I'm excited to announce the upcoming performance of my Hymn to London Bridge, a duet for Theremin and Soundbeam, taking place on Thursday, September 2nd 2010.
I'm going to be playing a theremin under London Bridge for 24 hours, starting and ending at midnight. I'll be feeding the output of the theremin through all my loop and effects pedals to create continuous, complex washes of sound that can be heard on the underbridge walkway around me. Pedestrians crossing over the bridge above will unwittingly affect this output: as they pass by they will cut a hidden beam on the bridge that will momentarily mute the music I'm making, a little blip of silence for each pedestrian that passes throughout the 24 hours. This long form piece will slowly change character as it's affected by the flow of traffic on the bridge - in the middle of the night it'll be almost continuous sound with only the occasional blip of silence as someone passes, and at rush hour it'll be a very percussive experience, or maybe even silent as the masses of commuters rush by. That's the theory anyway.
Here's a clip of the muting process in action, that shows it kind of working - as Adrian walks past the red Soundbeam sensor the music cuts for a moment. I'll need to adjust some settings to get it to work a bit more effectively, but I was very pleased this worked straight away.
I'm going to be playing a theremin under London Bridge for 24 hours, starting and ending at midnight. I'll be feeding the output of the theremin through all my loop and effects pedals to create continuous, complex washes of sound that can be heard on the underbridge walkway around me. Pedestrians crossing over the bridge above will unwittingly affect this output: as they pass by they will cut a hidden beam on the bridge that will momentarily mute the music I'm making, a little blip of silence for each pedestrian that passes throughout the 24 hours. This long form piece will slowly change character as it's affected by the flow of traffic on the bridge - in the middle of the night it'll be almost continuous sound with only the occasional blip of silence as someone passes, and at rush hour it'll be a very percussive experience, or maybe even silent as the masses of commuters rush by. That's the theory anyway.
Here's a clip of the muting process in action, that shows it kind of working - as Adrian walks past the red Soundbeam sensor the music cuts for a moment. I'll need to adjust some settings to get it to work a bit more effectively, but I was very pleased this worked straight away.
Soundbeam Muting Test from Nick Franglen on Vimeo.
I'll be streaming the performance live through this site, so that people who can't make it along can have a listen. I'll also be tweeting live throughout the performance so people can communicate with me as it goes on. However anyone who is intersted in experiencing this live is very welcome to come along - I'll give details of how to find the place next week.
I've been working on this for quite a long time now, and as it's been turning into a reality I've become more and more intimidated by the whole thing - doing anything for 24 hours nonstop is quite a daunting prospect. I'm hoping that the unpredictable interaction with the pedestrians is going to keep the whole thing fresh, but whatever happens it's certainly going to be a fascinating experience.
Many thanks to both the PRS For Music Foundation and the Mayor's Thames Festival for their generous support. I'm very pleased that the cinematographer Bevis Bowden is going to film the entire event, and make a film that will be premiered at the Thames Festival on 11th and 12th September 2010.