Windowed 1 (2006)

for Percussion and Tape

Duration: 2x 5'05"

Premiere: 10.7.2006 Freiburg, Musikhochschule; Max Riefer, Mariko Nishioka, Perc.

First piece dealing with fragmented sound files. It exists in two versions.

Version 1 (Alexandre Babel)

Version 1 (Max Riefer)

[Score as pdf]

Version 2 (Mariko Nishioka)

[Score as pdf]

Version 3 (Ane Marthe Holen) - Part of Audioguide

Programme Note

Inspired by Gerhard Richter's Firenze pictures (a collection of holiday photos, which are partly covered with abstract layers of paint) and in the course of my diploma thesis on "post-serial structuralism", I thought about possibilities of combining concrete material and structuralist parametric composition. Working with granular synthesis on the computer, I finally came up with the idea of systematically working out different degrees of recognizability in sound files by "windowing" volume, from tiny colorful shreds to the temporary unfolding of an idiom. In this way, transitions can be made from 'absolute', parametrically organized music to existing, 'object-like' music, and vice versa. I call this approach 'music with music'.

windowed 1 can be worked out in several versions. The permanent structure is given, a stochastic distribution of different long sections; the sound material behind it is individually selectable, plus the instrumentation of the percussion part. The drums are not a homogeneous instrument, but a collection of instruments from different cultures, which each have their own character and can unfold, depending on the space one allows. Their significance is particularly emphasized in the surroundings of many excerpts from different music. On the other hand, the multiplicity erases partial meanings, or they compete with each other, depending on duration, density and other parameters of sound treated here strictly structurally.
We always get to hear excerpts in the piece - one stands in a house and looks out through different windows.

Johannes Kreidler, July 2006

Programme Note for Version 1:

For some years now, my compositional work has concentrated on the idea of "music with music": reproductions of music are collaged and digitally altered, re-contextualized with live instruments and overwritten. Through all possible processing techniques - cutting, transposing, filtering, layers, damping etc. - and instrumental combinations I explore the field between "pure" sounds with a certain parametric order and "meaningful" sounds with empirical values.

As material I mainly use flat, anonymous pop music, which can be used as a medium for a new music. It is also the everyday acoustic reality, the media noise, which I musicalize again (I deliberately use poor Mp3 quality for this).

"Windowed" conceptualizes this approach to the temporal fragmentation of sound files that are constantly running in the background; they are "windowed". Depending on how far the window opens, one takes only an unspecific sound fragment or a stylistic identity. In addition, the drums - also a collage of instruments from very different backgrounds - play similar punctual actions. In the middle section the opening and closing is also materially tested with the hihat.

Johannes Kreidler, October 2011

Eric Derr has written an analysis of the piece.