lovesong for wood and drill

Lovesong for Wood and Drill

By Jeremy Rosenstock For Julia Reda Performer Positioning: The laptop musician should sit on stage next to the percussionist, with two contact microphones in stereo running from the percussionist’s block of wood to the laptop. The laptop should run the Max/MSP patch to a stereo system in the performance space.

Percussion Set-Up: The aforementioned contact mics should be attached to the side of a 12” section of a two-by-four block of wood. Prior to use, the drill should be hidden outside of the audience’s view, yet placed relatively close to the percussionist. An ideal location for the drill would be behind the wood.

Performance: Section One: With the Max patch on, the percussionist should begin by dragging their fingers along the sides of the woodblock near the contact mics; the patch should be set up so as to allow for the speed of the samples to be correlated to the decibels inputted from the microphone. Over about two minutes, the percussionist should transition from using only fingernails or possibly brushes to employing full use of both hands, as the percussionist’s swiping becomes increasingly erratic and aggressive across the period of time. Section One should end either with a loud knock or slap of the two-by-four, or after a climatic moment of electronic feedback has been reached.

Section Two: As the feedback gradually subsides, the performer should pick up and turn on the power drill; the patch should be reconfigured so as to disconnect sample speed from drill amplitude. The performer should begin to drill into the top of the woodblock, being careful not to drill into the contact mics. The drilling should get increasingly loud over time as the drill bit goes further into the wood and closer to the microphone. Once at its loudest, the drill should stay at its location while the processing is at “normal” speed for the sample, or a speed of “1” in the electronic patch. From there, the drill should remain at this level until a suitable conclusion has been reached within the samples, at which point the performer should slowly pull the drill out. Once the sound has died down, the laptop musician should fade out the electronics and conclude the piece.

A Note About the Electronics: There is one electronic sample used across the entire piece, a cloying “love theme” orchestrated in basic MIDI. As referenced before, the sample should be played through as coherently and clearly as possible at the loudest portion of Section Two, so as to best juxtapose the intense, violent drilling of the two-by-four with the emotionally manipulative schmaltz of the sample. This melody was used as the work’s core electroacoustic material in response to the original percussionist’s desire for a “cutesy, romantic” piece.

In performance, the love theme may be played before Section One as a prelude/prologue; in this situation, the laptop musician should play back the recording, with the percussionist either sitting down or staying offstage while the playback occurs.