Musical Banditry HOME | PROGRAM NOTES
"Lesser artists borrow, great artists steal" ~ Igor Stravinsky
About the Music
Concatenative Variations of a Passage by Mahler (2005)
At around 6 AM one quiet spring morning (in 1999) I was sitting in front of A. Rodin’s massive "Gates of Hell" at the outdoor Rodin sculpture park at Stanford University, CA. Once or twice every five minutes I would hear a loud knock from the doors. After some initial “panic," I realised the cold sculpture was expanding from the rising sun.
The movements in this composition culminate my creative research in concatenative sound synthesis (CSS) [1]. A direct correlate of this synthesis technique is the photomosaic: like arranging small pictures to form from a distance a bigger picture, CSS arranges snippets of sound from some corpus to mimic characteristics of a target sound. Each movement of this composition arises from a target (or corpus) that I created from the famous drum crescendo of G. Mahler’s second symphony, which, programmatically, is the opening of the gates of hell. Each movement serves as a study of some aspect of CSS, whether it be tightly restricted distance measures, synthesis window sizes, or other effects applied such as convolution or randomisation. The sound materials I use to create the corpus for each movement are specified below (much of which is "stolen"):
"Gates I (The opening)”: recording of a real iron gate I made at Rock of Cashel, Ireland (summer 2000); me “playing” “at” a trumpet.
“Passage I”: five different recordings of this passage by Mahler (Solti, Kaplan, Walter, Horvat, Rattle).
“Saxubus”: Anthony Braxton’s 1970 album, “For Alto”.
“A capella”: several freeware vocal samples from a CD-ROM accompanying a popular “Computer Music” magazine in 2004
“Limbo”: Reader’s Digest 3-CD collection of music from the Lawrence Welk show
“Lix Tetrax”: A recording of Jean-Pierre Rampal playing Bach’s Partita for flute (BWV 1013).
"Boils and Bells”: A sound effects CD (household sounds, including “man falling off ladder”)
“Gates II (The closing)”: recording of a real iron gate I made at Rock of Cashel, Ireland (summer 2000); me “playing” “at” a trumpet.
See [2] for a legal analysis entirely excusing my banditry with reference to precendent in US Code.*
B.L.S.
[1] B. L. Sturm, “Adaptive concatenative sound synthesis and its application to micromontage composition,” Computer Music J., vol. 30, pp. 46–66, Dec. 2006.
[2] B. L. Sturm, “Concatenative sound synthesis and intellectual property: An analysis of the legal issues surrounding the synthesis of novel sounds from copyright-protected work,” J. New Music Research, vol. 35, no. 1, pp. 23–33, 2006.
* Please don't sue.
Etudes and Parodies (2005) is dedicated to William Purvis, Professor in the Practice of Horn and Chamber Music at Yale. It won the first prize in the International Horn Society's composition contest in 2005. The piece comprises of a set of etudes for the French horn designed to showcase a spectrum of capabilities of the instrument (and the horn player's technique). From Lansky's notes in the score (dated 4 June 2005):
"Round and Round" focuses the ability of the instrument to sustain long golden tones. Horn players have all survived hours of practice on 'long tones.'
"Tongue Tied" is all about articulation, fast slurs and staccato notes in alternation (as in the inevitable Kopprasch Studies).
"Call Me" plays with the well-known ability of the instrument to make impressive large ascending leaps (in Strauss' Don Juan, for example).
"Make it Short" is again about articulation, this time concentrating on round, open-ended staccato notes, frequently alternating with longer notes.
"Naturally" is the obligatory experiment with overtones, and celebrates in particular the 7th, 10th and 11th harmonics. (Fingerings are provided in this movement, but for notes other than the ‘out of tune’ 7th, 10th and 11th harmonics, alternate fingerings can be used if it makes it easier.)
"Been Here Before" exercises the player’s command of fast, linear tunes, much like a jazz improviser.
