Landscape with figures II

String signals

The string signals were planned in the sketches as general principles for ritual[1] elements of variable duration, to become 10 String signals.

At times they are stretched into more meditative situations, especially towards the end of Landscape with figures II. One string player plays a percussive sound while others play chords of normal notes or harmonics, in mechanical repeats and poly rhythms. The function of percussive sounds change as they drift against the chord element; the attack sound, an independent sound, or the cutoff sound. This issue of syncronization is related to random superposition of elements in the sound installation. Fragments of basic musical situations, like chords versus attack sounds, will have different functions based on the context they appear in.

The first String signal is a rapid exposure of the idea.

AD String signals 1

In the last String signal the idea has been streched out.

CG String signals 10

The String signals are mechanical situations.

"The researcher can only describe, for instance, the seasonal rotation of a place based on four general types of sounds: natural, animal, technical, and human."[2]

Sounds and types of musical ideas can thought in such categories. A metaphorical world, or a 'terrain', places the human within a larger context of nature, animal and the mechanical.