND HENRY SAIA - 10:35 Min.
Completed in early 1969, this piece was begun as an experiment in textures from concrete sources, and was developed as an elegy in memory of my friend Henry Saia who died by suicide just a few months before.
Henry's transient and restless quality, seen through the eyes of his friends who discussed him interminably; his depressions lightened by a sense of humor, and his life which ended without hope despite the jokes and the friends, broke traumatically into our unawareness. -- Peter Glushanok
CAMBRIAN SEA - 6:18 Min.
This piece was put together in the University of Michigan Electronic Music Studio in January, 1968. There is nothing particularly complicated about the material used; all the sounds are electronic in origin.
White noise formed the basis of the first couple of minutes of the piece. The signal was into several components, filtered through two Krohnhite band-pass filters, re-mixed and shaped by a Moog envelope generator-voltage controlled amplifier combination.
The "metal" sounds were made by modulating a mixture of three sine waves with a white noise signal whose short attack & decay envelope came from the Moog equipment mentioned above. An old tube-type balanced modulator was used here. The "belch" sounds were made in a fashion similar to that of the metallic sounds, except that a very low sawtooth wave was the modulating signal instead of the white noise, the frequency of one of the sine generators being altered by hand during the decay of the envelope.
With the return of the sea sounds at the end, the piece is closed off in the age-old, time-tested A-B-A fashion. -- Peter Klausmeyer
"TRIP THROUGH THE MILKY WAY - AN ELECTRONIC PANORAMA" - 5:57 Min.
The three basic motives of "Trip Through the Milky Way - An Electronic Panorama" are: a twenty-three-note row in which the interval of a fourth appears thirteen times; a series of thirteen fourths; and a sine wave glide tone whose ups and downs are governed by the interval of a fourth. All of the motives were created with a sine wave oscillator.
Several one-voice lines were created from these three basic motives. They in turn were copied - halving or doubling the tape speed, and hence creating a building block - i.e., a four-voice unit.
These building blocks were then combined so that in the middle of the composition there are sixteen distinct lines on each stereo channel and thirty-two in the center (Two channel version). . .. ...
Hence, "Trip Through the Milky Way - An Electronic Panorama" is a multi-voiced (64) canon at the octave.
The composition was not a planned trip through the Milky Way but rather after the fact. When it was finished (March 1969), the structure and contour of its sound densities and intensities were not unlike a sound picture (or, if you will, Panorama - in the four channel version) of a trip through the Milky Way.
Since April 1969, there have been performances of the "Trip...." in Sweden by the Fylkingen, and Rikskonserter groups, by the Swedish Radio and at the opening of the United States Cultural Center, Stockholm, Sweden, in the music-light-dance festival "Action Center U.S.A." In the July 1970 issue of High Fidelity, "Trip Through the Milky Way" was awarded Honorable Mention in its Electronic Music Contest of August 1969. -- Raymond Moore
Side II - 24:00 Min.
DIVERTIMENTO - 7:05 Min.
In works such as "Serenade para mi Voz" (1962) and "Divertimento" (1968), I've tried to bring back, using the electronic medium, recollections of the chamber music of the 18th century not by pretending to revive the classical form but by taking a thought or an idea that could have inspired music at that time and could also do it in our age. The elegance of the classical Divertimento has always interested me for within the Suite form can be outlined the "Variation", the "Dance" or the "Reprise", all in an extroverted mood, full of virtuosity and good humor.
The realization of my Divertimento is wholly electronic while its organization is greatly dependent on mathematics and biology. A kind of bio-chemistry which consists of transforming sound molecules into cells, tissues, organs, and bodies, and feeding them from the same vital tension that gives energy to the whole as well as to each one of its parts. In this way, the composition laws of the sonorous unifying elements have been the determining factor in the structure of the work, since I believe that through electronic music we can establish space-time-structure relations that can be projected in the micro form as well as in longer time lapses with the same degree of significance. In other words, I believe that the unifying factor of the form-matter (energy-matter) which has been lost, acoustically speaking, in our present-day instrumental music can be found again in the electronic medium, and this is, for me, the main reason for working out the musical-technical problems that are inherent in this form of communication. -- Jose Vicente Amar
AMBIENCE - 6:23 Min.
