Musique D’ Ombre
Musique d’ Ombre is a live musique concrete creation with sound artist Jonny Farrow in which the principles of Pierre Schaeffer‘s concept of Acousmatics, or sounds removed from their source, are explored. Schaeffer was bolstered in his concept making by the understanding that the great Greek mathematician and teacher Pythagoras taught his new pupils from behind a screen for the 1st year of their instruction, in hopes of aiding their obviously confused minds.
The piece involves a loose structure and score outlining sound palate and duration. In this performance I added live Foley to my sounds. My research suggested using cornstarch for the sound of walking through snow and breaking Styrofoam for the sound of metal bending and magnetic tape for the sound of walking through grass. We perform the entire show behind a scrim and a lighting designer lights us with moving sources from behind. From the perspective of the audience the visual experience is somewhere between a shadow play and a magic lantern.