"Pavane Noire" celebrates the instrument’s golden mid-register. The title refers to the famous horn solo in Ravel’s Pavane pour une infante défunte and the fact that the movement is reminiscent of film noir scores.
While my Guitar Gently Weeps (1968), widely regarded as George Harrison's best Beatle-era song, was recorded by the Beatles in "the White Album" with Eric Clapton as lead guitarist. Harrison credited the I Ching and the concept that "whatever happens is all meant to be" with the inception of the piece. As reported in The Beatles Anthology (2000), while at his mother's house in Warrington, Harrison decided to "write a song based on the first thing I saw upon opening any book." Upon picking up a random book and opening it, he saw 'gently weeps' and proceeded to write the song. The song, in the key of A minor, has a distinctive ground bass, a repeated harmonic scheme, that features a "lament"—a descent from the tonic to the dominant filled in with half and whole tone steps that are harmonised. Harrison chose to fill in the descending interval with chromatic notes like so: {A, G#-G, F#, E}.
About the Composers
George Harrison (1943-2001) was lead guitarist in The Beatles, and composer of some of their most memorable songs.
Paul Lansky (b.1944) is Professor of Music Composition at Princeton University. He was a former student of George Perle, Milton Babitt, and Edward Cone and is known primarily as a computer music composer, and is recognised for his early work as a pioneeer in the development of computer languages for algorithmic composition. In recent years, he has turned his attention to composing for acoustic instruments. As this focus of this concert is on cross-genre sampling in his work, it is worth mentioning that Lansky is no stranger to this practice. Four looping chords from his computer tape piece "Mild und Leise" (1973) provided the harmony for Radiohead's song "Idioteque" in their album Kid (2000). The synthesized vocal line of Lansky's computer music piece "Her Song" from Six Fantasies On a Poem by Thomas Campion (1979) was sampled by Caural in "I Won't Race You" in the album Mirrors For Eyes (2006). In this concert, the tables are turned as we hear Lansky's sampling of a popular piece in the classical idiom. — more about the composer's work at paul.mycpanel.princeton.edu
Bob L. Sturm (b. 1975) is currently a Lecturer in Digital Media at the School of Electronic Engineering and Computer Science at QMUL, teaching signal processing, and researching machine music listening and evaluation. He was persuaded to pursue a career in signal processing because of his interest in music, and electronic music in particular. He has studied electronic music and composition with Prof Curtis Roads (UCSB), Prof Jonathan Berger (Stanford), and Dr. John Drumheller (CU Boulder). His debut album, “Music From the Ocean” (2000), was favourably reviewed by Aquarius Records and swan fungus. It currently has 526 scrobbles and 9 listeners, at last.fm. From 2000-2002, he was the conductor of Fern Street Marching Band, a neighbourhood circus marching band in San Diego. — more at www.eecs.qmul.ac.uk/~sturm
About the Performers
Joel Ashford is a first year student of Jeff Bryant at the Royal College of Music where he is an ABRSM Scholar and an RCM Foundation Scholar. He was a pupil of Sue Dent at the RCM Junior Department for several years, where he won a number of prizes for solo performance and the Esther Coleman prize for outstanding contribution; he has also received several young instrumentalist awards outside RCM. For three years he was principal horn of the National Youth Orchestra of Great Britain, and was a winner of their John Fletcher brass prize. In 2012 he was selected for the London Symphony Orchestra Brass Academy and in 2015 he toured with the European Union Youth Orchestra as part of the Leverhulme Summer School. Professional engagements to date include Strauss’ Eine Alpensinfonie with the Philharmonia Orchestra and the summer 2014 ‘That’s Entertainment’ tour with the John Wilson Orchestra. He has performed as soloist in concertos by Haydn, Mozart, Strauss, Glière and Schumann; he has also given solo and chamber recitals in venues around England and Wales including the Royal Albert Hall Elgar Room. Engagements for 2016 include the Brahms horn trio with Fenella Humphreys in St Mary’s Perivale, Strauss’ 2nd horn concerto with the Brent Symphony Orchestra and Schumann’s Konzertstück with Kensington Philharmonic Orchestra. — more at joelashford.co.uk
