Planar

2006

trumpet + fixed medium (stereo)

13’09”

Commissioned by:

sound (funded by Scottish Arts Council)

Planar is concerned with one dimensional points on lines transforming into two dimensional planes and gradually into three dimensional spaces. This is a theme in all of my electroacoustic compositions, particularly my acousmatic pieces, where the spatial exploration of available performance space is of paramount importance.

The piece has four main sections, separated by three solo electroacoustic interludes, with an opening Fanfare and closing Lament. In each of the four sections, the player performs from within one of the available planes of a cube that surrounds the audience on all sides. The cube is defined by positioning loudspeakers at each of the eight corners. The player projects sounds from the plane into the space, as if trying to fill it with sound, which, once the digital sound part does actually does do this, signals the performer to move to another plane.

It was originally composed for the acoustic in the Institute of Medical Sciences at the University of Aberdeen, which has a reverberation decay time of just over four seconds. This allows the player to enter into counterpoint with his/her own decaying sound. The piece can also be performed with four loudspeakers, situated in a square on the ground. In this version, the player projects from between two speakers out into a four speaker defined space.

Planar was first performed by its dedicatee, Mark O’Keeffe, in the Institute of Medical Science, University of Aberdeen (Scotland) on November 12th 2006 as part of soundfestival 2006.