Compositions » Traveling Music

Traveling Music was originally composed as a monaural piece (Electronic Piece No.8), It was, in effect, my Poème Élèctronique, after Varèse, and my first piece to be strictly organized with a few sound materials (instead of throwing everything in and stirring briskly, as I’d done prior to this). When I got the use of a two-track recorder, I used this piece, instead of doing a new work, so I could concentrate on teaching myself the techniques of placing sound in space (between speakers) and moving it through space - hence the title (Jackie Gleason, in his black-and-white TV days, used always to ask the pit-band conductor for “a little traveling music” to help him move across the stage).

Gong, switch arc (multiplied into antiphonal rhythms with tape-echo), one test generator, jet ‘plane, metal plate, metal bowl, voice, hollow tube, adhesive tape.

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