Cities and Memory - remixing the world

"My background as a singer/songwriter often dictates how I start my work, but my affinity for experimental music helps to push my compositions into odd or unusual places.
"For this composition, The Lech Waltz, I created a simple structure. And yet, it was missing something.
"That’s when I decided to push the entire song a minute or more down the timeline, adding a number of layers and then playing without a click track, mixing in some long drones and melodies.
"It’s become one of my favourite parts of the composition, sounding like what a river feels like.
"I was thrilled to hear about Salma Caller’s idea of sharing small musical moments with other composers on this project. It evokes the connectivity of a river that changes with time.
"I used a bell-like sound from Giuseppe Cordaro, a sample that I turned into a random, descending 4 note melody. From Salma, a rowing noise became a percussive element.
"The original field recording (Segment 1) of the Lech River by Riccardo Fumagalli was turned into a lovely, noisy beat."
Section of the river Lech reimagined by Bill McKenna. 
-------
Part of Flow, a creative exploration telling the story of a river through the power of sound. Explore the full project at https://citiesandmemory.com/flow.

"In “Out of the Woods” new and old swirl together. The primary inputs are field recordings from a violin workshop near the river. All of the percussion sounds come from the wood instrument construction sounds from the workshop. The rhythms were already so compelling, I took long clips of them and did very little processing. The voices are also all from the workshop visit, in the field recording. Voices in the workshop blended four languages, discussing craft and location. “Acero” means maple in Italian. Wood was harvested nearby, connecting nature and human process. Soft sandpaper rubbing underlies the vocals.
"The only sound I added was viola da gamba, an early bowed, wooden, stringed instrument that was popular in Europe in the Renaissance before the onset of modern strings. This instrument had a musical culture of being played in the home and in small groups, emphasizing soft richness of tone and polyphonic shaping before more modern priorities of loudness and soloists. Visually the instrument looks similar to the violin family, but has more sloped shoulders, 6 strings (generally) with frets, C holes instead of F holes, and all sizes are played upright held between the knees. Strings are tuned mainly in fourths, with the historical tuning of A a bit below modern standards (415hz vs 440hz or higher). The instrument went out of fashion being gradually replaced by the violin family in the Baroque period, though viols started to regain interest in the 20th century. I added reverb and effects to this early music sound, linking past and future. Along with other dedicated players and composers worldwide, I write and play new music for the viola da gamba to keep this instrument alive.
"In “Out of the Woods,” wood is nurtured by water. Wood is flooded by water. Wood resonates. Wood transforms. Wood speaks. Wood connects. Wood remembers. Wood forms new memories."
Section of the river Lech reimagined by Heather Spence. 
-------
Part of Flow, a creative exploration telling the story of a river through the power of sound. Explore the full project at https://citiesandmemory.com/flow.

"Rushing currents, echoing depths — where the haunting calls of water spirits appear and dissolve like currents in motion.
"This dramatic, immersive soundscape was inspired by Riccardo Fumagalli’s field recording captured at Section 5 of the Lech River at Stanzach, Austria, “where the river bed is at its largest and the water caresses the vegetation around it”. Here the river has been braided, dividing the flow into five groynes that restrict the river’s lateral movement. “They are built to train and constrain the lateral movement of rivers within the surrounding floodplain. Braided rivers tend to be very wide and, under natural conditions, highly dynamic. I believe the groynes were built in the first half of the 20th century, mainly to reduce the active river area, expand farmland, and provide flood protection.” (Martina Cecchetto).
"I was immediately drawn to this sound by the purity of the bubbling water recording and by the beauty of the “String of Pearls” river shape created by human intervention, clearly visible in satellite images. This section is the second deepest part of the entire Lech River, and I wanted this sense of power and depth to play an important role in the composition.
"Further research revealed that the Lech River is commonly referred to by locals and tourists as the “last wild river”, due to its untamed, braided and largely natural state, often characterised as a living, flowing spirit of the Alps. In Austrian folklore, the famous shapeshifting female water spirits are called Nixe. The title and soundscape of this piece reflect these two aspects of the river.
"The form of the work is inspired by the five “pearl-shaped” sections of the river where the sample was taken. The climaxes in the piece mark these five sections, corresponding to the human intervention that created the groynes restricting the river’s flow, represented by more metallic and destructive sounds. Vocal elements evoke water spirits calling and luring, drifting and disappearing into the distance. The soundscape was created by transforming the original sample into 22 different sounds using effects, combined with an additional 44 sound and vocal tracks, making a total of 77 tracks.
"Through my compositions, I enjoy drawing attention to the importance, fragility, and beauty of the natural world. Conservation efforts, such as the LIFE Lech project, have focused on removing bank stabilisation structures and giving the river space to redevelop its natural dynamics, ensuring the long-term success of habitat and species conservation. However, Section 5 has not yet been included in the restoration project."
Section of the river Lech reimagined by Amanda Stuart. 
-------
Flow is a creative exploration telling the story of a river through the power of sound. The project is a collaboration between the University of Padova and the University of Würzburg, with support from Cities and Memory. Explore the full project at https://citiesandmemory.com/flow.