Elaine Chew is Professor of Digital Media at QMUL, where she serves as Director of Music Initiatives and co-Lead of the Cognition, Creativity, and Expression research theme at the Centre for Digital Music. A pianist and operations researcher, she uses mathematical and computational techniques and scientific visualisation to make apparent the thinking behind the performance and understanding of music. She is a frequent invited scientific keynote speaker, and performs as soloist and chamber musician. She has recorded Peter Child's music for Neuma and Albany records; a collaboration with Child and conceptual artist Lina Vista Grønli led to a new composition titled Practicing Haydn (2013). Her 2014 monograph, Mathematical and Computational Modeling of Tonality: Theory and Applications is the first music theory book published by the Springer International Series in Operations Research and Management Science. — more at www.eecs.qmul.ac.uk/~eniale
Keunwoo Choi is a PhD student at Queen Mary University of London and his research interests lie in developing music recommendation algorithm based on machine learning. Keunwoo Choi received an B.S degree in Electrical Engineering in 2009 and an M.S. degree in Electrical Engineering and Computer Science in 2011, both from the Seoul National University, Korea. After graduation, he worked for three years as a researcher in the Electronics and Telecommunications Research Institute, Korea.
Florian Guillaume is a singer, guitarist and songwriter. He is the frontman of the London band "El Deyma" and works closely with the National Conservatory of Paris on multiple musical projects (El Deyma, Leaky Earplug Memory, Gobz) He graduated from the Cours René Simon in Paris as professional actor he played during 5 years for the national Japanese TV NHK in Gallix production educational program. He directed 5 music videos of the band El Deyma.
Giulio Moro achieved an MSc with distinction in Digital Music Processing at Queen Mary University of London, where he currently is a PhD student at the Centre For Digital Music. His research is mainly focused around gesture and expressivity on the Hammond organ. He has toured Italy, Europe and China as a guitar player for Italian songwriter Giorgio Barbarotta, he is currently working on a new album with London-based rock band El Deyma. He is also founder, developer and guitar player for the "I - a two sided Hikikomori" project.
Elio Quinton is currently a PhD student at Centre for Digital Music, Queen Mary University of London, in collaboration with global cloud music provider Omnifone. His research interests are in the area of the large-scale music and audio processing, and more precisely focus on automatic rhythm analysis. Elio received his BSc and MSc in Physics and Nanoscience with distinction from Grenoble-INP in 2009 and 2011 respectively. He also holds an MSc in “Arts Science and Technology” from Grenoble-INP. Pursuing his musical endeavor, he obtained his diploma of Commercial Music Performance from London Tech Music School in 2012, specializing in drums. He has since then worked as a session musician before he undertook his PhD project.
Graduating from the Guildhall School of Music and the Royal College of Music with solo, chamber and contemporary music prizes, Hilary Sturt performed on both violin and viola with Ensemble Modern for the next 20 years. She has been guest leader of many British ensembles and chamber orchestras, and is currently a member of the Rasumovsky Quartet and Apartment House, winners of the Philharmonic Society Award for the Most Outstanding Chamber Music in 2011. Hilary is much in demand as a teacher, adjudicator and conductor throughout the UK. She is Head of Strings at St Paul's Girls' School, Professor at the Royal College of Music, a Diploma examiner for the Associated Board and an examiner for AQA exam board. Last summer Hilary recorded the new 2015 syllabus Grades 1-4 for the Associated Board.
Florian Thalmann is a postdoctoral researcher in semantic audio, computer music, and mathematical music theory at the Centre for Digital Music at Queen Mary University of London. He holds degrees in music theory, art history, and computer science from the Universities of Minnesota and Bern and is particularly interested in ontological and mathematical representations of music, creative processes, gestural control, and musical spaces and transformations. Florian is also a performer and producer of improvised, popular, and computer music.