| The inspiration for The Insect Musicians comes from this Oriental poetic tradition. In the West there has been the odd exwnple of nature and formalism colliding in music, eg "The Flight of the Bumblebee", and recently Messaien's transcriptions of bird song, rather more beautiful. But they are always perfortned on instruments of the modem orchestra, and only bear an awkward timbral relationship with the songs they would imitate. Now, for the first time, digital technology allows the sampling and manipulation of any natural sound source. Man can now see nature in a new light, and relate to it in complementary, creative ways. The insect produces sounds which go far beyond the boundaries of natural perception: m their pitch (which is often too high); in their rhythms (which are often too fast); and in their timbres (which can be too complex). i) Only a few of the insects are ever heard by man, and still fewer in the industrialized West. Best known, of course, are the crickets, grasshoppers, and cicadae. But a great many others produce sounds of communication and by virtue of their other activities. One of most important roles of the new technology is to bring these silent songs into the human acoustic and time scale. ii) Furthermore, by being able to sample and use the sound itself, and variations of it, we have the possibility of the creation of new instruments, entire new orchestras of timbres. iii) And in the microscopic analysis of the sounds and their organization ... |
