Wave Studies: Wake

Wave Studies: Wake, Dijon, France, November 2015

Wave Studies: Wake is a musical composition for ondes Martenot and electronics commissioned by Art Zoyd Studios. The premiere was performed by ondiste Nadia Ratsimandresy in Dijon, France at the Ici l’onde Festival of New Music produced by Why Note at Le Consortium, 20 November 2015.

The Wave Studies: Wake project had two principal research aims: to create a new musical work based on the effects of waves in various forms; and to enable other creators and performers to access the instrument’s potential more easily, in particular making it easier to vary the instrument’s sound and avoiding the need to use its heavy and fragile speakers. Dr Harrison worked with Ratsimandresy in a residency at Art Zoyd Studios to develop the instrument’s capabilities for live electronic manipulation through the use of a variety of Max patches that he created during the residency. The patches made it possible to play the instrument without the usual panoply of speakers.

Software

The Max patches created for the project are useful because they make touring with the ondes Martenot more manageable and the virtual outputs they create enable a far more imaginative and varied approach to writing for the instrument, demonstrated in the Waves Studies: Wake composition. The patches have now been used by other composers working with Ratsimandresy and other performers of the ondes Martenot.

The software requires software MAX to be installed on the computer in order to look at them.