Dimitri Voudouris - NPFAI.1/ Palmos/NPFAI.3/Praxis

DIMITRI VOUDOURIS
NPFAI.1/PALMOS/NPFAI.3/PRAXIS
(Pogus 21043-2)
UPC: 760342104322

South African composer Dimitri Voudouris (b.1961 Athens, Greece) began
composing in the 90¹s. He composes for acoustic instruments, electronic
sound sources, multimedia, including dance and theatre. He bases his
technical and theoretical compositional approach in research of cognitive
psycho-acoustic behavioral patterns in humans and the behavior of sound in
relationship to continued environmental changes. His socio-cultural
interests have led him to research the survival of music in the 21st century
and the impact that media and technology have on the composer.
NPFAI. 1 (New Possibilities for African Instrument) is an electro-acoustic
composition for kundi and m'bira with computer assisted processing. Kalimba
or m'bira is a finger piano made of wood and metal strips used in ceremonial
music. In Western Africa this instrument is known as m'bira and in Eastern
Africa it is called a kalimba. The kundi a bowed harp is a ceremonial
instrument originating from the Mangbetu tribe of the Congo. In NPFAI.1,
working with each individual layer gave Voudouris better control in the
change of sound characteristics as some sound phenomena changed, disappeared
and new sound phenomena surfaced creating new possibilities.
In Palmos, Voudoris chose three Western instruments - the Hammond organ,
oboe, and the bandoneon - whose overtone and harmonic capabilities allowed
for interlocking moments to take place, a phenomenon that is ever present in
African traditional music. Spectrographic analysis of sounds produced by
each individual instrument was carefully monitored which allowed for a
deeper understanding of timbre [harmonic content], attack, decay and
vibrato. Subtractive synthesis further allowed for the isolation of certain
inaudible frequencies to be enhanced to an audible level and the elimination
of others. These compositional elements allow the listener to perceive the
sound as stable individual tone and noise spectra, frequently of surprising
purity.
NPFAI. 3, third in a series of electro-acoustic studies, is for African
marimba and computer assisted processing. The African marimba used in this
work is a tenor marimba, used traditionally as a rhythm instrument. The
marimba is tuned in Xhosa tuning with just intonation in Eb (with added
A's). The instrument was played with traditional mallets; the recording was
processed and constructed on computer. Granular, algorithmic and subtractive
sound syntheses were used in the construction of NPFAI.3. These procedures
were not to defamiliarize the sound of the instrument but rather to explore
the deeper analogies of organic identity in the construction of micro sound
environments, focusing on capturing the physical properties of the
instrument and its organic sound textures
PRAXIS is a four-channel tape piece using a recording of Christian Orthodox
Greek male choir and computer assisted processing. 566 sound compartments
were created that ranged from 10 to 40 seconds in time duration. Each sound
compartment was constructed and manipulated individually, allowing for
better control in maintaining individuality in the sound structures.  The
computer further allowed for the individual micro-rearrangement of pitches
in each sound compartment, leading to the notion of continuous macro-timbre.
The methods used allowed for greater control in spacial differentiation of
each sound. The distorted nature of the sound source was not eliminated but
was build into the composition.

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