Good vs Evil
by Daniel Nuttall
for Laptop Orchestra, 6 players
approx. 6 minutes
Preparation
Collect a few samples representing what you think sounds ‘good’ and ‘evil’. eg. Fire, evil laugh etc.
Create a few soundscapes that also represent good or evil. eg. Low bass rumble for evil, high choir sounds for good etc.
First 3 mins are ‘evil’, second 3 mins are ‘good’.
Prepare a bit of automation in your DAW so that on three minutes your volume cuts to zero; and the same again at 6 minutes, after bringing the volume back up straight away on 3 minutes after stopping all of your ‘evil’ sounds.
Score
Start off by playing either one of your soundscapes or samples. Over the three minutes, gradually begin to play more of your soundscapes and samples at a faster rate, so that by the end of the 3 minutes, the sound will have gone from a sparse texture to a very busy one, with the overall sense of evil doom getting larger and larger until on 3 minutes everyone stops at once.
One player should have there first soundscape for ‘good’ prepared so that when everyone stops on the third minute, they can play their soundscape immediately, giving the sense of a little ‘good’ creeping out from the massive sense of ‘evil’ just created.
From here we follow the same format as the ‘evil’ part, with it crescendoing to a very busy texture of ‘good’ sounds by the end of the 6 minute. Again on the 6th minute we all cut out at once.
The End.
You can see a graphical score of this piece here:
