Naada Sketch 1: Breath/Krishna by rustyjoe
I have been lucky enough to be working in India in the city of Ahmedabad for the past 7 weeks, as part of an Australian Government Asialink grant. I have been doing most of my work here as an Artist in Residence at the Darpana Institute for Performing Arts and Culture in Ahmedabad, headed by the great Mallika Sarabhai, a dancer of the highest calibre by trade, and a formidable public figure whose works champion social action and social change for a predominantly Indian audience.
I have been given the task of writing the music (and creating the sound design) for a new Darpana Dance Theatre production, called the Naada project, to be staged for their main annual arts festival in Dec 09. Without going into too much detail, the Indian (from Hindu Mythology) concept of Naada is, in a broad sense, all about the origins of sound and music. It is interested in the concept of the 'first sound', which is one of the conceptual starting points I have chosen when creating new musical material for the piece.
Thus far, the music is structured as a series of vignettes (and this form may change once the performance material is created) which feature a particular instrument and sound world. At my disposal I have the resident musicians at Darpana, who are basically a Southern Indian Classical 'Carnatic' Ensemble - a singer, 2 percussionists, a violin player and a flute player. Along with myself on percussion/live electronics and effects we make up the band for the production. I am really also into the idea of using live processing of sounds (using Ableton and Max) to create a sense of magical realism, where a known and real sound (the featured acoustic instruments) becomes something unbelievable and magical. I like to think this can tie in well with the elements of Hindu Mythology in the piece also. Enough talking already, onto the music.
The first example (player above) is a mock-up of an opening introduction piece featuring Darpana's Rajesh on flute. It takes as a starting point the length of one breath, and the simple idea that the piece emerges from one breath/one note and gradually becomes a new, magical world of sound. It is trying to create/emulate the natural ambient sound of the wind first, which then gradually becomes a single note sound, which then is layered to become a harmonic sound. In this case, the harmonic layers built up are pretty static and modal, over which Rajesh then plays an Alap, or slow (almost timeless) improvised introduction.
For those Ableton/Max nerds out there... the live processing going on is the live clip recording in Ableton of a single flute note played by rajesh, which is put through 4 granular delays, whose 'pitch' setttings are automated by a simple max patch. The patch follows the envelope of each note, and then changes the way the single note is treated harmonically by moving on to the next preset 'chord' of pitch automations for the granular delays. This auto-harmoniser-like effect is then looped as a ~1min long clip over which Rajesh then plays his alap. The whole time this is playing I am sampling what Rajesh is doing in a simple way using the looper plugin, and then finally adding rhythm to the wash of sound made by processing the sampled sound through the autofilter and beat repeat plugins. A single granular delay (which is automated/changing pitch) is constantly processing what Rajesh is doing live.
