Diaphane
1995
for
2-channel-tape
Diaphane (Diaphanous) for 2-track
tape was composed in 1995 at the ICEM at the Folk-wang-Hochschule. The
title (cf. diaphan - diaphanous) is to be understood as a concept. A stratum
which is in itself complex and has been composed using various means is
overlayered by several different strata or expressed as an association:
a surface changes its form due to the simultaneous appearance of different-coloured
lights refracted by a prism. The result is the overlapping of two different
kinds of structures comparable to the interference of two pieces of film
laid over each other. This happens in “Diaphane” at carefully chosen points
which, temporally, are uniquely related.
This work was composed using various kinds of technology. The “concrete” sound material was won from the sounds of percussion, speech and machines and was digitally revised using various programmes. The sound structure was created with the synthesiser programme
Csound.
Each individual process in the piece is different from the next in that, in some cases their sound results only appear in fragmentary form. The first rest structure can be taken as an
ex-ample (2:00 to 2:30). This part, which was actually generated without
a rest, was more or less cut out. i.e. only a fragment of the original
structure remains. In other cases, only the initial moments of the processes
form the sound strata. For example, in the final quarter of the piece is
dominated by an echoing sound structure, which is repeated four times with
periods of varying lengths. Further structural changes are a result of
differing transpositions, which sound at the same time as the ìloopedî
originals, resulting in varying running times.