This is a stereo presentation of a live multi-channel music and dance collaboration, which was scheduled for performance in May 2020 but canceled due to Covid lockdowns.

The piece features a 23-channel speaker array which the audience freely moves through during the performance. The pre-recorded audio works in conversation with the dancers and the live percussion (performed in this version by overdubbing on a Tascam 4-track using a well-worn Maxell cassette).

The technical approach to the multi-channel audio is to split a single note into it’s harmonic components, which is known as the harmonic series. The harmonic series is the set of resonances that make up a single pitch. Unlike western “Equal Temperament”, the tuning relationships between the notes of the harmonic series are in perfect simple ratios (2/1, 3/2, 4/3, etc.) These ratios are easily identifiable by the human ear. The human ear has evolved to hear the harmonic series because it is a natural phenomena. The tuning system that best represents this set of tones is called “Just Intonation”.

One of the many psychoacoustic effects achieve when you are experimenting with the individual tones of the harmonic series is difference tones. One example of a difference tone: when playing only the higher tones from a given harmonic series and omitting the lower tones, the human mind will insert the missing tones, giving you the perception of the entire harmonic series. Track 01 on this album demonstrates this idea. You are first presented with the fundamental tone, and then the higher partials of the harmonic series for this note fade in over time one after the other, while the lower partials and the fundamental fade away. As this process is happening, you are only hearing one single pitch that may sound like it’s timbre is changing. In fact, it is the volume array associated with the individual tones of the harmonic series that defines timbre. It is this audio illusion that much of this album is focused on working with.

The exposition material is a single note split up into it’s component parts that cascades through the room, each individual tone being played from a single speaker, and each tone being presented in the order and ratio that it naturally occurs relative to the fundamental (ƒ1/1,ƒ2/1,ƒ3/2,ƒ4/3, etc). However, as the piece develops, this idea is modified in various ways. During a single cascade of tones for a given fundamental note, the fundamental note changes in the middle of the phrase, causing a tonal shift to occur. As the further develops, the tones are presented in ways that do not occur in nature ((ƒ4/3)/4,(ƒ3/2)/2,(ƒ2/3),(ƒ2/1)*2, etc).

If you imagine a large instrument playing a single note, the individual speakers would represent component parts of this note. The resonating body of this large instrument would be the room around the audience. For example, one could imagine listening to a violin concerto from inside the body of the violin, the individual tones of each single note swirling around the audience as the overtones move from speaker to speaker.

This also produces a psychoacoustic effect related to how we perceive the location of a sound. Because the true origin of the fundamental note would be from multiple locations, it is difficult to perceive from where the note is in three-dimensional space. The fundamental note is coming from everywhere in the room at once. As the listener moves through the room, the spatial origin of the pitch doesn't change, but rather the timbre of the pitch. (for example as the listener walks towards a speaker that is producing a higher overtone, the timbre of the fundamental note may sound a bit more sharp). Additionally, the natural resonances of the acoustic space in which this work is presented will add an element of color and depth into this system.

When presented in stereo, unfortunately, most of these dizzying spatial effects are lost. None-the-less, this stereo version provides a rough outline of the full piece's shape and demeanor.

The smooth and steady tones used on this album to illustrate the ideas from the harmonic series are contrasted against the motoric percussion grooves. These grooves, recorded on a Tascam 4-track tape recorder, help the listener achieve a meditative state, also allowing the strange and sometimes piercing tones to be a little more palatable. The well-worn Maxell 90-minute cassette tapes and the dusty tape recording heads help temper the sounds of the percussion, cutting the hi end frequencies, adding a subtle warble, and adding a noise profile that is very familiar, and one that is not easily achieved by digital means.

Some listeners of this music may find the higher partials to have a piercing and unpleasant quality. I ask the listener to relax this instinctive reaction, since these tones are vital to the experience of the music. Allow the piercing high tones in, give them a chance to be heard and felt. Allow the high tones to come and go like waves, as you relax, floating in this overtone ocean.