What The Waters
Told Me (2022) (11:37)
How The Winds Caressed Me
(2023) (12:20)
When The Earth Mourned For
Me (2024) (12:20)
This trilogy of recent pieces attempts to blur the distinction between natural and human sounds, mainly by bringing out voices from each of three of the primary elements water, wind and earth without privileging their human counterparts. However, as this process moves to its completion and hopefully its transcendence we combine those voices with their human equivalent in a more balanced and exalted unity. In the current ecological crisis, we may come to understand ourselves as an integral part of our environment that we need to respect.
What The Waters Told Me: If we listen carefully to flowing water in all of its varied forms, we may begin to hear voices and ascribe human emotions to them. The voices may be argumentative, even angry, as at the start of our journey, but suddenly they become hushed as we enter a large cavern. A mysterious voice seems to give us commands as we await the next stage, while ethereal voices guide us along. The commands become more insistent until the waters burst forth with transcendent song in a celebration of water and life.
How The Winds Caressed Me:
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 gentlest of caresses. This
piece propels us through its repertoire, eventually
enveloping us in an ocean of transcendence.
When The Earth Mourned For Me:
With each passing day, we see evidence of our deteriorating
environment and that evokes in us a personal and collective
grief. We mourn for the earth, but if we listen to its cries,
does it also mourn for us, the instigators of its demise? This
piece invites us to listen to the voices of the earth that may
emerge even from what we have extracted from it. The journey
proceeds in four overlapping sections: Choir, Lament, Anguish,
and Threnody.
Note: The three pieces are completely documented in the author's HTML Documentation which is part of the WSP Database (for guest access, email truax@sfu.ca). Stereo versions are available on sonus.ca
Barry's
introduction to The Elemental Trilogy (as part of the
NAISA Festival, June 6/26) along with the music and accompanying
spectrograms can be seen here.