concepts and elaborations

Phonemena by Milton Babbitt
This piece is a female vocalist enhanced by electronic sound effects in the background. This piece uses these electronic sounds to enhance the effect of the voice by adding many effects to it. At some points it seems the voice itself is modified, but this could just be due to the sounds used in conjunction with the notes. These two offsetting sounds, the organic and the digital, create an interesting balance. However, the whimsical sounds sometimes cut into the voice making the piece break and lose the flow of the work. Adding these sonic objects and layering them with the voice is very innovative. It is not something that seems to be done very often. People manipulate the actual voice frequently, but it is an interesting mix to hear the voice layered with a different set of sounds intending to point out different sections of interest. Using this tradition element of an operatic singer, with the elements of electronic manipulation is very effective. For this work, it seems like the artist was going for a whimsical opera. Maybe something out of a sci-fi movie (the opera scene in The Fifth Element comes to mind.) I think it is a very successful piece, because it fuses the new and the old in a very pleasing and interesting way. This piece is able to capture a very traditional tone, but change it with the extra sounds into an electro-acoustic piece.
Idle Chatter by Paul Lansky
This piece is a series of modified voice samples arranged in a way to form a melody. This piece takes a series of samples and creates a very interesting rhythm and melody with them. The piece is very interesting to listen to and is more fast paced then many of the other songs. The only weakness in this piece is the samples themselves. It might have been more interesting if the actual samples were recognizable words or phrases. I think that could have added a very human and organic aspect to the work. I think the piece itself is very innovative. It combines these robotic voices seemingly talking with other voices in the background seemingly singing. The combination of these creates interesting layers of sound that draw the listener in. I think the composer takes the traditional elements of melody and rhythm and successfully replicates them using these robotic voice samples. The aesthetic of the work, as the composer suggests in the title, is that of a party. It sounds like being at a party surrounded by people, hearing the roar of voices and conversations, but not really being able to distinguish individual voices. The work is very successful in capturing this, with the cacophony of voices making up the foreground of the piece, and the ambient swelling voices making up the background of the piece. This creates a mood of being in a crowded room, but not being able to distinguish anything that is going on.