The source material for Ambience was produced on an "instrument" consisting of three electric bass guitar strings strung lengthwise across a long board, with a bridge and a small magnetic guitar pickup at each end. Two modes of sound production were used. One, in which transversely placed metal pipes were rolled up and down the length of the strings, of multiple glissandi. A second, predominant texture was produced by causing a number lengths to "oscillate" or rock across the strings (rather than to roll lengthwise).
This basic recorded material was then extensively transformed electronically by filtering, heterodyning, ring modulation, speed changes, etc., an 6' finally an overall structure was composed of variously complex superimpositions and juxtapositions of the two basic textural types. A light controlled channel-speaker distributing device used in the original qaudrasonic version further emphasizes this textural contrast in that gliding textures have a predominantly circling movement around the listening area, while the more active, rhythmic textures move disjunctly.
The intention of the piece, originally conceived for performance with the Atlanta Contemporary Dance Group, is to create an impression of actually being swept up in a familiar yet mysterious sound-atmosphere or ambience - perhaps somewhat like the experience of driving alone in a car at night - a sense of increasing absorption and identity with the surrounding sounds - the motor, rushing air, tires on pavement, vibrations, etc. -- Richard Allan Robinson
For the last three years, Dartmouth College has held an annual competition for electronic music. The winners and finalists' works from the first competition were released by Vox two years ago and we at Dartmouth felt gratified by the warm critical response to the recording. We were also pleased that the competition gave the public an opportunity to hear some of the best works by new and younger composers.
The judges for the second competition were Lars-Gunnar Bodin from Sweden, Charles Dodge and Pril Smiley from the Columbia-Princeton Electronic Music Center and Kenneth Gaburo from the University of California, San Diego. They chose the winning works anonymously after listening to nearly one hundred different entries. The winning composers were Peter Glushanok, an experienced film maker who has a small electronic music studio in his home, and Peter Klausmeer, a graduate student at the University of Michigan. The two finalists were Walter Kimmel,who is director of the electronic music studio at Moorhead State College,and Raymond Moore, who is a recording engineer for a large record company.
There were over two hundred entries in the 1970 competition which meant nearly a week of listening for judges Sal Martriano from the University of Illinois, Francois Bayle of France and James K. Randall of Princeton University. Again the prize was divided between one of Chile's leading composers, Jose Vicente Asuar and Richard A. Robinson, the director of the Atlanta Electronic Music Center. The finalists were Jean-Claude Risset who works in Marseille, France, but who realized his work at the Bell Laboratories in New Jersey,and Jonathan Weiss, a Composer in his early twenties who is in residence at the R.A. Moog Co. in Trumansberg, New York.
The listener to this album will hear enormous diversity in the approach used by the different composers. The following comments about the works were written by the composers themselves.
Jon H. Appleton, Director
Dartmouth Electronic Music Studio
Side I - 22:53 Min.
IN MEMORIAM FOR MY FRIEND HENRY SAIA - 10:35 Min.
Completed in early 1969, this piece was begun as an experiment in textures from concrete sources, and was developed as an elegy in memory of my friend Henry Saia who died by suicide just a few months before.
Henry's transient and restless quality, seen through the eyes of his friends who discussed him interminably; his depressions lightened by a sense of humor, and his life which ended without hope despite the jokes and the friends, broke traumatically into our unawareness. -- Peter Glushanok
CAMBRIAN SEA - 6:18 Min.
This piece was put together in the University of Michigan Electronic Music Studio in January, 1968. There is nothing particularly complicated about the material used; all the sounds are electronic in origin.
White noise formed the basis of the first couple of minutes of the piece. The signal was into several components, filtered through two Krohnhite band-pass filters, re-mixed and shaped by a Moog envelope generator-voltage controlled amplifier combination.
The "metal" sounds were made by modulating a mixture of three sine waves with a white noise signal whose short attack & decay envelope came from the Moog equipment mentioned above. An old tube-type balanced modulator was used here. The "belch" sounds were made in a fashion similar to that of the metallic sounds, except that a very low sawtooth wave was the modulating signal instead of the white noise, the frequency of one of the sine generators being altered by hand during the decay of the envelope.
With the return of the sea sounds at the end, the piece is closed off in the age-old, time-tested A-B-A fashion. -- Peter Klausmeyer
"TRIP THROUGH THE MILKY WAY - AN ELECTRONIC PANORAMA" - 5:57 Min.
