7iS-iSSx1_arm-GP is my interpretation of an extract of 7iS-imaginedSoundStory on an altered recorder mouthpiece. the video above documents a performance that took place on November 18, 2016, as part of AKUT, the concert series of the composition students of the Hochschule für Musik Basel, in Neuer Saal, Musik-Akademie Basel.

7iS-imaginedSoundStory-x1

sit on a chair, close your eyes, and produce a high, fragile tone whose pitch occasionally fluctuates. after a few minutes, abruptly open your eyes and replace the tone with a soft dull noise, intermittently interrupted by a few pauses but persistently continuing. after another few minutes, stop the noise and pay attention to the sounds around you: whenever you hear a sound with a definite attack, close your eyes and produce that high tone again for a few seconds. end the performance when you feel that the tone has repeated enough times.

altered recorder mouthpiece

while experimenting with a soprano recorder mouthpiece, i found out that by covering the end of the mouthpiece with the closed end of a tubular balloon (see the photos above), soft high tones can be produced. blowing air into the mouthpiece shown above produces a soft D7 (ca. 2.3 kHz). blowing harder produces a louder tone, slightly higher in pitch (but less than a semitone). blowing while covering the window of the mouthpiece with one of the fingers produces a white-noise-like sound.

altered recorder mouthpieces were explored further in MUSIC FOR ONESELF v2 and ccloudlab1x2. the former also includes a 4-channel version of 7iS-iSSx1_arm-GP.

a recorder mouthpiece is listed as an object “capable of producing pitched sounds” in the collection of objects objects4JamesSaunders.