Conscious Sound

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Conscious Sound was commissioned by Festival Mixtur 2014 and premiered by Ensemble Taller Sonore on April 25, 2014, at the Fabra i Coats in Barcelona. In Conscious Sound, each instrument is treated as an imaginary pulse generator, in a way that a continuous sound consists of a series of audible fast pulses. This concept is prominent throughout the piece. However, to achieve this effect, I had to redefine the “default” sound of each instrument. For the violin and the cello, the strings are detuned over an octave lower than normal. The very loose strings allow vibration at a very low frequency almost like pulse generators. The same effect has been achieved for the clarinet using a patent-pending ultra-thin synthetic reed I developed for the piece. Finally, to achieve the pulse like effect for the piano, I used sounds from inside the piano such as slow scraping with a plectrum longitudinal to the low register strings.