Trombonist David Manson performing Re: David onstage during Subtropics 25 at the Deering Estate Theater in 2021.

Re: David (1995)

selected works

Gated sound portrait for trombone and stereo recorded sound
Commissioned and performed by David Manson
Duration: 6′30″
Dated October 27, 1995

Re: David is a stereo sound portrait in which David Manson’s live trombone opens and closes two independently gated channels of a prerecorded noise melody. The recorded material becomes another element of his improvisation rather than a fixed accompaniment.

SCORE

  1. Devise a performance strategy regarding when to start the recording. The choices are:
    a. Start it with the first trombone sound.
    b. Start it at any time before or after the trombone has begun.A stopwatch may help with this process.
  2. Play sounds on the instrument until a gate opens, revealing a prerecorded sound.
  3. Use that prerecorded sound to decide your next move.
  4. The duration of the recording is 6′30″.

A SOUND PORTRAIT

David Manson commissioned the piece in 1995. I no longer remember whether he was already planning the album that would eventually become BEAST.

The prerecorded noise melody was assembled from short quotations drawn from brass music David admired, together with selections of my own. Other sounds also entered the mix. I must have had good reasons for including them, although those reasons—and some of the sources themselves—have receded with time. They nevertheless remain part of the portrait.

In my work, Portrait and Re: describe the same kind of composition. “Re,” meaning “regarding,” eventually became a less cumbersome alternative to repeatedly using the word “portrait.”

THE ELECTRONIC WINDOW

Our eyes have lids that can interrupt the flow of visual information. Our ears have no comparable physical device, so the brain develops a kind of virtual gate that identifies certain continuous sounds as noise and blocks them from conscious attention.

Air-conditioning systems offer an everyday example. Their constant sound can mask random information from outside and define an interior space—a form of controlled quiet. Televisions, telephones, radios and computers provide other kinds of windows whose flow of information can be interrupted with an OFF button.

The Gated Pieces give the performer an intuitive version of that button. Changes in the amplitude of the live instrument open and close an electronic window onto prerecorded sound. The performer responds to whatever the window reveals.

Signal-flow diagram showing two microphones sending trigger signals to a stereo gate, with recorded sounds routed through a mixer to two PA speakers facing the audience.
Re: David, showing two microphones triggering the stereo gates that reveal the prerecorded sounds.

STEREO GATING

Unlike my other Gated Pieces, Re: David was conceived specifically for two-channel gating, with one gate assigned to each side of the stereo noise melody.

Two microphones were positioned with some separation. Depending on how the trombone activated them, David could open the left channel, the right channel or both channels simultaneously. Playing revealed the prerecorded material; stopping allowed the gates to close it again.

The composition is therefore amorphous. Its effectiveness depends upon the quality of each moment and on David’s responses to the sounds revealed by his own playing.

The version later published on BEAST was created as one continuous studio performance, with the trombone, stereo gates and prerecorded sounds captured and mixed together in real time.

QUAD REALIZATION

In 2021, I invited David to revisit the work in four channels. A single microphone activated the system while gentle randomized amplitude swells and dips were applied independently to the four gates.

These variations caused the channels to open and close in indeterminate ways. David’s playing continued to activate the recorded material, but its appearance and position within the four-channel space could no longer be predicted precisely.

LISTEN

Excerpt from Re: David
David Manson — trombone
Complete work: 6′30″

[Audio player]

SELECTED PERFORMANCES

April 20, 1996
Re: David
David Manson, trombone
SEAMUS ’96
Birmingham-Southern College, Birmingham, Alabama
Premiere

March 8, 1997
Re: David
David Manson, trombone
Society of Composers, Inc. National Conference
Florida International University, Miami, Florida

2021
Re: David
Quad realization
David Manson, trombone
Subtropics 25 Festival
Deering Estate Theater, Miami, Florida

Additional performances took place in Tampa and St. Petersburg, Florida. Their dates and venues will be added as the archival record is reviewed.

SCORE

Download the complete score, setup scheme and composer’s notes

PUBLICATION

Re: David was published on David Manson’s album BEAST: Electro-Acoustic Works for Trombone in 2003.

BEAST — publication and recording