Date of Submission

Spring 2014

Academic Programs and Concentrations

Music

Project Advisor 1

Robert Bielecki

Abstract/Artist's Statement

In devising this project I was interested in taking dub, a form of music which is generally relegated to a studio setting, and adapting it to a live one. I wanted the players to have a palette with a similar margin of preordained elements to improvised ones as that of the engineer. In addition, I wanted the audience to be able to experience these two modes of real-time musical decision-making in isolation from one another. The score that I wrote is essentially a piece of graphical notation made up of four types of events with distinct functions, each represented by their own shape. The players read the score through the use of a legend that corresponds to their instrument, which contains instructions for interpreting the events. The instrumentation of the piece is electric guitar, electric bass, piano and drums. Simultaneous to the players performing the score, an engineer rearranges and processes the elements according to use of the score in conjunction with their own improvisational whim. This is done through use of a mixer and various pieces of outboard gear. This dub half of the performance takes places in an adjacent room to that of the instrumentalists, with a set-up mirroring that of the live room/control room set-up that one would normally find in a recording studio. During the performance, the audience is free to move from one room to the other, in order to get a sense of the raw sound as produced by the instrumentalists, as well as the dub sound as produced by the engineer. However, the participants can only hear the sound that they are producing in their respective rooms.

Open Access Agreement

On-Campus only

Creative Commons License

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