In-between self-similarity

Self-similarity is the phenomenon when any fragment of an object is similar to the whole of the object, such as in a fractal. Ideas of self-similarity have been expressed in music many times in canons, fugues, and other processes. These are examples of exploring self-similarity through musical structure and form. In this piece, I was interested in exploring the self-similarity of sound itself: putting interesting sounds through recursive processes to yield entirely new and distinct sounds. Expressing self-similarity through form was not my primary concern. Instead, I used these transformations to generate a pallet of sounds. Then, I simply organized these sounds in a way that was intuitive and musically exciting.  Due to the complex nature of these processes, I chose simple objects as a starting point. Mixing bowls, pieces of wood, and glass cups serve as the primary sound sources. These sounds were recorded and manipulated with these processes to form the electronic soundscape. The resulting sounds are then imitated and re-interpreted by the performers, often on the very same instruments or objects. During my experimentation, I found the most interesting aspect of these transformations was somewhere in-between the distinct sounds. The piece lives here, in the unstable, unpredictable, and chaotic nature of the in-between space.