Michael Edwards

scei XIIIa (skin)

Programme Note

The engagement with my algorithmic composition software slippery chicken has become amongst other things a generative music project. Apart from the main instrument-with-computer and purely acoustic works, this has generated a collection of self-sufficient little pieces in the form of sound files. They are all called scei (= slippery chicken egg, where Ei is German for egg...).

Contrary to traditional studio work (which can often be thought of as sound sculpting) my approach here is to generate perhaps hundreds of sound files automatically from a given sample palette and set of compositional data. Sound file selection then, as opposed to sound crafting/design, becomes the main activity before mixing.

The best results of the algorithms (with no post-output editing) are to be found on the sumtone site as short but complete pieces.