The Pain(t)

Place of Publication: Leicester, UK

Abstract:

The Pain(t) is a fixed-media audio work which explores the idea of poetry as a basis for electroacoustic composition. I have an interest in semantic content, and a wish to use the voice as a sound element within the compositional process. The main compositional intention is the realisation of a text-sound relationship where the human voice, being a carrier of semantic meaning (and electroacoustically transformed), amalgamates into and further assist the musical articulation. Simultaneous narrative is one of the basic elements of storytelling in the piece, but not between verbal narration and composed sound world, but as a parallel dual narration in English and Greek transmitted by the left and right channel of the stereo format respectively. One of my main interests in relation to the art form of poetry is its ability to be evocation. Poetic text has the ability to underline multiple meanings. The idea of the poetic image really important here. Poetic images become a source of inspiration that further motivate their creative sonic exploration. Bachelard validates this idea when saying that: ‘... poetry is there with its countless surging images, images through which the creative imagination comes to live in its own domain’. This parallel dual narration is related to a composed sound world, which seems to unfold on its own. Storytelling elements have different functions here. Characters are not revealed through verbal narration but through the sounds heard. The concept of simultaneity in narrative is the basis for The Pain(t). The listener experiences the stone thrown on the wall and its journey from distant space to frontal, close space, the parallel verbal narration in two different languages as well as the sonic world deriving from the Athens Underground.

The time scale of the poem changed radically. Normally, it is a twelve-verse poem which, when recited, would not take more than one minute of duration to complete. Slicing the verses and attaching them at the end of long sonic phrases expanded the duration and the feeling received by the reader from the text alone, immersing the listener in a long sequence of incidents and a more prolonged storytelling experience.

https://soundcloud.com/panosamelides/the-paint

Source: Manual