The three basic motives of "Trip Through the Milky Way - An Electronic Panorama" are: a twenty-three-note row in which the interval of a fourth appears thirteen times; a series of thirteen fourths; and a sine wave glide tone whose ups and downs are governed by the interval of a fourth. All of the motives were created with a sine wave oscillator.
Several one-voice lines were created from these three basic motives. They in turn were copied - halving or doubling the tape speed, and hence creating a building block - i.e., a four-voice unit.
These building blocks were then combined so that in the middle of the composition there are sixteen distinct lines on each stereo channel and thirty-two in the center (Two channel version). . .. ...
Hence, "Trip Through the Milky Way - An Electronic Panorama" is a multi-voiced (64) canon at the octave.
The composition was not a planned trip through the Milky Way but rather after the fact. When it was finished (March 1969), the structure and contour of its sound densities and intensities were not unlike a sound picture (or, if you will, Panorama - in the four channel version) of a trip through the Milky Way.
Since April 1969, there have been performances of the "Trip...." in Sweden by the Fylkingen, and Rikskonserter groups, by the Swedish Radio and at the opening of the United States Cultural Center, Stockholm, Sweden, in the music-light-dance festival "Action Center U.S.A." In the July 1970 issue of High Fidelity, "Trip Through the Milky Way" was awarded Honorable Mention in its Electronic Music Contest of August 1969. -- Raymond Moore
Side II - 24:00 Min.
DIVERTIMENTO - 7:05 Min.
In works such as "Serenade para mi Voz" (1962) and "Divertimento" (1968), I've tried to bring back, using the electronic medium, recollections of the chamber music of the 18th century not by pretending to revive the classical form but by taking a thought or an idea that could have inspired music at that time and could also do it in our age. The elegance of the classical Divertimento has always interested me for within the Suite form can be outlined the "Variation", the "Dance" or the "Reprise", all in an extroverted mood, full of virtuosity and good humor.
The realization of my Divertimento is wholly electronic while its organization is greatly dependent on mathematics and biology. A kind of bio-chemistry which consists of transforming sound molecules into cells, tissues, organs, and bodies, and feeding them from the same vital tension that gives energy to the whole as well as to each one of its parts. In this way, the composition laws of the sonorous unifying elements have been the determining factor in the structure of the work, since I believe that through electronic music we can establish space-time-structure relations that can be projected in the micro form as well as in longer time lapses with the same degree of significance. In other words, I believe that the unifying factor of the form-matter (energy-matter) which has been lost, acoustically speaking, in our present-day instrumental music can be found again in the electronic medium, and this is, for me, the main reason for working out the musical-technical problems that are inherent in this form of communication. -- Jose Vicente Amar
AMBIENCE - 6:23 Min.
The source material for Ambience was produced on an "instrument" consisting of three electric bass guitar strings strung lengthwise across a long board, with a bridge and a small magnetic guitar pickup at each end. Two modes of sound production were used. One, in which transversely placed metal pipes were rolled up and down the length of the strings, of multiple glissandi. A second, predominant texture was produced by causing a number lengths to "oscillate" or rock across the strings (rather than to roll lengthwise).
This basic recorded material was then extensively transformed electronically by filtering, heterodyning, ring modulation, speed changes, etc., an 6' finally an overall structure was composed of variously complex superimpositions and juxtapositions of the two basic textural types. A light controlled channel-speaker distributing device used in the original qaudrasonic version further emphasizes this textural contrast in that gliding textures have a predominantly circling movement around the listening area, while the more active, rhythmic textures move disjunctly.
The intention of the piece, originally conceived for performance with the Atlanta Contemporary Dance Group, is to create an impression of actually being swept up in a familiar yet mysterious sound-atmosphere or ambience - perhaps somewhat like the experience of driving alone in a car at night - a sense of increasing absorption and identity with the surrounding sounds - the motor, rushing air, tires on pavement, vibrations, etc. -- Richard Allan Robinson
Labels: Avant Garde Project, jodru, Jose Vicente Amar, Peter Glushanok, Peter Klausmeyer, Raymond Moore, Richard Allan Robinson
posted by jodru at 19:36
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