Name/Collaborator: Travis West

Title of class: EAST 205

Date of class: October 7 2014
Date submitted: Nov 1 2014
Key terms and definitions [5 15 words each]:
Anecdotal Composition: A composition where the sounds are used representatively,
rather than abstractly.
Yves Daoust: A Canadian electroacoustic composer. An important figure in the Montreal
electroacoustic scene.
Secondary terms and definitions [5 15 words each]:
Sources accessed [Name;URL]:
www.ears.dmu.ac.uk/spip.php?rubrique146
http://www.ears.dmu.ac.uk/spip.php?rubrique146
Electroacoustic Music Studies Network
http://www.ems-network.org/spip.php?article333
Yves Daoust - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yves_Daoust
Yves Daoust, composer // Biography electrocd.com The Electroacoustic Music Store
http://www.electrocd.com/en/bio/daoust_yv/
Mi bmol YMX mdia / YUL mdia
http://www.ymxmedia.com/en/oeuvres/fiches/m/i/mi-bemol-daoust.php
Oka Crisis - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oka_Crisis
YouTube Videos watched:
Graphics [title, URL]:
Executive Summary: Bells, Playground, Cheering, Oka, Fireworks, Thunder, Anecdotal,
Juxtaposition, Spaces, Textures
Bells
Rhythm
Melody

00'00"000 - Section 1, bells play soli

00'01"019 - Bells play a rhythmic gesture in the right 8 times.
00'11"399 - Bells enters in the left , and play a melodic gesture which is a
variation of the main rhythmic gesture.
These basic bell sounds and variations on them are the common thread

throughout the piece. They act like a guide to keep the listener
comfortable as Daoust explores sounds and spaces which cannot
normally be juxtaposed.
This section is in a null space. No space is supposed to exist through the
audio.
Playground
Swing set
Children
laughter

00'33"011 - Section 2, the playground. A dramatic flourish of bell sounds

in several octaves articulates the beginning of the section
- Bells in the right diminuendo, play the rhythmic gesture, becoming
inaudible at about 55"
- Bells in the left trill for the duration of this section
- A squeaking sound like a rusty swing set is heard. There is a high low
squeak pattern, made up of six unique squeaks in a sequence which
repeat twice fully and once more to the fourth squeak.
00'38"471, a reverse attack bell sound acts like an epilogue to the major
articulation.
- The voices of children enter at this point as well. There doesn't seem to
be a repeating point, though some vocal gestures sound extremely
similar, so the section may be pieced together from various shorter vocal
gestural pieces.
00'55"804 - An impulse sound, reminiscent of a string being plucked,
foreshadows the next major articulation.
This section is in an outside space.

Cheering
Chanting
Spinning
Sproing!
Shimmering

00'58"082 - Section 3, the crowd. Another flourish of bells, featuring a

more compact version of the melodic gesture from the beginning and a
rapidly descending gesture articulates this section
- The sound of cheering and chanting of a crowd
- A propeller like spinning sound in the right which gradually slows down
in tempo until the next major articulation.
01'02"417 - A rising spring-like gesture is followed by a new melodic
gesture of bells in the left, and a descending shimmering sound.
This section is in an outside space. One might imagine a stadium.
Between this and the last sections there is a connection of play, between
the playground and the apparent sporting event. Ideas about growing
old, and the changing landscapes and size of space are evoked in this
relationship.

Radio
Oka Crisis
Tapping
Crackling
Snapping
Singing
Golf Course
Sacred
Ceremony

01'07"635 - The same bell gesture as began section 2 begins section 4,

the radio.
- Radio voices regarding the Oka Crisis. A more muffled voice sounds in
French in the background.
- Various bell and wooden tapping sounds.
- An important melodic gesture becomes established, which is heard
repeatedly until the thunder clap.
01'11"481 - Singing voices are heard briefly in the background.
01'18"412 - The swing set squeaks reprise.

Chords

- This section is in an indoor space, or perhaps no space.

