Welcome!

…shockingly, by actual coincidence, this is clearly in c# minor.

I then set up mics and cameras, and…

I took slices of the large wav file of striking and shattering events into Spear for analysis. Spear exports a lot of data, which required another program to sort through it, which I co-wrote with a friend in Python to generate a txt file that would be useful in Max as a “coll” object.

In Max, I repurposed some code from some Bach objects (never-ending thanks to Daniele Ghisi for all his interesting work), and spat those pitches out onto a super-grand staff.

I then took the prominent pitches from each jar, writing out “scales” on staff paper and a spiderweb diagram to consolidate and visualize the pitch material from each jar (12 = C, 1 = C#, etc.)

Recording the jars, running the recordings through Spear, exporting data files, designing a little program in Python, co-writing and then refining it, writing the Max Patch, and using all this to generate the files I needed (two for each of the 5 jars), all told, took about a week.

That C# minor maintained a strong presence through the shattering was not surprising; that C and its overtones were well represented was more so.

Given that I had only 2 or 3 week remaining to generate a PV score and that student musicians would have to perform the work with little rehearsal, I decided that these scenes would be mostly anchored in twelve-tone equal temperament, with the microtonal pitches adding color. Should the full opera be produced, there will be scenes wherein this is not the case.