"This segment is sort of ambiguous - am I listening to the Lech or to the Danube? Maybe both, or maybe it’s all Danube, and “Lech” is just what we called it before it got there. I worked on that moment, and I looked at what that could mean for the river water, which had come from all these different places, with all these different sounds. 
"One of the included photos is a bird’s eye view of the two rivers, side by side - they really appear independent in that photo. The satellite timelapse is different - first, the orientation and curve of the Lech make it feel like it’s contributing to the Danube, visually. Most strikingly, in the timelapse, color changes in the Lech appear to continue into the mixed river - when the Lech changes color, the water in the Danube which came from the Lech also changes color. This may simply show that the two rivers don’t mix right away, but it got me thinking about perspective, direction, and naming: There is a known end point of the Lech, but the Danube seems to exist before and exist after. 
"When the Lech ends, the Lech water continues, but now named Danube. 
This process is continuing constantly, and the water that meets the Danube could have come from many different places, and gone through many different experiences - those experiences show up in the variety of colors in the timelapse, and in the variety of sounds collected for this project, certainly.
"I thought, I may be able to express these through music theory, through melody. Better than words, anyway. What’s in a name…
"The piece itself is a collection of melodies, recorded on 9 different musical instruments - all the instruments are playing distinct melodies, and every melody leads to the same musical pitch. This is the many waters all leading to/becoming the Danube. 
"The field recording is also played back several times at higher and lower speeds over the course of the piece, sort of a like a slow melody of its own - those also lead to a final note: the recording played back at the original speed. 
"Hearing that last note, the drone, the tonic, I wonder if it’s possible to know all the different ways that an instrument could have gotten there. We see the Danube and call it Danube, but there may be some awareness of how the water got there, too. 
"For those interested:
The music theory behind the scenes here is something I’ve been working on with some friends here in Seattle - the term we are using is “nonatonic harmony” (which translates to “harmony derived from a 9-note scale”). Since I recorded the melodies individually, one by one, and then stitched them all together after, there might be an argument that this is more accurately “polymodal music”, but I’m more excited about this 9-note system, so that’s why I’m considering it in those terms. 
"Here’s some more explanation -
It’s common to refer to musical pitches by letters in the alphabet - A B C D E F G, then wrapping back around to A. That’s seven distinct notes - scales that have one of each letter are considered “heptatonic” (which translates to “seven-tones”). In this piece, I was working with these notes: A Bb B C D E F F# G. That’s nine notes all together, so, “nonatonic”. By the way, since there’s only seven letters in this standard alphabet system, the sharps (#) and flats (b) are added to existing letters in order to make new notes, between the letters. 
"There’s a few available perspectives on this arrangement of notes - one is to see it as 9 totally distinct notes. There are some moments in this piece that feel like that, the moments that are dissonant, because you have two different B notes (B and Bb), or two different F notes (F and F#), and they clash. 
"Another perspective is to play the heptatonic modes which are nested inside the nonatonic scale (this is the polymodal perspective). That original alphabet scale (A B C D E F G) can be played differently to lead to certain notes (“leading to certain notes” is one definition of many for a “mode”). Using those same pitches (A B C D E F G), the melodies that use the notes in such a way to lead to D are called “dorian”, and the melodies that use the notes in such a way to lead to E are called “phrygian”. If we were to use phrygian and dorian melodies, but instead have them all lead to A, we would have to amend the alphabet system a bit, using sharps (#) and flats (b). In the nonatonic scale listed above, we can find an aeolian mode (using the notes A B C D E F G), a dorian mode (using the notes A B C D E F# G), and a phrygian mode (using the notes A Bb C D E F G) - which each lead to A. 
"In practice, this system allowed me to navigate to the final note of each melodic phrase with more options, maybe specifically with two more options (either B and either F). It also introduced more dissonance, which is a characteristic of a lot of music, maybe music in general - I should note that this system isn’t particularly innovative in itself, we’re just putting words to something that happens already in a lot of music. How useful is that? Maybe, if only so that we can talk about it."
Section of the river Lech reimagined by Nicolo Scolieri. 
-------
Flow is a creative exploration telling the story of a river through the power of sound. The project is a collaboration between the University of Padova and the University of Würzburg, with support from Cities and Memory. Explore the full project at https://citiesandmemory.com/flow.

"The inspiration from this piece was firstly at the surface level - flow, time, motion - are all inspiring for musical exploration. As I dug deeper into the material, the concept of rivers as enablers to civilization, to history, added deeper layers to explore - how rivers slowly but inexorably shape ideas, stories, culture and music just the same as they shape land and place.
"I wanted to bring all of these ideas together into some way, while also literally exploring the sound material from the original recording using elements (like sediment) from prior pieces, to construct an evolving and moving piece that suggests a continuity rather than an ending.
"I hope those ideas come across as it builds to its conclusion. No spoilers." 
Section of the river Lech reimagined by Warren Anthony. 
-------
Flow is a creative exploration telling the story of a river through the power of sound. The project is a collaboration between the University of Padova and the University of Würzburg, with support from Cities and Memory. Explore the full project at https://citiesandmemory.com/flow.