From: mclaren
Subject: Jacques Dudon's new JI CD
--
Jacques Dudon is a French composer who uses
patterned glass disks to generate music.
By spinning the disk and shining a light through
it onto a photoreceptor, Dudon is able to produce
periodic waveforms which become audible (when
amplified through a loudspeaker) as timbres.
Dudon's instrument has been featured in the journal
amplified through a loudspeaker) as timbres.
Dudon's instrument has been featured in the journal
"Experimental Musical Instruments" on many
occasions.
By moving a slotted scrim between the light source and
disk, any by moving from the inner to the outer section of
the disk & vice versa, he is able to produce series
of pitches.
Now Jacques Dudon has come out with a CD of his
music.
The CD is called "Lumieres Audibles" (Audible Light)
and it consists entirely of just intonation music.
You might think that music created in this way would
be synthetic-sounding and fairly dull. Just the
opposite.
For many years, Dudon has been working with a computer
to generate exotic patterns for his spinning photo-acoustic
disks, and he now has a collection of some 500 of 'em.
Morevoer, he uses fractal patterns to generate fractal
disks, and he now has a collection of some 500 of 'em.
Morevoer, he uses fractal patterns to generate fractal
waveforms along with irregular Walsh-series slotted
disks which produce extremely evanescent and organic-
sounding timbres.
"Lumieres Audibles" is remarkable, both for the quality of
the timbres and the artistry of the compositions.
The sounds on this CD are hard to describe. They sound
akin to some of the more sophisticated timbres that
can be produced with an anlog synthesizer, but more
ethereal and in some cases more "digital-sounding" than
standard analog timbres. In other cases, particularly
the fractal waveforms, Dudon conjures up timbres whose
only close relatives are timbres generated by elaborate
computer algorithms.
Jacques favors a tuning system which makes his pieces
sound middle eastern; he also uses drones, drum-like
timbres, and repeated tabla-type patterns generated from
interfering and cross-rhythmed slowly rotating glass
timbres, and repeated tabla-type patterns generated from
interfering and cross-rhythmed slowly rotating glass
disks. (Dudon apparently uses some disks as "sequencer
disks" at a slow rate of rotation, and other disks as
"timbral" disks rotating much faster. By using 6 or
7 different photodiodes and rotating disks, along
with volume pedals to switch between the different
timbres/sequences, Dudon can produce sonic tapestries
of remarkable subtlety and sophistication.)
For more about Dudon's just intonation tunings, see
the 1/1 article "7 Limit Slendro Mutations," Vol. 8,
No. 2, 1994.
This CD is *highly* recommended.
You can order one of these CDs from Jacques Dudon
at Atelier d'Exploration Harmonique - les Camails,
83.340 LE THORONET - phone number 94.73.87.78
--mclaren