01'33"801 - The phrase This is happening over a golf course" is echoed,
articulating a subsection of 4, section 5
- The trilling bells are heard clearly now.
- The squeaks continue.
- A chordal gesture rocks between two harmonic formations.
Placing the creaking swing set next to the high tension inherent in the
Oka Crisis draws to mind loss of innocence, or an adult in solitary
contemplation.
This section seems to be in an outside space.

Fireworks
Shouting

01'46"371 - A variation on the Section 2 articulation, without the preemptive swell, which ends with a rising tail articulates section 6,
fireworks.
- Fireworks, shouting and exclaiming voices, and whistling.
- A variation on the rocking melodic gesture, with more transient
articulation.
- The section 2 articulation now used as a simple gesture.
- The shimmering gesture from section 3.
The celebratory sounds in this section offer some release of the
conceptual tension of the earlier section, while at the same time it is the
sonic climax of the piece with the greatest loudness and widest balance
of frequencies.
This section is in an outside space.

Thunder
Rain
Violin
Birds
Cows
Crows
Fin

02'09"132 - Section 7, outside, is articulated by thunder.

- The shimmering continues.
- Rain fades out by 02"35"
- Plucked string sounds.
- Birds chirping
- Cows mooing.
- A crow cawing.
- The first rhythmic bell gesture fades into the foreground.
In this section all tension is released, and the listener is invited by the
soothing sounds of nature to just relax. This is the denouement of the
piece, and completes the stereotypical form which Daoust describes in
the program notes for this piece.
(http://www.ymxmedia.com/en/oeuvres/fiches/m/i/mi-bemol-daoust.php)
This section is in an outside space.
02'55"655 - A cadential ba-dum of bells marks the end of the piece.

Sound Program Note:

Mi Bemol is a composition by Yves Daoust structured around a bell like sound on the
note Eb. This sound is used to make a variety of melodic and rhythmic motifs which run
throughout the piece. All around this central sound, Daoust explores some of the sounds
of Quebec, including a playground, a sports event, a radio broadcast, fireworks, and some

natural sounds such as rain and thunder, and various animals.

Meaning Program Note:
Mi Bemol is an anecdotal composition by Yves Daoust which juxtaposes various sounds
from around Quebec. Celebratory and festive sounds from a sporting event, and
Montreal's International Fireworks Competition are contrasted against a sobering radio
broadcast covering the Oka Crisis of 1990. Daoust offers the listener insight into the
complexity of Montreal and Quebec through these sounds.
See Images for more detailed analysis.
Personal Comments: This report really span out of control for me. It seems that the
objective in this kind of analysis is to listen very very closely, and to be able to express to
others what I hear, in text and with annotated sonograms and amplitude time graphs. I
very quickly began to feel overwhelmed with the amount of detail that can be expressed.
I stopped just short of transcribing every sound visually using Eanalysis, essentially
creating a visual score of the piece, due to time constraints.
Frustratingly, I feel like the analysis I have provided is often only surface deep, especially
in the sonograms, where I essentially just point out the features of the piece. I could do
this in even more detail. I could have done this again using amplitude time graphs. I
could have transcribed the bell gestures in standard music notation. I'm not sure that any
of this kind of analysis would actually reveal anything about the deeper meaning of the
piece, or what makes it tick; this is all just observational. Does this count as analytic? It
seems that in the class tutorial on analysis, this kind of detailed observation is all that we
did.
I suppose this frustration is somewhat held over from doing jazz and harmonic analysis
for years, which is also largely just about making observations. Now it's a ii-V-I, and Red
Garland outlines the extended arpeggio with a passing tone through the sixth. In what
way does this kind of careful observation help us to understand what's going on? It is
essentially just the mechanical pointing to the thing and saying its name. This is an
apple. This is an orange. This is a bell sound with a percieved pitch of Eb.
All this said, I feel like this is all very useful, and I enjoy doing it very much. I'm just not
sure why...