Snowflake
Sound Piece generated based on the formation of a snow flake
6 Players invited to record individual pieces based on time and tempos divisible by six.
The resulting music was then collated, arranged and processed to create a one hour music piece.
OTR009LP 2014
The project began upon seeing a video of Ukichiro Nakaya creating artificial snowflakes in a laboratory in 1936.
With further research into snowflake formation I devised a set of rules for players to perform by.
All snowflakes follow one rule, they have 6 sides.
So I chose 6 players and asked them to watch a small film I had made cutting from original footage of Ukichiro Nakaya creating snowflakes.
In reaction to this I asked each player to compose and perform a piece of music with their given instrument based upon a predefined 6 note scale and instructed each player to record at 60bpm.
Each player was also given a length of time to play for, from 1 to 6 minutes at 1 minute intervals.
They were told that silences and spaces were as welcome as noises and notes and that was all.
They did not hear each other parts.
Once I received all the audio I set about constructing a piece of music around these parts.
The Vinyl contains 6 remixes of 6 minutes each in length.
The CD contains 1 one hour piece of music arranged and processed from the players original audio.
There is also a free download with the release, a live cassette performance using tapes that loop at 1 to 6 minutes lengths.
The players are as follows:
Russell Burden – Harmonium, 1 minute. Web - starbathing.com | instagram@starbathing.com
Marissa Katarina Bergmann - Voice, 2 minutes. Web - aimari.com
Bill Seaman – Piano, 3 minutes. Web - billseaman.com
Emmanuel Witzthum – Viola, 4 minutes. Web - witzthum.webs.com
Danny Norbury – Cello, 5 minutes
Thomas Ruhe (father of Bryan Ruhe) – Trumpet, 6 minutes. Web - worksbyruhe.net
Vinyl - Reworks by the humble bee
Side A.
Ice (snowcello) 6 min
Flurry (snowvoice) 6 min
Side B.
Drift (snowtrumpet) 6 min
Rime (snowpiano) 6 min
Blizzard (snowharmonium) 6 min
CD - Original score
snowflake 60 min
etching set
‘snowflake’ 6 min original film
Blizzard (snowharmonium) 6 min