CONTACT MICROPHONE RECORDINGS
FROM ST. PAUL’S CATHEDRAL, LONDON
Drawing from multiple segments of a recording of an evensong mass this project composites choral voice, a 400 year-old pipe organ with the everyday ambient sound of St. Paul’s Cathedral in London.
The source material was recorded with a contact microphone, which captures sound through the vibration of materials (in this case, Portland limestone quarried from Dorset). Not unlike a stethoscope, the contact microphone allows an entry point into Christopher Wren’s monument to reveal both the building’s acoustic signature and the sounds contoured through its inner architecture.
Three individual sound works were created from these recordings,
transferred to ¼” tape and spliced into long loops. Together, each creates a physical tracing of the vitrine space. At disparate lengths, the loops constantly meet at different junctures to create a composition in flux - reflective of the changing sound of the space itself.
Employing a special transducer, Evensongs transposes the resonance of the cathedral walls into the glass panels of the gallery vitrine, projecting for the moment, the acoustic ghost of St. Paul’s cathedral.
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