Ice Canyons. 2010.
Dur. 9:11.
Performed live using McLean's custom MAX/MSP software and MIDI synthesizers
The title Ice Canyons seeks to capture the crystalline beauty of sound encapsulated within an austere and grandiose landscape, inspired while reading John Muir’s descriptions of wonder as he discovered the primeval glaciers of British Columbia.
Ice Canyons is performed live, utilizing McLean's “Composer’s Playpen” software, along with his own live performance on a MIDI keyboard. One brief example of the power of this software may suffice; at the very end, the work dissolves in what he calls “collapsed rhythm,” where the melodic line, which was c.ten seconds, collapses into one containing only a few seconds at differing and changing time intervals, causing a quasi-improvisatory and ever-changing vertical (harmonic) metamorphosis of what had been a horizontal (melodic) one. A unifying element is the recurrent ground bass, which is heard throughout, finally collapsing at the end as glaciers ultimately do when they reach the sea.
Recorded on Innova in 2011 on McLean’s “Soundworlds” album as part of a NYFA grant.
Ice Canyons is © and ℗ 2010 Barton McLean
Barton McLean performing Ice Canyons live at Hope College
Permission granted for artistic, non commercial and educational use