Composing as patching : analog synthesis, listening and informed sound

Abstract

In this report, I will use audio signal processing as a metaphor for describing my musical composition and performative soundscape “Gita, to guess.” The metaphors I will use are drawn from independent synthesis modules that are found on my modular synthesizer. The sounds that I produce with my modular synthesizer depend on the interplay and relationship between these individual modules. “Gita, to guess” is a mixture of performed soundscape and spoken narrative, superimposed with music compositions influenced by jazz. Excerpts and paraphrases of the 2009 English translation of the ancient Hindu text “The Bhagavad Gita” by Eknath Easwaran are used as the text in “Gita, to guess.”. This report represents a template for my method of composing. In this method, I approach the compositional process in the same way that I approach modular synthesis patching. ​Rather than approaching composition as through-composed--composing in a linear order--the composition is made up of sections or modules that inform each other. “Gita, to guess” was composed using this template.