Huddersfield Experimental Laptop Orchestra

To Follow

First, the group has to nominate a Quiz Master. The group must explain the concept of the game to the Quiz Master. The concept is as folows -

Players must prepare 7 different soundscapes. They have to be loops, short or long. The 7 expected soundscapes are :

  1. Low pass rumble.
  2. High pitch stacatto sounds.
  3. Pad sounds.
  4. Stacatto sounds with large reverbs.
  5. Organic sounds (piano’s, vocals, guitars etc.)
  6. Tremelo sounds.
  7. Water-like sounds

The player needs a way to stop and trigger between different sounds. Easiest possible way is using simple solo/mute automation - even better if it can be triggered via key command or MIDI controller. Ableton works well for this situation.

Next, players should open Terminal (located in ~/Applications/Utilities). At the prompt type say and hit enter. From here on in a player can type a word and hit enter and their computer will say it back to them.

The composition evolves around word association. The group should nominate a person to begin the composition. The selected person proceeds to play soundscape one - with the person to their right joining when he/she feels ready, and then to their right again etc. etc. After the desired amount of time, every player should be playing soundscape one. The person who started the composition by playing soundscape one then uses Terminal to type a word. This is where the game of word association begins - the association moving around anticlockwise. The word association continues to be passed around until an individual chokes (that is, cannot think of a word to associate), types a word that is not associated with the previous, or takes too long thinking/typing a word.

If any of these circumstances occur, the Quiz Master informs the group by shouting (stating something similar to Too slow!, Change! etc). Here, each player changes from soundscape one to soundscape two, and the word association begins again; with the player that was too slow/choked starting the word. This is repeated until all seven soundscapes have been played through.