Program

Solo Music No. 1 for Unaccompanied Violin

1. Moderate, light and facile
   
2. Slow
3. Fanciful
4. Spiral (fast as possible)
5. Fast

Petty Circumstance Nos. 1-4 for Digital Piano

Great Rivers for Solo Electric Bassoon

INTERMISSION

Reflections From Behind the Plate Nos. 1-12 for Digital Piano

Eat To Live, Live To Eat for Solo Electric Female Voice

* see program note for complete text

Produced by Tia Kimberk
Pickman Hall  Longy School of Music
Friday, November 7, 1997  8:00 pm

Notes

REFLECTIONS FROM BEHIND THE PLATE
12 Idiosyncratic Staternents by the American FoIk Philosopher
and Baseball Hall of Fame Catcher, Yogi Berra

Nos. 1-12 for Digital Piano

In this work, the music is derived from the text alone (see text below). The specific texture and structure of the music, including pitch, dynamics, and rhythm are formed from numeric values of the text, such as the number of words in a sentence, number of characters in a word, and numeric value of each character, including spaces and punctuation. The text is input into the computer and converted to musical information by a special translation program. The program then outputs the musical information in the form of MIDI data which controls the digital piano.

The music is generated by a set of microprograms which contain the instructions for realizing the music. The software combines the simplest elements of musical texture (pitch, dynamics, duration, speed, rhythm, articulation, etc.) with basic structural elements (continuity, repetition, variation, and chord structures which are derived from the melodic flow of the music). Reflections From Behind the Plate contains imbedded sequences of a slightly altered Take Me Out To the Ball Game paying homage to baseball legend Yogi Berra. The traditional song is input into a data base where its thematic material is selected and modified automatically by the computer when the program is active. Some random variability is introduced in the program to provide structural coherence.

The following texts were used to generate each of the 12 movements:

1. It ain’t over ‘till it’s over.
2. It gets late early around here.
3. Nobody goes there anymore, it’s too crowded.
4. We keep on rnaking the wrong mistakes.
5. What a house. Nothing but roorns!
6. If the fans won’t come, you can’t stop ‘em.
7. You could observe a lot by watching.
8. Ninety percent of the game is half mental.
9. When you come to a fork in the road...take it!
10. If you don’t know where you’re going, you might end up somewhere else.
11. I would like to thank all of you, without whom none of this would be necessary.
12. It’s ‘Deja Vu’ all over again.