David TUDOR
“Rainforest”

“Sounds electronically derived from the resonant characteristics of physical materials. First version (1968), a sound-score for Merce Cunningham’s dance work of the same name, established a means of sound transformations without the use of electronic modulation: the source sounds, when transmitted through the physical materials, will be modified by the resonant nodes of those materials. Fourth version (1973): A collaborative environmental work, spatially mixing the live sounds of suspended sculptures and found objects, with their transformed reflections in an audio system.
“In the first version, I made objects which I could travel with. The object were so small, however, that they didn’t have any sounding presence in the space, so I then amplified the outputs with the use of contact microphones. Then for the second version, I wanted to have a different kind of input… because for the first I had used oscillators that made animal and bird-like sounds. In the second version I wanted to use a vocal input to the system, the natural resonance of the object and its subsequent amplification. Its a kind of mechanical filter. The third version had to deal with the ability to have any input go to any transducer. I made that system for a simultaneous performance with John Cage (Mureau). It was one of those pieces that changes all the time so I needed to have a sort of continuous thing, so I used tape sources, but having the ability to mix them or separate them into different output channels. So the next step was “Rainforest IV”… the object was to make the sculptures sound in the space themselves. Part of that process is that you are actually creating a an environment. The contact mikes on the objects pickup the resonant frequencies which one hears when very close to the object, and then are amplified through a loudspeaker as an enhancement.” (this transcription is partially edited from the original)”. David Tudor, form interview by John Fullemann 10/12/85