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In the photo, Greg has just activated clock I by enabling both the MSBs and the LSBs. This action runs the clock at its top speed, which is on the order of 200 beats per minute. Unfortunately, a problem with clock I has slowed its output considerably. After the session from which this video still was taken, Greg removed the faulty clock for some time on his bench.
(Later.) With the clock up to speed, the SalMar was a whole different beast. Tweaks to the instrument continued as I worked with it in the month leading up to T. Lang‘s arrival. I put in about two two hour sessions per week. I began to make recordings during this time. I started by miking the instrument, but ended up taking a direct output via the headphone jack on a mixer. The SalMar currently outputs four channels, down from its former 24 speaker glory. I brought a small Behringer mixer over to Sousa from Dance to accomplish the mix.
Artistically, my goal in these recordings was to try to make the instrument execute a coherent piece. With the clocks and patching correct, I worked at establishing a beat, creating syncopations, capturing envelopes, working with modulation and feedback, and holding notes. At first, Scott and I had trouble getting the instrument to speak at all sometimes. In the end, I had the opposite trouble: the dreaded stuck note. The time-share programming allows the user to access the large instrument panel’s clocks and oscillators in pairs. There are four programming locations available. Program 1 accesses (stores) two oscillators, one on each side of the board. Only one program can be active at a time. Clocks are routed to oscillators in pairs. Say you’ve stopped a clock and a note is sounding. It can take a moment to identify the oscillator producing the note. In a frantic situation, that moment seems very long indeed. Each oscillator can be addressed only when its program is active. The pairing of programs and oscillators and clocks and oscillators are not matched. Clock I is paired with oscillators 1 and 2, while program 1 pairs oscillators 1 and 5! I often pondered the psychology of the instrument as it reflected back on the mentality of its creator. The words ‘genius’ and ‘diabolical’ often came to mind.
The coherent pieces had the familiar tripartite classical form: Fast/slow/fast, with perhaps a moderate or non-metrical introduction. These effects were created by manipulating clock speeds and turning oscillators on and off. The instrument chooses envelope, pitch and timber, though these parameters can be limited by choosing pitch range MSBs, note repeat, waveform MSB or noise MSB. It is not a hard and fast choice; the SalMar still makes the call, just not as often. I did not explore modulation much, putting this aspect (an important one) in the future file. I have mentioned that an envelope can be captured. The SalMar, left to its own with a clock patched to a pair of oscillators, will offer up a continuously shifting array of envelopes, each molded somewhat (though not entirely, of course) by choices made in the attack slope, sustain, and decay slope MSB section. A snapshot can be taken of the envelope at a particular point in time, which I called ‘capturing an envelope.’ The actual term on the panel is “oscillator sample.” This is more accurate, because it also captures the waveform. This doesn’t mean that the intsrument will produce a continuous, unmodulated tone. The key concept, and the one that reflects the mentality of Salvatore Martirano, is that the instrument is designed to offer possibilities, to push back against the player, to offer unthought of creative suggestions. Playing it is, as Sal said, a dialogue.
The overall shape of a composition can be planned, but the details will always vary.
When T. Lang arrived, she stood before the SalMar holding a cup of that fine Sousa/CAM coffee and got an earful. I’d been a bit nervous about her reaction, especially since she was calling the piece she was about to make “Mutha/Mother.” She mentioned in an e-mail that she intended to explore the feminist implications of the expletive ‘motherfucker.’ A quick peek at the urban dictionary connected it right up with the situation of profound disempowerment women faced in the system of “chattel slavery.” I had a hard time imagining that she would take to the SalMar’s blips and beeps. I took my preparation in the direction of making rhythmic noise. (Noise is not pejorative when speaking of synthesis.) The SalMar proved quite capable of dirty fatness (or fat dirtiness?). In the rehearsals and performances with T. Lang, which took place via highspeed internet point to point with the rehearsal space (DRK) and Krannert’s Playhouse theater, I took to matching the energy of the dance using the clock altering techniques I’d developed, and trying (not completely successfully) to prompt the instrument to say the word (‘mofo’).
The performances went well, with no technical difficulties. I had some visitors at the CAM, including Dorothy Martirano. Dorothy watched the performance on the monitor intently. T. Lang bookended the SalMar segment with recorded music. I performed along with the entire dance, mostly for my own enjoyment and for the benefit of those watching my performance. In the theater, the SalMar was crossfaded to and from on cue. I heard that the instrument sounded great in the theater, played through a surround sound system with ample sub-woofers. The sound at CAM is poor. The speakers in that space are inadequate for the full range of the SalMar.
So far, documentation of the dance performance is not available. It will likely be a second semester project.
A few days after the November Dance show ended, Scott started talking about doing an on-line streamed concert. I was in favor of this, since I wanted to explore some of the features on the SalMar that my work with T Lang didn’t touch on. Scott hired ATLAS to do the video stream. This took place on Sunday, December 11th. The link takes you to a page at the CAM/Sousa site, where, if you have bandwidth enough, you can watch the entire two hour performance.