Building a Gamelan from Bricks

The composition process of the acousmatic piece Gazelle Rain Petals began with the construction of the elemental pitch and rhythmic modules – the organogeometric brick modules, as a musical metaphor to Dubuffet’s lithographic series Les Murs. These brick modules are 4-pitch series (tetrachords) that cover all possible pitch permutations to represent 4-sided geometric as well as organo-geometric structures. For the harmonic conception based on the monochromatic hue of the brick wall, 12-tone rows were constructed out of those brick modules (tetrachords). The 12-tone rows were selected based on the characteristic profiles of their constituent modules and were subsequently deployed in an intricate rhythmic/contrapuntal structure of the musical “wall” scored for pitched instruments, resulting in a gamelan sounding musical passage. The brick analogy provided an intermodal (graphical and musical) link between graphical abstraction and musical abstraction, and also a method of configuring the 12-tone pitch-space. The profiles of tetrachords and their relationships with each other in a tone row governed how the 12-tone pitch-space could be traversed. Further development of techniques investigated here could be realised in a computational system that allows for the creative control of a visual pitch-space beyond geometric or organo-geometric abstractions for the purpose of creative composition.