Dronescape <>WAYOUT is a live, microtonal, surround sound performance.
It engages with the WAYOUT artSpace by responsively placing tones from live instruments 18° apart as 10 individually placed speakers or in a stereo field.
The WAYOUT artSpace is a beautiful old-style community hall with solid wooden floors and its specific resonances.
Trevor Brown treats WAYOUT as a giant speaker box, getting the whole space to sing, hum, vibrate and resonate.
In this performance, the tones are generated in real-time by real woodwind instruments and then frozen.
Flute
Alto Flute
Soprano Sax
Alto Sax
Baritone Sax
Clarinet
Bass Clarinet
The performer, in a sense, acts like a giant analogue synthesiser. Each instrument has a character, the clarinets are sine waves, the saxophones, square waves and the flutes, square waves, the breath as various types of white, brown or pink noise.
The various harmonics and flexibilities are available organically through these instruments, engaging the performer’s lungs, lips, and physicality allowing deep micro tuning and sonic colouration. The microtones positioned in the space, create pockets of harmonics, interferences, beats and resonances.
Trevor is interested to engage with the space, and spaces within the spaces: the performer’s lung cavity, the column of air manipulated inside the instrument and the space itself.
The work was performed at sunset on Sat 9th October 2021, as the slowly changing colours of the light harmonized synthetically with the slowly evolving tones and harmonics.
For those in the artSpace during the recording, the work acted, not just as an aural experience, but also as a physical, vibrational experience.
It was recorded with a pair of Rode TS-5 in stereo ORTF configuration from the opposite end of the hall from speakers. Recorded at 96kHz 32Bit
Further information on DRONESCAPE is here