Qualia

A  predominantly vocal album including interpretations of Nils Frahm ‘In the Sky and on the Ground’ and Steve Reich ‘Clapping Music’, it brings together pre-composed and improvisation pieces including ‘Us Two Too’ a 12 tone vocal version of a piece originally written for percussion, trumpet and doublebass.

Purchase on :

Bandcamp: https://georginabrett.bandcamp.com/album/qualia

Apple Music: https://music.apple.com/us/album/qualia/1717994500

Track 1.  Burrows – I improvised for over an hour in an empty swimming pool in Summer 2013 at “The Ov London Improvisation Festival”. Beginning with a chord on the 1st and 4th note of the scale, a high pitched percussive rhythm fades in and new long notes surround the rhythm and new rhythms supercede and fade. At the halfway point the chord changes to contain a new delicate 4 note phrase that brings mystery and low note ostinato heralds high notes and percussive scurries in polyrhythms to a close.

Originally uploaded to Soundcloud in 2013 this piece brought me Soundclouder of the Day award. Which in turn was picked up by CDM who wrote an article about my work a few days later.

Here’s the article: cdm.link/2013/07/hear-the-gorgeous-ethereal-vocal-music-of-georgina-brett-and-more-live-looping/

and a film of the performance:
www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xv0iwJF5dos

Track 2. Clixtingnesses – A diversion from my usual style of vocallive-looping. This piece is almost all percussive with no deliberately pitched notes.. using ‘whooshing’ and ‘shhh ing’ and ‘clucking noises’ in pulsating polyrhythms, fading in and out of view..

This piece was part of Lonely Impulse Collective written in 2020 during lockdown as part of Emily Suzanne Shapiro’s ‘Lonely Impulse Collective’. where a new piece by a roster of composers was loaded up each day.

Track 3.  111 Follow OM – Beginning with (and throughout) the sound of a 111hz tuning fork. Although there is little sound from a tuning fork in the air, placed close to a microphone the sound is picked up and amplified. The pitch is perfect for a male bass voice and can be sung as an Aum as in Buddhist practice. The vocal ostinato at 222hz (an octave above) appears shortly after the 111hz drone. A percussive beat fades to vocal vowel O-E drones which promote harmonics… the higher harmonic notes are then sung and towards the end an undulating phrase with harmonies closes the piece.

111 Hz is associated with the production of endorphins. This healing frequency assists in cell rejuvenation and regeneration. By producing endorphins, 111 Hz relieves pain and elevates mood. It can increase feelings of overall well-being, empathy, and improves focus and memory.

Track 4. Shimmer – At the time of recording this, (2019) i was using Ableton Live and a custom 6 channel surround plugin, i had 6 mini speakers set up in a rectangle in my studio. The use of this plugin created tracks that appear and disappear as they oscillate from speaker to speaker as this recording is only 2 channels of the full 6 channel set up.

It was a particularly lovely way to work as sometimes the tracks shudder as the oscillation is quite fast and other tracks meander into view and fade gradually. With Paul Bangash on guitar and pedals and Martin A. Smith on keyboard/synth. There is some real time manipulation of the oscillation times also.  Guitar – Paul Bangash, Keyboard – Martin A. Smith

Track 5. The Light Returns – Made up of a collection of harmonic vocal lines and short delays, this piece uses 3 complimenting timings to create polyrhythms with the phrases. Quickly alternating between the 3 Boss DD20 delay pedals the timings create a web of rhythmic echoes.

Towards the end the melodies stabilise to a high drone and a feedback ‘whistle’ is brought into the composition to fade.

This piece was part of Lonely Impulse Collective written in 2020 during lockdown as part of Emily Suzanne Shapiro’s ‘Lonely Impulse Collective’. where a new piece by a roster of composers was loaded up each day.

Track 6.  Us Two Too – A 12 tone piece which I wanted to sound as easy to hear as possible.

I wrote the bones of this piece at the Banff Centre for the Arts Canada, in 1993 where i had won a month scholarship shortly after completing my undergraduate music degree. I wrote a piece for double bass, vibraphone, trumpet and electronics, which was performed at the end of the residency. The piece was called Us Two Too and as yet i haven’t uploaded the original recording.. I still have the music and some of the recorded sounds which i developed in the studio. I was trying to construct music that made sense, and seemed to not be too dissonant, using all the notes of the 12 note scale. So i divided them into 3 groups of 4 notes… 5ths piled on top of themselves, group 1 (- D flat, A flat, E flat, B flat) and group 2 (- G, D, A, E), and Dim 5ths group 3 (- C, G flat, B, F). I organised the music so group 1 notes can interchange with group 3 notes and Group 2 notes can also interchange with group 3 notes but group 1 and 2 cannot share notes.

Here i improvise with those groupings in mind, especially the long note 5ths that ascend a semitone each, creating a haunting quality to the music.

This piece was written for the 121212 project available here. livelooping.bandcamp.com/album…

Video by Psiclick, live sound painting unique technique.
www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ye_LE3fDn78

Track 7. Qianization – Remix of Nils Frahm’s piano piece, “In the Sky and on the Ground”. It’s one of Nil’s simplest pieces with beautiful and powerful harmonies.

At the time of recording this, (2019) i was using Ableton Live and a custom 6 channel surround plugin, i had 6 mini speakers set up in a rectangle in my studio. The use of this plugin created tracks presenting the chords, (of which each had their own delay time echo), that appear and disappear as they oscillate from speaker to speaker as this recording is only 2 channels of the full 6 channel set up.

It was a particularly lovely way to work as the chords meander into view and fade gradually. Their sonic placement in the stereo field being rhythmically different to the delay on the presented chords.

Qianization is a made up word. I was trying to find a title for the piece and came across the Chinese word ‘Qian’ which translates as ‘forward’ and added the suffix -ization, as a ‘going forward state-of-being’.

There’s a video version of this track on Youtube, video by Terry Payman
www.youtube.com/watch?v=mOKuxLluKnU 

Track 8.  Qualial Coalition – This is a vocal version of ‘Clapping Music” by Steve Reich.

The first section of the piece adhers to the 12 beat, 8 note phrase that cycles around in all it’s 12 permutations all on one note. The piece then heads off into firstly percussive descriptions of the 12 rhythms and then harmonic ostinatos. It ‘s a long piece, with a lot of sonic variety, but all the vocal lines adher to one of the 12 note rhythmic phrases despite which note is being sung.

“‘Qualia’ are defined as instances of subjective, conscious experience. The term derives from the Latin meaning “of what sort” or “of what kind” in relation to a specific instance, such as “what it is like to taste a specific apple — this particular apple now”. Examples of qualia include the perceived sensation of pain of a headache, the taste of wine, and the redness of an evening sky.” (from Wikipedia)

Qualial Coalition is a phrase i made up, but can be interpreted.. Qualial as a word is not in the dictionary.

Here is a movie i worked on to compliment the music and title…
www.youtube.com/watch?v=W2Fu5f9c8A8

Want to search my catalogue? Go to Compositions Spreadsheet