The speakers are divided into 4 groups (pairs, in an octophonic setting) surrounding the listeners. (In the stereo version, each pair is simply mixed in as a stereo file.) Taking after Carter's poly-ensemble conceptions, each group is treated as a separate instrument or ensemble, with its own musical materials (rhythmic, source and processual). During the course of the work, the speaker groups appear separately on occasion, but mostly combine with each other to form polyensembles: duos and trios, and a few tuttis.

As in Part 1, the speakers in front are called the "Solo" pair, generally featuring the most complex and detailed material, the speakers to one side are called "Earth", typically featuring arpeggiated 'mountain sonorities' or Varese-like 'skyscraper chords'. The speakers to the other side are called "Human", and typically feature vocally-derived sound sources, march-rhythms, or 'musical' sounds (like held chords). The rear speakers represent "Water" and often feature highly-filtered, 'submerged'-sounding sound materials.

In the Harvest Kitchen pieces, I continued to make use of the "musique concrete gesture engine" that I had used in Sand and Divertimento, and the Composition for Shitty Piano. A composer enters data about sounds in a sound collection and then specifies musical gestures abstractly by creating parametric profiles called models. Models, realized as sequences of actual soundfiles via database queries, can be written out as mix-files which can then be modified, processed, and mixed. In this way, the submixes of the composition were created; these were then stitched together using ProTools and later, Reaper.

1. Shitty piano (any old upright will do, but if there is a particularly "colorful" one available, super!)
Preferably, the pianist should be able to practice on the piano that will be used, regularly before the performance. If no particularly "colorful" pianos are available, a regular upright can be used, and we can "crappify" it with a tuning device.
2. 2 dynamic microphones (not condenser).

3. Cables (they will go into the FireFace, and then into MAX/MSP for processing).

4. FireFace 800 or similar 8-channel interface. (I have a 400 and may simply upgrade if one is not available onsite).
5. outputs cables from FireFace into the main mixer.

Processing was accomplished with Audiosculpt, MAX/MSP, and various plugins in ProTools, where the piece was mixed. I also used my own found-sound database gesture generation software, in combination with the Ardour mixing application. This is a short companion piece to my longer works in the "Harvest Kitchen" series; it uses the same bank of found sounds. The title is more or less self-explanatory. It features the nutty gestures, off-kilter yet strangely haunting harmonies, and emotive melodrama characteristic of much of my work.

In Balladei, 2 "virtual ensembles" that complement the piano contribute to a (perhaps) quasi-medieval sound: the first, featuring sad recorders, bell-like sounds, and piercing viols, the other made up of honking crumbhorns, some kind of log drum, and lutes. They are tuned in 17 Equal Temperament and 29 Equal Temperament, respectively, which means that at times they mesh well with the piano, and at other times deliciously sour combinations result. Skin drums, woodblocks, cymbals, tam-tams and gongs contribute to a bizarre ritual-like atmosphere.
Balladei will often seem completely abstract, shifting mood and manner rapidly and continuously; on the other hand, a "ballad" is a story, and occasionally, the music lingers for a moment on a narratively suggestive meter, texture or mood. For example, one might hear the solo piano opening (:08-1:06) as a kind of pastorale. The first extended "solo" of the electronic sounds (featuring the recorders and viols) might be heard as a kind of inebriated dream sequence (3:33-4:25). Clear triple meter occasionally breaks in to suggest dances--a formal Elizabethan thing (4:48-5:28), a funeral march (5:29-5:55), (the funereal rhythm outlined primarily by the bass drum), and later in the piece, a crazy rapid jig (11:18 and then at 11:56 - 13:39). At 14:04 - 16:02, another episode of intoxication occurs, as our pianist bangs and shapes clusters played off against muddy clouds of tones in the electronics, perhaps suggesting that the drunken hero of the story mouthed off to someone s/he shouldn't have. This builds to a frightful bar-room brawl, interrupted suddenly as the scene gives way to an odd kind of religious enlightenment: the honky crumbhorns become chanting monks in the low register (16:18 - 17:45).

Throughout the work, the pianist is not so much in the role of traditional virtuosic soloist towering above the "orchestra" of electronic sounds (although the part is difficult and requires intense concentration and attention to detail), but rather, the soloist is like a (sometimes petulant) child, cradled by the electronic sounds constantly surrounding her, sometimes responding to them, other times leading the them to new places, or bursting free of them.

The Trio, capstone of the SL series, is the most deeply felt. Whereas Ooogaah borders on the ridiculous at times, and Conceptual Study is almost 'poppy' in sound, The Trio is a more mystical, spiritual, private experience, journeying through landscapes of delicately orchestrated timbres and harmonies. It erupts, at times, into ferocious rage and explosive gesture, but then just quickly subsides into zen-like tranquility.

The material of the piece is poured into a formal mold suggested by Pink Floyd's famed Dark Side of the Moon album: there are 9 movements (or sections), which run together, separated into 2 large parts; Part II begins with the 'funkiest' (i.e. dance-like) section of the piece, followed by the most envelopingly ambient section; there is a kind of 'refrain' sequence of harmonies that recurs, especially throughout Part I--these are some of the correspondences. In general, the 2 works don't sound alike at all on the immediate surface, but one can hear their similarity in terms of form.

The SL series (which includes the computer-music works Ooogaah: Dungeony Specimen Spaceship, and Conceptual Study) are all related by emphasizing a single rich, complex harmony, based on a root of F. In the Trio, this harmony becomes a "virtual drone"--a drone which is never explicitly or directly intoned, but through and against which the instruments weave lines, counterpoint and harmony. In other words the upper partials and harmonics of this drone 'infiltrate' the otherwise abstract pitch material built by and for the instruments. This sounds like a technical description, and it is a technical description. However, for me, it is a deeply intuitive way of 'feeling' my way through the music--of knitting, plaiting, folding, and twining the music into existance.

ALTERNATE PROGRAM NOTE: My Trio, the third part of the 'SL series' (which also includes Oogaaah: Dungeony Specimen Spaceship and Conceptual Study, 2 works for recorded computer-music), is itself divided into 2 parts. Part II will be heard tonight. Part II begins with various funky polyrhythms in the 3 instruments, with a focus on the piano. After a moment of extreme chaos, and a few moments of 'chanting', the music settles into a slow, multi-pulsating harmonic glow, where it stays for some time. Silence and some vague muttering ensue. After that, it becomes difficult to describe the music sectionally. A few guideposts to listen for include: a series of glissandi in cello and clarinet (accompanied by clusters in the piano), followed by a shattering climax; a bit later on, a warm, C major-ish harmony becomes a kind of refrain: the music moves away from this harmony, and then quickly returns, away and return, again and again, almost like a kind of rondo form. Towards the end of the piece, the music becomes ever more meditative, many triads and other "echoes of the familiar" are touched; the final gesture of the work is a quasi-medieval fade-out.