MUSIC FOR WILLIAM
Track 1. Photographic Passacaglia 01 – stereo synthesiser, direct from computer
Track 2. Photographic Passacaglia 01 – arrangement for violin, played by Daniel Pioro
Track 3. Photographic Passacaglia 01 – arrangement for piano, played by Maria Immaculata Setiadi
Track 4. Yellow Walk Blue Sky – composition for cello (based on Photographic Passacaglia 03) by Clare O’Connel
Track 5. Photographic Passacaglia 04 – arrangement for accordion, played by Ryan Corbett
These versions (derived from the Florentine Passacaglia below) were made in collaboration with Daniel Pioro, Maria Immaculata Setiadi, Clare O’Connell and Ryan Corbett, for the show SALVE at Sierra Metro Gallery in Edinburgh, 2022. The collaboration was funded by Creative Scotland.
For more information about the process and method used to compose these works see the description below Florentine Passacaglia.
Florentine Passacaglia. 2019
Four hexadecimal quartets.
Each of these little tunes is made by transposing the hexadecimal colour information from four reduced photographs into “music”.
I took 16 photographs I made in Florence and reduced them to 6x9 inches at one pixel per inch, which made a simple pattern of rectangles of colour, as above. I sampled each of the hexadecimal values of these colours and wrote them down. I then converted each number or letter from the hexadecimal code into a musical note value, for the key of C major, for example, 1 is equal to C, 2 to D, 3 to E and so on. Having translated the codes into musical notes I played them via a little midi keyboard into Garageband to make midi tracks for each picture, so that I could control the tempo, velocity, instrument, basic compression and so on.
The first track is made with all four photographic voices plotted as “Steinway Grand Piano”, in the key of C Major.
The second track is made with each photo plotted as a drum track, and with the # symbol of the hex code taken to infer a sharpened first value. The first voice is “Gritty Funk”, the second “Dub Smash”, the third “Boutique 808” and the fourth “Four on the Floor”. I picked these because they had amusing names.
The third track is made using four voices of “Wurlitzer Classic” and is in F Lydian. I always wanted to have a Fender Rhodes Piano, perhaps to make this song.
The fourth track has four voices - “Classic Female Ensemble”, “Harp”, “Classic Male Ensemble” and “Wedding Organ”. It was transcribed into D Minor.
