Hologramme

In holography, a two-dimensional object appears to be three-dimensional. (Stephen Hawking has suggested that this phenomenon applies polydimensionally to the whole universe.) My musical ’holograms’ have, until now, been solely apparitions in the pitch domain. This has been achieved through ’difference tones’, where two pitches psychoacoustically form a third tone, the subtraction of their respective frequencies (it is actually our nervous system doing this, allowing me to compose not only for air molecules, but also for brainwaves, quite literally). This purely natural and perceivable phenomenon has formed the basis of my pitch organisation, together with adaptations and modulations of another natural phenomena, such as the overtone series. The ideology of ”pure naturality” has been enforced with use of so called ’extended’ techniques (which a composer of today typically regards only as ’[previously] excluded’ techniques, sounds naturally occurring on the instruments).

In Hologramme (2009), commissioned by Ensemble adapter for their Carambolage – Im Groove der Neuen Musik (’in the groove of New Music’) concert in Berlin, it was natural to adapt the metaphor of holograms further into the rhythmic domain. Resultant rhythms of different polyrhythms – which are ratios just like frequencies of the overtone series – are being written out though auditive association and layered three-dimensionally in different speeds, much like in prisms – and not totally unlike in the music of the classic New York hip hop group Beastie Boys.

© 2009 Jarkko Hartikainen