Cecilia Damström
Information
We live in an age of constant information overload: the internet and the smartphone have changed our world. Information is travelling faster and faster across the world thanks to today’s technology. It has become easier for anyone to share information, and at the same time, both misinformation and disinformation have started to spread at a rapid pace. I was once naive enough to think that disinformation was largely due to people misunderstanding things and therefore spreading misinformation unwittingly. Misinformation is when you accidentally spread the wrong information because of wrong knowledge. Disinformation is deliberately spreading the wrong information. After reading Jessikka Aro’s book Putin’s Trolls: On the Front Lines of Russia’s Information War Against the World, I realised how naive that idea was. The Nazi propaganda chief Josef Goebbels is attributed to have said almost 100 years ago, “Repeat a lie enough times and it becomes a truth”. Unfortunately, he seems to be right to this day, as can be seen in world politics. Some politicians and political parties deliberately use lies to strengthen their own position of power. In a world where artificial intelligence and “deep fake” can make videos look astonishingly real, it is becoming increasingly difficult to distinguish fact from fiction.
Reading Jessikka Aro’s book Putin’s Trolls and Naomi Klein’s book Doppelganger: A Trip Into the Mirror World made me realise how misinformation can be used for very fundamental things: dividing people. When people are united, it is much harder to push through initiatives that go against human rights, but if you succeed in spreading lies that divide communities, you can continue with corruption and laws that destroy our planet, without being called out for it, as people are busy arguing whether it is true or not. It came as a surprise to me how some countries spend hundreds of millions of dollars a year on spreading misinformation, which is why I wanted to write this piece; to raise awareness about the world we live in.
The piece Information consists from beginning to end of various words in English in Morse code. In addition the notes of each chord are taken from the letters of the word in question. In Western music we have the notes a–h, and in addition I have used the notes chromatically ascending from b (in German called the note h) to continue the alphabet, so that the letter i is the note c, the letter j is the note c# and so on.
Here are the words we hear during the composition (repeated several times):
information info knowledge know information data truth data
information info knowledge know information
truth lies fear blame lies anger truth lies truth
hope empathy hope love fear love
data lies conspiracy lies blame fear conspiracy
action inspiration war inspiration peace war peace unity united humanity
This piece stands also as the most information-dense composition I have so far created, encompassing over 47,000 notes within a ten-minute span, averaging around 4,700 notes per minute and peaking at over 8,700 notes per minute.
When people use social media, they usually consume a lot of information unconsciously. On social media, disinformation is easily spread through memes and videos without sources. With this composition, I aspire to encourage individuals to critically examine the sources of the information that shapes their worldview.
3 Flutes (3rd also Piccolo)
3 Oboes
Clarinet in Eb
2 Clarinets in Bb (2nd also Bass Clarinet in Bb)
2 Bassoons
Contrabassoon
4 Horns in F
3 Trumpets in C
2 Trombones
Bass Trombone
Tuba
Timpani
also Whip, Ratchet, Slide Whistle, Cymbals a 2
Percussion (3 players)
1. Bass Drum, Crotales
2. Vibraphone, Snare Drum, Tam-tam, Whistle, Whip, Shaker, Alarm Siren
3. Tubular Bells, Glockenspiel, Xylophone, Snare Drum, Tambourine, Wood Block, Anvil, Whistle, Ratchet
Harp
Piano
Strings
Score in C
• Always continuous gliss. starting immediately from the first note.
Duration: ca. 10 min
Commissioned by the Tampere Philharmonic Orchestra
World premiere 29 November 2024; Tampere Hall, Finland Tampere Philharmonic Orchestra, cond. Matthew Halls
ISMN 979-0-070-14719-4
Score: GE 14719 Study score: GE 14721 Parts available on hire
Copyright © 2024 Gehrmans Musikförlag AB, Stockholm Stema Specialtryck, Borås KV/MM 2024