Scythe

Scythe was written in 1994 as my main submission piece for MA in Electro-acoustic Composition and Aesthetics. I wasn’t all that keen on doing the Aesthetics part of the degree but actually found the work very rewarding. I wrote an essay titled “The Semiotics of Electro-Acoustic Music” and another on the work of Xenakis.

It was the first year they were using Logic and ProTools. At the time, both were quite expensive, and there was only one ProTools suite for all the Post graduates, so as an MA student i was mainly using Logic, only using ProTools towards the end of my year there. In this piece i tried to obscure all the sound sources, using mainly outboard gear including a Publison (not sure which model) and at that point, a stand alone version of GRM tools. There are gestural themes that repeat and develop. The main metallic sounds come from 2 knifes struck against one-another. other noises include: rustling a plastic bag, chopping carrots, wooden percussion and cello.

I had themes that develop and return, making the piece hang together and there’s a lot of rhythmic elements to the compound gestures.

This youtube video displays my score for the piece which you can follow along with the music.

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