bannergraphic
Eleven
1982, 2026
by Dan Senn
 		Wise
for Three Flutes and Pre-Recorded Sounds
duration of 6 minutes and 20 seconds
Eleven Wise was first written in Canberra, Australia, in 1982 for the Flederman Contemporary Music Contemporary Music Ensemble. In February of 2020, using the same pitch and rythmic materials, the work has since arranged for three flutes and backing sounds and shortened. The backing sounds were made from a single trombone and a single flute sample manipulated using the Fairlight CMI in the Computer Music Studios at the Canberra School of Music where Dan was a Lecturere I. The pitches and rhythmic changes were calculated using compositional software he was developing at the time called the Raku Composition Program

The banner photo above, taken by the composer in the early 1980s, shows the School of Music where Eleven Wise was composed. The Computer Music Studios were located behind the dark windows furthest to the left, the location of the b/w photo of Dan on the far right. Eleven Wise is the address of a house Dan lived in Braddon, ACT, in the early 1980s, where the notated part of this work were composed,  a double brick cottage that has since been razed.

The Fairlight CMIwas a pioneering digital sound instrument made famous by English pop stars in ways trivial to contemporary music aesthetics. Without the monetary backing from this industry, however, the instrument may not have been further developed. This is much like what has occurred more recently with, say, amazing software like Ableton Live. This work, however, was made by an experimental classical artist, a fluxus artist and interdisciplinary artist, with a strrong leaning toward non-linear and complex vertical textures that supplant the eight bar phrase representing a starkly different creative approach to this amazing invention by Tony Furse.

This work achieve a high level of rythmic complexity using simple live rhythmic patterns as the interact with the flute and trombone sounds on the backing tracks. To enable accurate coordination of the live and prerecorded rhythms and pitches a click track is used heard only in the ears of the three flutists. This was made possible in 1982 using a 4-track reel-to-reel player. The same is accomplished today with software like Ableton Live and an device like like a Focusrite 4i4, the backing sounds on outputs 1 and 2 (these connected to 2 external speakers), the click tracks on output 4 (connected to 3 earphones, one for each player) .     
See/hear performance of Eleven Wise.
Sound only.

To assist realizing the rhythmic complexity of this work I have included a host of videos with sound and sound-alone files below that make understanding and learning the work easier. Click on the files names below to see and hear the work dissected from 17 different angels.
Video note: The green conducting line that marches across the page in the videos below is not sharply accurate so rely only on the click track cues for exact timings.

Key to lists below | VS=video score,
B=backing score, C=click track.
PDF of Full Score.

Video-Audio
1) VS+B+All Flutes
2) VS+B+C
3) VS+C
4) VS+B
5) VS+C+All Flutes
6) VS+C+Flute 1
7) VS+C+Flute 1
8) VS+C+Flute 1

Audio Only
a) C only
b) B only
c) B+C
d) B+All Flutes
e) B+All Flutes+C
f) C+Flute 1
g) C+Flute 2
h) C+Flute 3

I suggest you perform from the PDF score while rehearsing at first with the video score. Whatever works best. The pdf score on a flat screen with a page pedal might be best. PDFs of the individual parts are available below here-> Flute 1, Flute 2, Flute 3.

The tracks needed to assemble the performance files for software like Ableton Live (B+C)  can be had at
rakutoo (at) me (dot) com


Dan Senn working on the Fairlight CMI at the Canberra School of Music, Australia in the early 1980s. Photo by Tim Brook. Click image to enlarge.

Dan Senn (Prague-Watertown) is an interdisciplinary 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 and installation artist. He lives in Prague where he directs the Echofluxx festivals, and Watertown, Wisconsin, the USA, with his partner-collaborator, Caroline Senn. Dan's work moves freely between expressive extremes and languages depending upon the aesthetic joust at hand. Dan is cofounder of Roulette Intermedium in New York City, Cascadia Composers of Portland Oregon, and the dan media festivals in Prague. (read more).