Beyond the saying

About

In this work the well-known saying "you reap what you sow" heard in An Inner Voice is transformed in such a way that the listener no longer hears the words and therefore comprehends their meaning but instead is transported into a dramatic and fantastic sound world. In this musical environment speech becomes singing.

Beyond The Saying uses five main types of sounds:

1. A brush stroke-like gesture which is heard at the beginning and which articulates the beginning of new sections. It is later developed "into a series of comical gestures.
   
2. Those which are based on the dipthongs of the text 'ou','ea', etc. The sequences which use these sounds function in a similar way to the thematic material in a large scale work such as a symphony.
   
3. Displays of percussive consonants especially 'p', 't' and 's' from the words 'reap', 'what' and 'sow'.
   
4. Arch shapes which consist of pure sine wave-like sonorities.
   
5. The stretching in time of individual words. Here the inflexions of the spoken voice are magnified up to one hundred times the original recording. This type is particularly noticeable in the final section where the composer's speech is transformed into a male voice choir.
   

Beyond The Saying was composed in July and August 1990 at the Computer Music Facility, Centre for Arts, Simon Fraser University in Vancouver, Canada. The work uses a granular synthesis technique developed by Barry Truax at SFU.