This piece was originally composed to make use of an early Swedish invention by Göran Svensson called 'Svenssonlådan' - loosly; the Svensson Box. It was an original and early attempt at creating an interactive electronic music instrument. It was adopted by the basoonist Knut Sønstevold for whom Manipulation III was originally written. The instrumentation was for two basoons or basoon and cello, which is the version we will do.

At an early stage we decided to not try to implement a digital version of Svenssonlådan but rather make a 'transcription' of the electronic processing used in the piece. The score also offered some guidance. The scheme below is taken from the score and is basically what we now have implented in Max/MSP:

* A signal routing patch.
* Support for pedals controlled by the musicians.
* A harmonizer.
* A delay.
* A reverb (echo).
* A filter.
* A ringmodulator.

In addition to this we also have a little mixer controlling all inputs and outputs and a cuelist for parameter updates. Following the ideas put forward in this document, each module has its own preset file with the cuelist acting as the 'conductor' of these 'players'. I.e. the cuelist is not controlling parameter updates but rather changeing presets.

In a few days we will test the patch for the first time.

Attached is the first list of works proposed by representatives from ensembles associated with the Integra project, and the research centres assigned to migrating those works.


migration_proposals.pdf

Jonathan Harvey recently visited the studios in Birmingham to test out the system prepared for Madonna of Winter and Spring. Overall, he seemed pleased with the sound quality, system responsiveness and user interface, although there is still work to be done in order to make the system useable in a professional production. Details can be found on the Harvey Project weblog here.

A working system for performance of Madonna of Winter and Spring is currently being prepared for Beta testing. The attached document gives details of progress so far.

integra_Harvey_update.pdf

Wlodzimierz Kotonski - Spring Music for flute, oboe violin and synthesizer (tape)

Spring Music was composed in 1978 for instrumental trio and live electronics + tape and was a typical composition from 70-ties mixing up two basic forms of electronic resources: tape part and live electronic part on synthesizer, however the electronic part played live was an essential eletronic element of the piece. Since the original form was performed mailny by using Synthi AKS, analog synthesizer from E.M.S. London and additional part was performed by many different analog synthesizers available in 70-ties it was quite important to consider different, alternative forms of performance. I was playing the piece several times with the musicians from Muzyka Centrum Ensemble from Krakow. I include the score of the piece, as well as the short remarks describing the set up and arrangement of Synthi AKS and Casio VL-Tone, used for the most of the performances.

Marek Choloniewski , Academy of Music in Krakow

Marcin Wierzbicki prepared the new Max/MSP version of the electronic part of Spring Music by W.Kotonski to be performed live on the concert on December 14, 2005 . His conisderation includes the following information concerning all mentioned above.

Synthesizer (tape) any type of synthesizer may be used although an instrument with two keyboards or two connected instruments with single keyboard are necessary. The synthesizer player operate also the tape recorder at the begining of the piece.

Guidelines for the synthesizer: A (page 4) prepare the setting as follows: while pressing the E-key, first tune oscillator nr. 1 one octave above the depressed note and then tune oscillator nr. 2 a perfect fifth above oscillator nr. 1 Connect outputs of both oscillators with two inputs of a ring modulator. Mix the sounds from the oscillators and from the ring modulator together. Use a short, guitar-like envelope

B (page 6) connect two square wave oscillators tuned in unisonwith two inputs of a ring modulator. The slight differences in tuning (less then 0.5 Hz) may positively influence the tone colour changes.

C (page 10) use freely chosen combination of instrumental type sounds. Prepare separately a very high, piercing small bell-like sound.

D (page 12) use the same combination as in guideline C but 2 octaves higher.