The wind is a restless and
devious presence in our lives, revealing itself as an
invisible, tactile experience, and aurally only in what it is
interacting with. It can pretend to speak to us with a voice
when it passes through a narrow opening, or it can even
resemble a musician when it activates a string – the Aeolian
effect – or resonates a tube with its breath. And its moods
can range from being a relentless, stormy foe, to the most
gentle of caresses. This piece propels us through its
repertoire, eventually enveloping us in an ocean of
transcendence. As the late poet, Norbert Ruebsaat, expressed
it in The Blind Man:
the wind is
invisible,
it does not want to know;
already it has come
and is leaving again
heave a sigh,
the wind
will not resolve this problem
How The Winds Caressed Me
is available on sonus.ca
Original recordings from the WSP Recording Collection and
the composer's cellphone recordings, including those of the Schonbeck collection of musical
instruments at MassMOCA (Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary
Art) in North Adams, MA, particularly those involving metal
strings or tubes. Sound processing realized with Soundhack
Convolution and Mutation, with spatialization created by
Harmonic Functions’ TiMax2
matrix mixer, marketed by Outboard Inc (UK). No granulation
techniques were used in this piece.
A detailed documentation of the entire work, its sources,
processing and multi-track mixing scheme is available on the
WSP Database (truax@sfu.ca for guest access), as well as the
8-track soundfiles for performance.
