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Fluid Dynamics

Maggi Payne

  • Année de composition: 2002
  • Durée: 11:48
  • Instrumentation: support stéréo

Stéréo

Ce texte n’est pas disponible en français.

My original intent for this piece was to use two very rhythmical sounds which I had recorded — a raucous faulty faucet in the men’s washroom near a Concert Hall and a gently squeaking gas service regulator outside of Lisser Hall, both on the Mills College campus. As the piece developed, though, the rhythmic elements were set aside as the more subtle sound of gas traveling through the pipes and the softer purring sound that the faucet made on its way to the clacking rhythm took over. To these sources I added the sound of a large steel ball and a small brass ball bearing being propelled across a wooden floor, a spare MCI tape machine part rolling in a circular pattern on a linotype sheet, and a roll of very thin brass sheeting gently swaying. The other main sound is that of a large steel ball rolling down two strings of a miniature koto-like instrument I bought at Cost Plus many years ago. Paul Dresher’s use of a ball bearing rolling on his string instrument (quadrachord) in his work Sound Stage reminded me of this fascinating sound, and I could not resist using a highly processed version of it in the final section of the piece.

The sources are processed using phase vocoding, convolution, granular synthesis, equalization, and extensive layering, and although a residual attachment to the original sounds remain, their origins are at times rather obscured. The spatialization is natural. Static sources are convolved against naturally moving sources so that they take on the spatialization characteristics of the moving sources.

These sounds held such fascination for me in the intricacies of their timbres, the smallest perturbations being so audible in the loudest and in the softest sounds. The dynamic potential is almost visceral for me. It is as if the listener is inside of these entities, exploring every detail from the inside out rather than being an outsider looking/listening in.

[source: maggipayne.com]

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Distant Thunder

Maggi Payne

  • Année de composition: 2003
  • Durée: 10:48
  • Instrumentation: support stéréo

Stéréo

Ce texte n’est pas disponible en français.

For me this work conjures up images of being in the desert while watching distant thunderstorms roll across the sky, accompanied by the unforgettable sweet smell of desert rain. These storms are particularly beautiful as the rain clouds build, break apart, and reform, sending tendrils of rain down, most of which evaporate long before they touch the desert floor. My original intention was to use the sounds of a resonant floor furnace and various adhesive tapes slowly unrolling as the primary sound sources, but after recording the furnace, I boiled water for tea, and could not resist recording the sonic patterns that emerged. I did use the sound of the furnace, but the tape unrolling was used only to impart natural spatialization through convolution with other, more stationary sources.

[source: maggipayne.com]

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Arctic Winds

Maggi Payne

  • Année de composition: 2007
  • Durée: 9:51
  • Instrumentation: support stéréo

Stéréo

Ce texte n’est pas disponible en français.

(Where I’ve never been, but dream of.) Arctic Winds is sparse, with occasional frantic “windstorms” stirring up the vast frozen expanse. Everything is suspended, in near silence, with occasional forays dropping low into blasts of “wind.” Each sound is crystallized, exaggerated, as in our dreams. The primary sound sources are dry ice and several sizes of ball bearings rolling across a variety of drumheads, attached and unattached. I started working on this piece when I had a 102 degree temperature coupled with chills for three days. I suspect that experiencing those internal extremes conjured up those beautiful arctic dreams and this somewhat over-the-top, playful piece.

[source: maggipayne.com]

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Glassy Metals

Maggi Payne

  • Année de composition: 2009
  • Durée: 10:00
  • Instrumentation: support stéréo

Stéréo

Ce texte n’est pas disponible en français.

A continuation of my fascination with the sounds of metal objects, Glassy Metals explores the sounds of tungsten filaments in burned out incandescent light bulbs, magnetic (iron oxide) tape rushing across a head stack, small ball bearings, ball chains of various sizes, sheet metal, tiny gear motors, bikes, BART (Bay Area Rapid Transit which permeates the sonic landscape of the San Francisco Bay Area), freight trains, and various other metal objects.

Some sounds are used in their raw state; others, such as the BART train, which now sounds like the wind, are transformed beyond recognition. Selecting only small portions of the spectrums of several sources and layering them results in new constructs with constantly fluctuating details. The ending exaggerates these perturbations, as sources emerge from the texture and fold back in as if they are fluttering insects hovering close to us briefly, then flitting away, only to return later. Although several sources are cyclic, none are precisely so, nor are they synchronous with other sources combined in the layers, so apparent synchronous relationships occur briefly, then drift apart.

Glassy Metals takes its title from non-crystalline (amorphous) metallic materials.

[source: maggipayne.com]

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FIZZ

Maggi Payne

  • Année de composition: 2004
  • Durée: 10:18
  • Instrumentation: support stéréo

Stéréo

Ce texte n’est pas disponible en français.

There were two sounds that primarily sparked this piece. The first was a barely audible disequilibrium in a toilet tank. This almost inaudible sound was cyclic, but constantly changing, with a faint rising squeak that occurred at the valve where the rod attaches, coupled with trickling water going down the refill pipe, so there was a squeak, trickle, squeak, trickle sequence. I stretched this out using granular synthesis and layered the results. There is an ebb and flow that naturally flows across the channels. It’s the long section that occurs after the rhythmic high pass filtered faulty faucet valve that begins the piece. Disk drives on/off spiral us out of that section into a gratis section in which a malfunction in my system caused the loud cyclic low frequency feedback. This is accompanied by fizz, a sound which I’ve always loved but never got a good recording of until a student, Alison Johnson, brought in a wonderful recording of fizzing. She divulged her method to me, sparking this piece. The fizz and the feedback are totally unprocessed other than slight equalization. Although some sounds may be somewhat identifiable, hopefully the listener will explore the piece purely for its sonic content.

[source: maggipayne.com]

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Surface Tension

Maggi Payne

  • Année de composition: 2010
  • Durée: 9:50
  • Instrumentation: support

Stéréo

Ce texte n’est pas disponible en français.

Beneath the water’s edge in the tidal wetlands, a lively sonic world far beyond human’s limited hearing range flourishes. Using hydrophones, I captured some of these sounds, including sea creatures, ripples, bubbles, and sand, shells, and pebbles carried by wave motion. I lashed the hydrophones to a long bamboo pole, capturing the howling wind resonating through the cables and pole. Some sources are revealed as they originally sounded; others are highly processed. There are other sounds, including a whistling metal rack attached to the bed of a pickup truck speeding across a San Francisco Bay Area bridge, cicadas, and a whirling Euler’s disk, which forms the final section.

Constant motion drives this work. Space is expanded, contracted, explored to its farthest boundaries, with trajectories swirling and sweeping across both the “under” waterscape and the “over” landscape.

[source: maggipayne.com]

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