Notes for the work, Bent Echoes for Flute, Clarinet, Guitar, Soundfile
and Boomboxes (2004) by Rusty Banks
(comments by the composer)
Bent Echos is another piece that uses Poor Boy Surround Sound.
This is in no way affiliated with LucasSound, THX or anyone else and I am
not trying to advance myself on their good name.
The instrumentation is Flute, Clarinet, Guitar, Soundfile, and Boomboxes
(3).
Unlike other pieces I've done using this presentation, the boomboxes will
be more directly imitative of what the performers are doing.
Also different this time: I'm am limiting the electronic sounds to
cheesy synth sounds. I have never used synthesized sounds. I have
always used recorded samples spliced together and manipulated in sound editing
programs. When one avoids synth sounds in favor of "found sound, "
this is called Musique Concrete. This piece does not make use of Music
Concrete, it uses synthesized sounds. I deliberately used synth sounds
found in many bad pop songs from the 1980's. The way I used them, however,
is very different.
The title, Bent Echos, is partly descriptive in that performers play motive
that is echoed in the boomboxes but with a different timbre (sound quality)
and fidelity. So the *echo* is *bent*. It is also a tribute to
the group I wrote it for, Bent Indigenous. Christy Banks and I play
with a flutist in Birmingham named Donnie Ashworth, or a flutist here named
Betsy Bobenhouse. The southeastern version of Bent Indigenous premiered
Bent Echos at a Birmingham Art Music Alliance concert which featured the group
doing works by composers living, working, or from Alabama. Now the
midwestern version of the group will perform it at this New Music Agency concert.
rb