Riverrun is entirely realized with the method of sound production known as granular synthesis. With this method small units or 'grains' of sound are produced, usually with very high densities (100-2000 grains/sec), with each grain having a separately defined frequency and duration. When the grains all have similar parameters, the result is a pitched and amplitude modulated sound, but when random variation is allowed in a parameter, a broad-band noise component is introduced.
All sounds in this piece were generated with real-time synthesis by the DMX-1000 Digital Signal Processor, up to a maximum density of 2375 grains/second. However, in many cases, lesser densities were also used since often the progression from isolated sounds or a rapid sequence of events to a fused texture is the most interesting feature of the synthesis method. All layers were multi-tracked with four simultaneous stereo versions and later up to 32 such tracks were mixed. Considerable use was made of ramps applied to the synthesis variables; that is, certain parameters were made to change over time at a specific rate, sometimes with several parameters simultaneously ramped at different rates. Therefore, all sound in the piece is in a constant state of flux, much like environmental sound generally and water sound in particular.
The fundamental paradox of granular synthesis - that the enormously rich and powerful textures it produces result from its being based on the most 'trivial' grains of sound - suggested a metaphoric relation to the river whose power is based on the accumulation of countless 'powerless' droplets of water. The opening section of the work portrays that accumulation, as individual 'droplets' of sound gradually multiply into a powerful broad-band texture. The piece, I find, also captures some of the awe one feels in the presence of the overpowering force of such a body of water, whether in a perturbed or calm state, and as such it seems to create a different mode of listening than does conventional instrumental or electroacoustic music.
Riverrun is available on the Cambridge Street Records and Wergo CD Digital Soundscapes, as well as the GMEB CD Cultures Electroniques 6.
Riverrun was commissioned by the Music
Section of the Biennale di Venezia with the financial
assistance of the Canada Council, and was premiered at La
Biennale in 1986 as part of the Nuova Atlantide project
organized by Alvise Vidolin and Roberto Doati. It was awarded
the Magisterium at the International Competition of
Electroacoustic Music in Bourges, France, in 1991.
Watch the 2013 video interview
of Barry with Michael Clarke discussing Riverrun and
the evolution of real-time granular synthesis
plus a video
demonstration of the program that realized it
**
The new Octophonic
version was
realized in 2004, and it is that version on which this
analysis is based **
Spectrogram analysis of the last section of the work
Reviews:
Riverrun is obviously a virtuoso demonstration of the techniques of granular synthesis ... but it is also a massive noise sculpture whose sheer physical power approaches that of Iannis Xenakis's classic electroacoustic Bohor I ... The music is undeniably attractive ... (James Wierzbicki, Musical America)
"Barry Truax gave listeners a great gift - a new eight-channel version of his 1986 work Riverrun. Composed of little grains of sine wave tones and using Truax's granulation technique, this piece follows the course of the origins of a river to its flow into the sea. The poetics of the title are fully realized in this enveloping version that is at once evocative of its own sonic evolution, as well as of the trajectory of a river" - John Oliver, Musicworks 97, p. 55
References:
Michael Clarke, Frédéric Dufeu & Peter Manning, Inside Computer Music, chapter 2 "Barry Truax: Riverrun", Oxford University Press, 2020, pp. 53-85 (full analysis and accompanying software that simulates the piece and all of its component tracks, plus demonstration videos; excerpt here).
Jonathan Sterne, "Multimodal Scholarship in
World Soundscape Project Composition: Toward a Different
Media- Theoretical Legacy," in Sound, Media, Ecology,
M. Droumeva and R. Jordan, eds., Palgrave Macmillan, 2019.
Michael Clarke, Frédéric Dufeu & Peter Manning, "Barry Truax Riverrun
(1986/2004), A Case Study for the TaCEM Project, Exploring
New Approaches to Techniques of Analysis and Re-synthesis in
the Study of Concert Electronic Works," Proceedings
Presented at the Electroacoustic Music Studies
Network Conference, Berlin 2014.
Albert Bouchard, "Granular
Synthesis and Barry Truax's Riverrun," 2009.
https://econtact.ca/11_2/bouchard_truax.html
Mara Helmuth, "Barry Truax's Riverrun," in M. Simoni, ed. Analytical Methods of Electroacoustic Music, Routledge, 2006, chapter 8, pp. 187-238 (with accompanying DVD with sonograms, sound examples, etc).
Martijn Voorvelt, "The Environmental Element in Barry Truax's Compositions," Journal of New Music Research, 26, 1997, pp. 48-69.
Steven R. Holtzman, Digital Mosaics: The Aesthetics of Cyberspace, Simon and Schuster, 1997, pp. 83-8Denis Smalley, "Defining Transformations,"Interface, 22(4), 1993, pp. 279-300.
