lake weyba rehearsal
Today, I conducted an on-site rehearsal session on the shore of Lake Weyba, a similar lake, though smaller in size, to the northern Lake Cootharaba. On a quaint little patch of sand at the water’s edge, I set up my modular synthesizer, power station, and battery speakers, with a field kit of contact microphones, a stereo hydrophone, and a Zoom H4.
I dropped the hydrophone to get an idea of submerged sound. Unfortunately, as I have found the case to be at Lake Cootharaba, there is little submerged sound near shore during the day and in the night. Perhaps greater depth, or twilight hours, may present more activity. To inspire work on the synth, however, I was keen to find some sort of live input with which to begin. No plant or wood features nearby suggested an easy option for contact micing, and a brief experiment with digging driftwood into the sand and micing that proved ineffectual as well. However, while conducting these experiments, I became pleasantly attuned to the soundscape at the lake, and took mental notes of certain cicada drones, spells of waves, and airplanes. I became more excited to simply work in response to this sound world rather than explore hidden ones.
Photographer Warwick Gow joined me to take program images for Floating Land, and I began pulling some sounds on the synthesizer. I clip-on contact mic’d a branch I found nearby, attached it to the peak of my easel, and performed this branch with another, running the signal through my Rings resonator in chord mode. This has become a favorite technique of mine to engage natural materials in the sound creation process, and it also lends itself to a variety of percussive possibilities manually. Drumming with my fingers on a branch, or scraping the various twigs of a branch across another, or plucking twigs like harp strings, are all performance interactions that I have found to suggest distinct modes of playing. I have hardwired a clip contact mic directly into a Eurorack preamp and envelope follower, and branches attaches nicely to the easel - both an aesthetic and a sonic choice. Discovering branches at each site also opens another avenue for the site to become sonic.
My rehearsal location on Lake Weyba
Note to future: Write a piece on the easel
Warwick took a range of photos, I had some nice moments on the synthesizer interspersed with dissonant moments when I fought to tune the thing (always difficult); though in the end taking off on some nice flights on the flute at times. After Warwick left and I took a moment to tune voices in headphones, things worked much more nicely together. I embarked on some durational improvisations accompanying an older recording I had taken from a log on the lake - one I submitted to Arborous Earth (included at the bottom of this post). Windy wavelets (small waves) lap at and drum a large paperbark stump that sits shallow in the water off by the boat-launch. Passing this through the resonator, and with a drone on the Vhikk, I found a nice atmosphere in which to play flute. I considered how slow-moving environmental data might be suited to drone parameters - even something as obvious as a filter - and if I could resist manually adjusting such a parameter throughout a performance. An alluring challenge - and perhaps well within the theme of this project.
How hand over elements of my performance to the environment to further place myself in natural timescales?
One thing that repeatedly muted my internal monologue and brought me into the place and moment was the undulating pattern of the water that backgrounded my synthesizer. From my angle at the water’s edge, the lake could almost be seen to project upward, and I was captivated by its patterns several times. This helped me appreciate the combined sound world more mindfully.
Towards the end of my visit, as I began turning down, several people approached me to offer equally unique and patiently authentic interactions. First, a groomed man all in black with a European accent and bold frames protruding from combed white hair mentioned how much he appreciated my performance and enjoyed taking moments to meditate while walking his dog. I told him I was rehearsing for Floating Land, and passed on the dates, and he expressed interest in attending one. He was very thankful and encouraging. Secondly, a portly man in board shorts with hard-edged eyebrows approached from the lake. Warwick and I had noticed him earlier while shooting, he had been a standing figure in the distance, gesticulating (and applauding at one point) far out into the shallow lake. The placidity of the water and the expanse of the scene gave his presence a comical aspect. He approached me speaking of a ‘leopard stingray’, the first he had seen here, and was pointing near me. We lost the creature, but struck up a conversation, in which he told me he had in fact been singing to the lake. “It’s important” he stated, “Water has memory.”
“Of course” I grinned.
He walked out into the lake to sing regularly, as an enjoyable activity but also for the good of the lake and the trees, and even the sand, because “It can feel it, it’s alive in its own way too”. He said he enjoyed having a backing track this time, and was greatly enthused by my sounds and my equipment. He held many beliefs - mentioning research that Chelsea has since debunked - but was wonderfully passionate and excited. It is greatly encouraging.
Finally, a gentleman in a sweater, with a British accent, exchanged greetings with me and then asked my thoughts.
“Why is it, that on the lake, we get such a hard definition between smooth water and rough?” He gestured towards the water, where the wind picked up beyond the cover of trees. The man lived on the street, and told me that “each day, the lake does something I can’t explain.” He told of how sometimes, at the final point of dusk, the faded line of the distant shore would turn a bright white, and sparkle for a few moments before its vision fell into night. One other woman called the lake “sacred”, the boardshorted man spoke of how everyone comes to the lake to do their “rituals”, each person with whom I interacted made some direct or indirect reference to the lake as a special place, a sacral site, even the “right” place…
My Metal Mushroom contact mic attached to the paperbark outcrop at Lake Weyba.
This technique gathered a recording that I submitted to Arborous Earth as a Melaleuca quinquenervia. Listen below.
