Song Stories: Pulse of Yellowstone
I’m enjoying being a part of “Cities and Memory” – a global sound project that combines field recording and soundscape composing to explore concepts of place and memory. Today I’ll highlight my first contribution, “Pulse of Yellowstone,” which applies my techniques in Nature Music and centers on a field recording of the geyser Old Faithful. You can hear my composition here.
The first National Park in the United States was Yellowstone, and the most recognized attraction is the geyser Old Faithful.
Predictions of Old Faithful eruptions are central to human activity at the site. People plan their days around these times. Efforts are made to make the most accurate predictions possible, however there are variations and it is never exactly known at what moment the geyser will erupt. It is a wonderful representation of human reliance on natural rhythms, which we only partially understand.
In my composition Pulse of Yellowstone, I explore the rhythms and predictability of Old Faithful. There is a predictability of pattern and rhythm, yet it is slightly off of what is expected, reflecting the experience of those who attempt to predict the geyser.
The raw recording occurs in its entirety twice in the piece – at the very beginning, sped up very fast to give the listener the essence of its overall shape, and at around half speed across the entire piece to set the pace and drama of the composition.
Joining the field recording are percussive, vocal, and instrumental sounds created and recorded by me. These musical elements play with the idea of predictability, as well as the history of predictions of this geyser. Over the years, and seemingly in response to earthquakes, the intervals between eruptions have gotten shorter. I have quickened the pace toward the end of the piece to represent this shift. Rhythmic elements are inspired by the bimodal nature of the geysers eruptions (longer duration eruptions are followed by longer periods of rest).
The instrument I used is the bass viola da gamba, an early bowed stringed instrument. The shape of the waveform of the rise and fall of the geyser’s spray is reminiscent to me of the sound of a bowed note, especially in the underhand bowing method used in viola da gamba.
I chose the field recording because it is a powerful sound of water. It sounds a bit like the breath of a whale! As a marine biologist in addition to being a composer, it is exciting to hear the power of this water feature, as the Earth surfaces water up onto dry land.
