Music made with Faust

LINKS AND GITHUBS OF PIECES MADE WITH FAUST

Inharmonique (1977) for voice and electronics by Jean-Claude Risset

Fil de Soi 1 (2016) for guitar and live electronics by Alain Bonardi

CONCERT WITH FAUST PIECES

TUESDAY DECEMBER 1, 2020 - 6 p.m. (UTC + 1, Paris time)
The concert is available on the live YouTube channel:
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCVEwT7M9N_3X5tA1tuU6u-A

La danse des sphères (2019) for mandolin and real-time electronics by João Svidzinski

Cage Series (2019) installation by Allen Weng (video)

Lorenz Dream (2020) audiovisual by João Svidzinski

Lire de soi (2020) for mandola and real-time electronics by Alain Bonardi

Mandolin and mandola: Florentino Calvo

La danse des sphères (2019) for mandolin and real-time electronics was premiered in October 2019 as part of the project "Créer, (re)créer, valoriser la musique faisant appel à l’informatique au XXIe siècle". The piece was composed at the same time that the composer was working on the real-time version of Jean-Claude Risset's Inharmonique (1977) and on his composition Les cris du sixth siècle (2019) for soprano and real-time electronics. The two pieces were created in November 2019. Thereby, La danse des sphères contains common traces between these pieces, in particular the same digital environment. The electronic part of the piece consists of seven modules coded with Faust, including a harmonizer and granulator and an object-oriented control script coded in JavaScript. The modules are assembled in a Max patch. The Faust objects are connected in series and in parallel with the principle of reinjection matrices in order to create complex structures. This compositional technique will be presented on December 2 in IFC-20.

Cage Series (2019 is created during the pandemic of COVID-19, which is aimed to explore the imagination of the “post-biological era”. The work consists of three themes: “Radio” in a bird cage; “Gestation” in a hamster cage and “Castaway” in a fish tank.

The smartphones in the cages will play the role of “pet” with not just new technologies, but also our personal data, memories and the communication trace of the internet. They will either “dialog” with you, either present you in a virtual online meeting, or show you how they fuse with biological intelligence.

It is sometimes kind of “caricature”, golden mean but indifferent, that’s because more than enough to cope with you, they prefer to be alone and updating themselves. Cage for them is maybe a temporary isolation and just a self comfort for you.

The creation of the audiovisual piece Lorenz Dream (2020) was scheduled for November 2020 during the concert Mixed and electroacoustic music for the clarinet as part of the project "Créer, (re)créer, valoriser la musique faisant appel à l’informatique au XXIe siècle". The re-creation of a revised version of Jean-Claude Risset's Attracteurs Étranges (1988), for clarinet and synthesis sounds, was also planned for this concert (due to Covid-19, the concert was postponed to 2021). Thus, Lorenz Dream refers to Attracteurs Etranges (Strange Attractors). The visual part was generated with the software Processing. For this, differential equations were used to generate chaotic behaviors. The electronic part is similar to La danse des sphères: modules in Faust, in particular a harmonizer and a granulator with reinjection matrices and an object-oriented control script coded in JavaScript. To this is added a sampler produced in Max. Sounds of the clarinet are used as the original sound material referring to Attracteurs Etranges.

Lire de Soi was composed during summer 2020, as my first piece after the strange period of lockdown due to coronavirus that put a stop to any desire for composition. At least, summer brought back some appetite and enabled the writing of the piece. Its title Lire de Soi indicates some proximity with my previous pieces for guitar and live electronics Fil de Soi 1 and 2. The design of the live electronics in Faust language uses the same modules. But the title (which means ‘’Reading from Yourself’’ in english) also refers to the ambient surrounding of networks permanently trying to read information from what people have in their mind, without leaving them time to do it by themselves and for themselves.

In this piece, I have worked on the idea of tremolo, which seems to me one of the most important play mode at the octave mandola. Tremolo in the instrument part of course, as well as tremolo in the electronics. Live sound processing is here based on delay lines used in two different ways: either as chains of delays enabling to create rhythmic motives at a certain tempo, or as infinite delays with a high reinjection closer to tremolos. The second ones can be considered as the limit of the first ones when for instance the tempo increases. This design is explained in my paper “An example of design of chains of delay lines in Faust languages for pedagogical and creation purposes in mixed music” to be presented during the IFC20 Conference.

Vertically, an aggregate composed of intervals of major thirds augmented of a quartertone is used to provide instrumental and electronic material. The octave mandola is tuned using a scordatura on one of the G and one of the A strings.

The piece is dedicated to Florentino Calvo, a wonderful mandolinist I am very happy to collaborate with.