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| 2026 |
For
Stereo Speakers (Use earbuds, headphones or large system) Total duration = 11'15" |
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Spanner Stack, Four
(2026) is based on a close-miking of numerous stackings and unstackings
of spanners (wrenches) inside a stainless steel bowl. This was my first
experience with 32-bit float technology using a just purchased
recording device within a highly specialized isolation booth doubling
as a guest room closet.
The improvisational strategies applied to these found instruments were simple by default. Unlike the larger found instruments I've improvised on before, as in Flat Works (2024), where the topography of the object guided much of the action, the spanners are mallet sized, accustomed to being held and would rather strike than be struck. The metal bowl was more typical here and used as a container, albeit a resonant one. Short of a wrench acting as a mallet, an invitation for mirroring, while trying to overcome the peculiarities of this new technology, I opted for the obvious—to simply stack and unstack the items inside the metal bowl over and over. As these spanners are not made for stacking, are awkward to place/perform between a bowl edge and a microphone hovering just above, conditions favored free fall gravitational forces throughout. |
Four Moveable Sections One, 2'18" Two, 3'14" Three, 3'04" Four, 2'41" The upside here was that unstacking the spanner stack enabled longer events, where metal bowl sounds came to the fore sometimes as marvelous dragging sounds. As wickedly difficult as it is to control wrenches in this environment, even as they innocently waited selection, here and there, without warning, one would leap, escape?, to the carpeted floor just out of my reach. This inadvertently shortened recording takes while providing some pleasant timbral and temporal variety. |
Performance Ordering: SSF
may be performed sequentially, as presented in the middle column, or
reordered both with a brief silence between sections. Or they
may be presented as a stereo-quad work, with one section played over
the front speakers, another over the back speakers both performed
simultaneously or brought in gradually, that is, as if interwoven. It
is Ok
to perform only one, two, or three of the sections. Or the sections
may be interspersed between other compositions on a concert. Any
combination of works may be used for dance accompaniment. Contact
the composer at rakutoo
(at) icloud dot com for the 32-bit float .wav versions of SSF. DS032726
Dan
Senn (Prague-Watertown) is an
intermedia artist working in music composition and production, kinetic
sound sculpture, experimental and documentary film. He has been a
professor of music and art in the United States and Australia and
travels internationally as a lecturer, performer, producer and
installation
artist. He lives in Prague where he directs the Echofluxx festivals,
and Watertown, Wisconsin, the USA, with his partner-collaborator,
Caroline. Dan's work moves freely between expressive extremes and
languages depending on the aesthetic joust at hand. He is cofounder
of Roulette Intermedium of New York
Cty (Brooklyn), Cascadia Composers of
Portland Oregon, and the Echofluxx
media
festivals in Prague. (read more)
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