Put Simply
Premiered at the Digitalis Festival, Old Cabell Hall, UVA, Charlottesville VA
2 May 2023
Notes:
“Put Simply” takes its title from the opening line of Laurie Spiegel’s essay An Information Theory Based Compositional Model. In this text, Spiegel reflects on how information theory can guide a composer in shaping sonic material for communication within a noisy environment and in understanding the information carried by the music itself. Her essay begins, “Put simply, information theory is a mathematical theory of how to optimize a signal for communication in a noisy channel, and of how communication is degraded in such a medium.”
The title of my piece plays on this opening phrase and places the work in an aesthetic relationship to Spiegel’s The Unquestioned Answer. In doing so, it also quietly echoes the title play between The Unquestioned Answer and Charles Ives’s The Unanswered Question. The connection unfolds through language rather than direct musical lineage, creating a small constellation of oppositions and reversals that shape how “Put Simply” comes into view.
The piece explores the expressive range of the EV, a hybrid digital and acoustic instrument I have been developing in the likeness of a violin or viola. Its sound blends acoustic gesture with synthesized resonance through convolution processes that create a textured and slightly unstable realism.
Credits: Lindgren: composition, mixing/mastering, video recording + post production Travis Thatcher: video recording