The mosquito was dead after a few definitive hand claps. The episode got me thinking about the difference in the pace of perception between being awake and dreaming. Could an analysis be made by comparing the sound of a didgeridoo and a mosquito?

What’s the frequency of the mosquito buzz? Here are the results from Google search about the frequency of the mosquito wings.

The frequencies given range from about 250 hz to 1000hz. But do the mosquitos around the world have the same pitch? I also wanted to have as a reference the same kind of mosquito that I had experienced. I didn’t have any recording of a mosquito available, so I headed to freesound.org. User Dobroide has provided a sample of a mosquito that sounded perfect. I don’t know where in the world that mosquito had flown, but it definitely had a sibling in Lapland (sorry about the loss).

After a bit filtering the sample sounds like this:

The fundamental frequency of that mosquito is 341 Hz, or about the note F (real musical F is 349 Hz). The harmonics are definitive and visible until 2727 Hz. I already had in my collection a great sample of a didgeridoo, a slow drone in the key of D by Anton, so I brought that up. When I analyzed the spectrum of the didge I noticed that it was actually tuned to C# than to D.

I can’t be sure that the didge in my dreams was tuned exactly to the sound of the mosquito, but it’s highly probable that the sounds were in tune. At least the continuation from the didge to the mosquito didn’t sound like the sounds would have been off-key. The mosquito was the source, so I changed the tune of the didge to match that of the mosquito.

Here’s the didge after the transformation. The fundamental frequency is now about 85 Hz. That’s 341 Hz divided by four, the real F is 87 Hz.

The mosquito and didge are now perfectly in tune:

How would the mosquito sound if it was lowered to same fundamental frequency as the didge? Here’s the answer:

And how would the didge sound as a mosquito?

The mosquitos change the fundamental frequency of their wings to match with the possible mate, so it might actually be possible to play with mosquitos by using a high pitched didgeridoo sounds as the material. That could be possible with a normal didge too, if mosquitos sense the higher harmonics of its sound.

It can now be concluded that in my dream the sound of the mosquito was lowered two musical octaves, or four times in Hz. Is that the difference between being awake and dreaming? Using my subjective experience as a sample it is, and at least on this one occasion. It would mean that in the dream the perceptions were four times more intense -  the sampling frequency was four times higher (or lower?). This is probably related to the EEG frequencies of being awake and of the REM stage.

Most likely the sound of the mosquito happened to be in tune with the frequency of my brainwaves at the time, but the mating ended most tragically.

The ambient piece acted as the musical introduction to an open discussion between photographer Victoria Schultz,  psychoanalyst Heikki Majava and a sound explorer. The topic of the discussion was My Body and I – Synchronic Image, Vision and Sound. The discussion was held on August 13th.

The pitches of the piece were controlled with light dependent resistors. I had built two simple enclosures for the resistors, which I held in my hands. In a slow dance I moved about and explored the light and dark areas of the gallery, Laterna Magica, where the event was held.

Victoria’s photos were on display in the gallery, and I thought that light controlled music would bridge the media and weave the topic together. I had built a light controlled audio device a few years ago, which was perfect for the idea.

It has two oscillators, which can be independently controlled. I connected the stereo out of the device to a laptop, in which a modular sound processing software turned the pitches of the oscillators into synthesizer control messages. The other channel was used for texture and the other had more soloish character.

I wasn’t able to control the sound as much as I desired. In the possible future performances I will use the signal difference between the two resistors as the source of modulation. The difference can be explored via complex mathematical equations or logic analysis for example.

I had no role in selecting the notes, and I’m glad I’ve found a way to further diminish my role in the process. I’m exploring the possibilities of working with the frequencies rather than  just 12 note harmonic system. I’m planning to set up a system that would create the intervals automatically from the sound spectrum. The system would sample dominant frequencies of any material and create an octave using the sampled frequencies as the base. The number and logic of octave divisions could be separately determined.

The island is called Harakka (Magpie). Harakka is inhabitated by birds and most of the smallish island is preserved. The premises were originally build for Finnish army, and the place was used to design and study explosives and related chemistry. The buildings, tunnels and bunkers are now in the use of artists.

The set was performed in the tight wooden auditorium of the main building, which was built in 1929. It’s kind of a place where students and colleagues could have been witnessing the latest achievements of science. In this case a sound surgery took place.

A thirty minutes exploration into the sound of an island.

http://www.archive.org/details/srn2010-07-24

The performance was delivered via a powerful PA system, which allowed the sound to propagate through the surrounding area. The melodies and notes were mostly created by stochastic algorithms.

Archive vol. 11 – Deeper Caverns.

The more the reality is changed to be in unison with as many people as possible, the easier it is to realize how close we all are to each other. In the depths of our minds we are all intimately connected.

That gave me an idea of an ambient event where all of the performances would be duets (or more), where the other player resided anywhere in the globe. A video feed would also be provided and processed to with the atmosphere of the event. A reflection of that idea is coming up soonish, as I will play a live duet jam with Tange on StillStream when a few technical issues have been solved.

Sarana and Blu : May Session on Archive.org

It’s hard to fathom that the tracks I’m going through now have been conceived 11 years ago. Here’s one track from the past – Solina. Solina is Finnish and means the sound which water makes when it flows around small pebbles and things. In this case the actual sound comes from the kitchen sink of the flat where I lived back then.

I had a microphone by the sink, let the water run and recorded the track live without much preparations. The basis of the track is a 7/4 beat that probably took a some time to create. Back then if a track took more than an hour to compose I considered it too much.

The steady pulse that goes with the beat is DX-7, which is set to play one note only, and which takes the trigger from any midi input that comes from the drum machine. I used this method often, and all kinds of fruitful melodies revealed themselves now and then.

Over the beat Polysix goes through an arpeggio, which is not synced to anything. The few note melody comes from a Casio keyboard, which I intuitively played while mixing the track. The hardest to mix was usually the drum machine, DR-660, because I had to mix its sounds individually in and out, and the interface is not very intuitive.

All the mixing was done while performing the tracks – there wasn’t any automation or pre-recorded backgrounds.

This is the only take of the track. I usually had some plan in my mind how I would mix the sounds in but I never planned how to end the tracks. The latest element that is mixed in, the noisy choir, is something I grabbed from some passing TV-show of the moment.