lian-summer-echoes
hardware:
Apple PowerBook G4/OSX
software:
RTcmix,
max/msp ([rtcmix~])
Digital Performer 4
Lian was the first of our two children to leave home for college; son
Daniel was still in elementary school at the time. The emptiness in
our lives formerly filled by her presence was mitigated by the knowledge
that she was doing exactly what she wanted to be doing. She attended
Brown University and has been thrilled by her college experience.
Oh, time! Oh, family!
Wiska Radkiewicz, our good friend, neighbor and piano-teacher for both
Lian and Daniel, had set Lian to work on a Prokofiev piano piece (his
Visions Fugitives #1 (op. 22)) as a "final project" of sorts.
Wisak asked Lian to record herself so she could get a critical
perspective on her playing. After Lian left for Brown, I took
the scratch recordings and constructed this piece from
them. The cicadas in the background are indeed the 17-year variety,
recorded in Princeton while Lian was getting a final eye check-up before
departing home. While recording I was thinking that the last time I heard that
sound she had just been born. Interestingly I didn't have to
shift the basic pitch of them to match the piano.
I can listen to this piece and still hear her practicing, as if nothing
has changed. But it has.